Wow, I think the more I mess with this thing, the worse it looks! I promise I'll get it up to par...eventually. Well, its Wednesday, and Wednesday's are tough. I have three classes in the morning, then working from 1-6. I'm already worn out from Monday and Tuesday, and Friday seems so far away! But if I can make it through today, its smooth sailing. Tomorrow I have Phonetics (keep in mind, its my favorite class) at 11:00-12:15; and then I dont have class again until Anatomy at 6:00-7:15. So I get a lot of time in there to run errands, get things done around my room, and of course~take a nap! And Friday's are long, but they are easy to deal with because...its Friday!

Well, I read my mom's online journal this morning and she talked about how yesterday was a year since my grandpa VanFaussien passed away. I guess maybe I had just tried to push that out of my memory, or I am maybe in disbelief that it has already been a year! When my Grandma Cynthia (McComas) passed away, my whole life was shattered. She was the one who would pick us up from school when we were sick, bake us cookies, teach us how to crochet a chain (we never got farther than that because I think Jennifer and I talked too much), took us to the Camper, etc. Therefore, life without seeing her every other day was horrible! But when I lost my Grandmother from Michigan, Grandma Vanfaussien, sure I was sad, I did care a lot for her but my every day life wasn't shattered like it was for me when I lost Cynthia. I hate admitting that, because I feel so bad and I don't want to hurt my mom's feelings or anything, but I was only about 8 or 9. Of course when my Grandpa died last winter, I was devastated. I remember it all very clearly. I was sitting in my room on a Friday afternoon~ getting ready to take a nap, when my cell phone rang with the distinct three beeps that is set for only family members. It was odd for my mom to be calling me in the middle of a Friday afternoon~ we usually saved our convo's for the late night phone calls while I was bored at work, or later in the evening on the days I didn't work. So I knew something was up from the first ring. She told me that Papa was in the hospital in Alabama, where he was camping for the winter, and that it didn't look good. She thought we would just have to wait it out and to stay calm. She thought the best thing for me to do was stay in Morehead over the weekend and to not make any drastic changes to my plan, that it was not that serious yet. So I stayed in Morehead and kept my cell phone in hand at all times, and I called home every other hour just to check in on them. I guess I thought they might forget to call--since I was an hour away, it was easy to forget about me sometimes. But I heard nothing. I think it a Monday that he died. I was back from class and I was taking a nap when the the three distinctive beeps came again. And that was it~ I knew it before I could even answer. And thats when my mom told me that he had passed away, and the only thing I could think of was, "are you okay?" She said she was, but she admitted that she had already broken down when her brother, Mark called her. And so there I was in Morehead, she said that they would call me later and let me know the plans for the funeral and when they would be picking me up to leave for Michigan. So she called back later, told me that the visitation would be Friday, the funeral would be Saturday and they would be picking me up on Wednesday--to make arrangements with all my professors. Well I went to class on Tuesday~ well one of them, skipped the other, and waited, and waited, and I felt so lonely and so isolated without my family there with me. I wanted to be home so bad, but like my mom said there was nothing much that they could do for me at home. So they picked me up bright and early Wednesday and we drove to Mt. Pleasant, MI to take care of the funeral arrangements. As sad as it is, it was one of the best times I've had with my family. Through the tears, you could see how strong we were as a family. Its tough for us because we are all so far apart-my Uncle Mark and his wife, Tricia and their four adorable kids live in Detroit, we live in WV (Obviously), and my Aunt Marcia and her husband David and their three girls live in Atlanta. Its hard getting together sometimes.So we got together, all of us, and we had two suites at the local Holiday Inn, so we all had a good time, went swimming. Of course the funeral wasn't that enjoyable, but it was great to see how many people he had affected and how special he truly was. But I can't believe its been a year. Football season was especially hard on us because he would always try to make it to at least a game (used to be more until his health started failing). I remember last year while I was away at school, mom told me that she needed me to come home for the MU homecoming game b/c it was Christopher's 21st birthday and that Papa would be coming in for the game and it would be the last time he was coming to Huntington. And it really shocked me that it could be his last time. She said he hadn't directly said that...but she didnt' think his health would permit it anymore. And she was right, it was the last time. But he was a die hard Marshall football fan, therefore it made football season a little hard. During real intense games I would be thinking, man he's gonna love this! And mom even said before the season when Christopher would come home with some "gossip" from practice, she would be dying to tell him but had to remember that he wasn't there anymore. But its been a year, and our family has survived, and we're still all close~ so we'll be okay.