Mama's Final Resting Place

 When mom passed in September, we picked out her headstone and decided on how it all should look, all that jazz. They only just got that all installed today (well, it could have been within the last couple of weeks but nobody told us, which is insane. So my sister snapped a pic of it and I love it.

She would have loved it so much. I bet she does love it.

Poor Mama!

 Y'all! Poor mama has fallen and broken her arm! She has to have some surgery but she seems to be in good spirits. 

Everyone send her some good vibes and thoughts! 

The Day Mama Became a Citizen

Today, my mom became a citizen of these Great United States. After many much months of studying, a little bit ago, she took the citizenship test and passed with flying colors. So this morning, she had the ceremony, the swearing in and all that jazz, and became one of us!

I took the pic so you can’t see me, but there’s the family that came!

We’re so proud of ya, mama!

This is when I hate being “adult”

This week, I got really sick. I know, I know, nobody can believe it, I can hardly believe it myself. But Wednesday night, I went to bed totally healthy, and even to Husband I said “No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m doing P90X tomorrow night (I’ve been totally slacking on that lately) so I was in good shape. Cut to 2:30 the next morning, I wake up feeling horrible. I spent the next 14 hours between lying on the bed in agony and vomiting. I feel a little bit like I told my body we weren’t going to not work out for anything, and my body went, “Wanna bet?” Anyway, the point of the blog is this. I haven’t been sick in a long time, not like this, anyway. But every time I’ve been sick, I’ve been at home, living with my parents. Mama has always taken care of me when I’ve been sick. I’ve been used to it, and I’m so grateful for it. This is the first time I’ve been sick all by myself. I did have Husband to take care of me a little, but there are some things that I just couldn’t bring myself to ask him to do for me.

For example (and I’m super sorry to my readers for the grossness of this) there was a time when I didn’t quite make it to the toilet for another round of throwing up. Usually, when this happens, I have Mama to take care of this awful awful task. She’s a mom, she’s spent years taking care of all of us, so her stomach must be of steel. But because she wasn’t here for me, I had to take care of myself, and clean up after myself. I have taken for granted that someone has been there to do all of this for me.

I am now tipping my hat to all mothers, especially my Mama. She has done so much for me and the rest of my siblings, and while I have appreciated it, it wasn’t until today that I realized this. But good work for all of you that do this for others, with minimal to no complaining. I am now in recovery. I can’t yet really eat anything, but I can walk around and finally move, so that’s a step up. I also have missed food these past few days. For some reason, I have really been craving bagels. And pancakes. And fried chicken. So hopefully, when I get a little better, and can finally eat something without feeling sick, I will get all of these foods. Not all at once, though, or else I think I’d be back in this position.

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

As nearly everyone knows, my mama is German. Not just by claim, but like literally, full-on, accented with rage, German. I add the "with rage" because for some reason, every time I hear German, whether it be the language, or just English with the German accent, the person sounds so angry to me! What is that about? Good work, Germans, you guys are a people full of anger.
Anyways, there are times where mama will say something that will make me pause, and want to hear it again. Of course, as soon as I say "what was that?" She gets all suspicious, like she already knows that I'm just making her say it to laugh at the accented word. I won't lie, most of the time, this is why I'm asking her to repeat it. And believe me, as soon as this happens, all of the family is in on the conspiracy to get her to repeat, so we all act so innocent. Like, maybe we all happened to shut off our ears at the same time, missing just the one word.
Lately, my favorite words to hear being said are the following: (I'm going to see if I can write how it sounds, we'll see how successful that is)
Penguin, which is just hilarious. Said pin-goo-in
Commitee, being said Comm-ict-tik-ee
Obnoxious. This is harder to write. It's like auk-knock-ish. That's weird to look at!

I know that there are loads more, but these are my favorites for now. Penguin is the one I've been getting her to say more often than anything, and as soon as I hear it, I collapse in a fit of giggles. Even though it's annoying for her to play my "repeat yourself" game, surely, she's gotta love that at least we're listening, right? ...right?