Welcome Soccer Season

The kids started their soccer practices today. Since Rick is coaching both teams their practice times are back to back on the same field. It sure was hot and miserable for them (and I didn't even stay at the field the whole time) - but before we know it we'll be complaining about how cold it is -- lovely Sacramento weather.

Great News on the Job Front

I've spent the last 24 hours in San Diego with my mom, burying my Nana is the city she loved with all her heart.

While driving from my Nana's chapel service to her graveside service I got a cell phone call. It was a secretary from the school district where my kids go to school. They want to interview me for placement into their second hiring pool. Yes!!

My interview is Friday (think good thoughts for me). If I score well enough on the interview and written "exam" then I will be placed in the district's hiring pool. THEN when openings come up (there aren't any right now), I can be called and offered a position sometime during the school year. I'll take what I can get.

The end of summer is proving to be very stressful in many different ways. Isn't life funny and beautiful and full of adventure?!

Saying Goodbye to Nana

Today is my grandma's funeral. Mom and I have flown to San Diego, Nana's favorite place in the world, to lay Nana to rest next to her husband and my Aunt Shelly. I don't know how I'm going to get through it, but I plan on standing up and saying a few words about her. Here is my Eulogy for Nana:

Nana, My ray of sunshine

Hi, My name is Trina. I am Polly’s granddaughter.
I stand here today in a place of profound sadness.
My heavy heart only lightened by special memories of Polly, my Nana.

The events of the past several weeks are still hard to take in.
We knew Polly’s life and health were fragile for a very long time.
But there was something about her tenacious hold on all of our hearts,
and on life itself, that makes it really hard to believe she’s gone.

Her body may be gone, but she lives on in the deepest fiber of our being.

It is enough for me to know that I knew what her house smelled like after her adventures in cooking, the broadness of her smile, the light in her blue eyes, the sound of her laugh, the firmness of her voice, and the fact that she loved me and that I loved her- unconditionally.

When I hear the words of scripture, - “although we are afflicted, we are not crushed,” Nana’s sparkling eyes and radiant smile come to mind. Polly taught me about perseverance and the importance of family. For the majority of my life Polly struggled with the physical obstacles of only having use of half her body, but to me she was whole --- because she loved me with her whole heart.

I have great memories:
of her teaching me to play gin-rummy (and constantly letting me win);
of helping her tend to her garden (man she had a green-thumb);
of me, as a 12 year old girl, watching my handicapped Nana flag down her favorite Padres players and MAKE them sign MY baseball glove (Go Padres);
of her yummy desserts baked with love.

Her life and memory live on in all of us: her friends, her sisters, her children, her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews … My hope is that those memories will remain as strong, stubborn and full of life as she was - until we see each other again.

(Nana's Obituary Link)