Boys and their Toys......

My husband has rented himself a new toy for the weekend. Its a tractor with a backhoe AND a front end loader. He has some heavy duty yard work to do, including taking out some fairly large bushes. They delivered this big boy late this afternoon, and he was out there playing around with it soon after. He also got on the phone with Uncle Calvin and discussed how much fun tearing stuff up with this thing was going to be. Calvin was sorely disappointed that there was no heavy equipment to play with last weekend. Bruce was planning to rent it then, but the funeral happened, and he canceled the rental. I think Calvin was tempted to ditch his weekend plans right away to drive up here and play with the tractor, but Jeanne put a stop to that pretty quickly....HAHA! Oh well. I can honestly say that I am not all that excited about it. I have NO desire to operate it. And the only thing I feel is a certain amount of dread that I will end up having to do some clean up in the yard after all the demolition is done with. The only bit of yard work that I actually like is to ride around on the riding lawnmower once in a while during nice weather. The rest of it is not my cup of tea. Maybe I can quietly make myself scarce for the next couple of days.....? You think?

A Happy Birthday is in order!!!!

Happy Birthday Hannia! She is 24 today. Ooops....did I just tell her age? What the heck, nobody could possibly care about things like that in their 20's. Oh to be so young! Anyway, we technically celebrated her birthday on Monday. We drove into Raleigh to have lunch at Jibarra's, a nice Mexican place. Modern Mexican is how its described. It was really yummy. Stephen and Hannia had been there before, and they said it wasn't quite as amazing this time. But having nothing to compare it to, Bruce and I weren't disappointed. Oh man, the guacamole was so good. I could have eaten just that and been satisfied.

After that we spent the afternoon shopping. I don't think we actually bought anything. Unless you count dessert at the Cheesecake Factory. Hannia had carrot-cake cheesecake that was really good. Better than birthday cake!

Cemeteries and other stuff

The funeral was a nice service. I can't describe a funeral as "fun", or "exciting", but it was what it was intended to be....a way to pay your final respects and offer condolences to the family. Afterward there was a short grave-side service at the cemetery. As we were walking down the path to the grave site, I couldn't help but notice all the plastic flowers on so many of the graves. Some of them were still Christmas poinsettias with glued on sparkles. It just seemed so wrong. I made mention of the fact that no one should adorn my grave with plastic flowers. EVER! My brother-in-law said that was fine. But that it would be more helpful to tell people what I DO want, instead of listing the things that I don't want. So.....

I want to be cremated. Jeanne and I were talking about the fact that not only is space becoming more and more limited as the world's population grows, but burying bodies that have been pumped full of formaldehyde and God only knows what else is just poisoning the ground water. Also, being claustrophobic makes me feel a certain amount of dread at the very idea of being underground. I KNOW I will be dead, but still.....I do not want to be buried in the ground.

What I do want is to be put in a pretty urn, and to be passed around between my kids for a while. I want to be a family heirloom. Sit me up on the table for Christmas dinner, put me on the mantel, talk to me once in a while, and by all means, laugh and make jokes and keep it fun. I don't want an air of somber seriousness or sadness or tears. I have always valued a sense of humor so keep it funny. If its in bad taste, so much the better. Eventually, my husband and I want to be mixed together (we clearly have to wait until we are BOTH urn-ready)...and then scattered out someplace nice. If its someplace that its illegal to spread cremated remains, and you have to sneak us in and do it on the sly....well yeah. That makes me smile. Don't get arrested or anything, but have a good time. But most importantly.....remember this.....I insist on being a family heirloom at least for a little while before you spread me around.