A Day For Dead Relatives

Man, today must be some day. It would have been my grandma's dad's 99th birthday if he were still alive and my grandma's going to one of her aunts' funerals tomorrow. And I blogged about Shappees long departed a few minutes ago. Maybe the old adage, "If you want to know what a girl's going to be like when she's old, take a look at her mother." applies to me.
I would know nothing about dear old Dad's side of the family if my mom weren't into stalking her dead relatives on Ancestry. She followed my line all the way back to New York and found out that they were French barkeeps. It's actually kind of neat.  She's even traced us back to Henry the 8th.
Not that I would mind following in my mother's footsteps

Cooking and My Missing Family Tree

Tonight, my mom is making chicken alfredo and asked me to cut up the veggies. While I was slicing, I began to wonder about what my paternal grandmother was like. She died when I was two, so I don't remember her. I wondered if she liked to cook, or if she didn't. What, if she did, she liked to cook. What she wished she could cook but didn't have the time/money to make.
It's always bugged me that I have no ties to my dad or his side of the family. It's like, I have this whole half of myself that I know nothing about. Both my grandparents on his side died before I was five years old.
I used to have a bond with that side through my Grandma Pauline, who was my grandfather's mother. She was the greatest. About once a week for about two or three (maybe even four) years I would go out to her house on Lapeer and we would drink Diet Coke while playing Chinese checkers. She would tell me about "Bobby" while we watched her soap together, pointing out pictures of my dad as a graduate. Eventually, the visits stopped happening. Maybe she got sick and couldn't take my rambunctious nature. In any case, she died when I was a senior in high school. I miss her.
Wow, all that from slicing some cheap-o peppers for dinner. I should cook more often. I liked my Grandma Pauline. Thinking about her makes me happy and it wouldn't kill me to be happy more often.

I'm Still Around!

Wow, it's hard to imagine that back in August I was gabbing about starting my certificate, and now here I am in March and I'm finishing off my second-to-last quarter of classes before I can do my externship and graduate. Weird how time flies, huh?
On the first night I posted, there were thunderstorms going on, and right now there's a pretty good wind storm going on. I think, since it's been raining pretty good recently, that we're all done with snow for the year (pleaseGodplease!) and moving into spring. It got up to fifty degrees Fahrenheit here in old PoHo today, so I'm not abandoning hope. I miss summertime and it's been a really long time since I saw it.
Along with the "Holy **** I'm almost done with school!" comes the "Holy **** my sister's almost done with school!" My baby sister, Kelsey will be graduating from high school in June. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean, I'm glad she's on to bigger and better things, but she's also leaving the nest and going off to college. After twelve or so years of sharing a small bedroom, it's going to be weird sleeping there by myself when she leaves. It'll be nice to have some extra space (although we did make a lot of changes this past week) but I will miss her. Who will wake me up at three a.m. and ask to watch Billy Madison or Austin Powers? Who's gonna make sure my nails look good? Aw man, I'm tearing up! New subject!
It's about five minutes to one a.m. here and I'm really not all that tired, but at the same time, I am. I might do a few things online, start my Office Grammar homework and head off to bed.
Nighty-night.