Grace? She passed away thirty years ago

So, I am sitting down and making my little Valentine lovies for all my YL crew, and surfing the interwebs, finding a new blogger I like and all sorts of favorite-y things on the interwebs, when I should be working on the yearbook or planning next week's Social Studies lessons, because why would I teach from a book or a curriculum when I can just get an idea in my head and decide "hey. I'll plan to teach for this for a whole week with nothing but Google to help me plan lessons."

See why there's some procrastination going on up in here?

But let me tell you about today, because it was a lovely day.
It started at around 8ish am, when I woke up, but I didn't get in the shower until around 11:45ish. There was some quality lounging going on, I tell you.

At 1ish, I had to be out the door to make it to a memorial today. It was for the owner of the day care that The Girls went to when they were itsy bitsy, and I used to go there to pick them up every day. They adopted me into their family, as they did the girls, and we've had some times with them. They introduced me to the friends that introduced me to Josh-who-I-was-NOT-dating (whole other story entirely), and we've stood by with them as both mother and daughter battled the dreaded C.

So, even though The Aunt couldn't come, I didn't hesitate to be the family's representative.

Except it was being held at the local Unitarian church (so I did NOT know what to expect), and I was told to dress casually and not to wear black. Because I'm one of those fashion risk-takers that wear black to things like funerals and memorial services, I was thankful for the heads up. However, I was not wearing jeans to a church of any denomination and you couldn't make me, so after standing in my closet for a few thousand minutes, I got dressed and headed out the door.

It wasn't too different from anything we Baptists can throw down in a memorial or funeral, unless you count the gaping absence of the Gospel. Which I was expecting so I wasn't too thrown for a loop. Oh, and they had the dog there, because Mrs. J loved that dog.

I was surprised to find one of my students there, until I remembered that his older sister ran around with Katybug when they were about four years old. He looked a smidge stalked intimidated. After talking and chatting, I headed to The Target to get the things needed to make my little Valentine's this year. Because I had a great idea, I tell ya, and I was going to make it happen. I'll show you tomorrow.

Then.

Then, I went to The Parents for the traditional Saturday night dinner. Since Wednesday was The Dad's birthday, The Sister came too, which meant that shenanigans were sure to ensue.

And did they ever.

One thing you should know about me is that in my nuclear family, I'm the only one that goes to Church. The Mom always says she is going to, and as a Mississippi-bred Southern Baptist I'm sure carries around all kinds of guilt for not going, but not enough to make her get up and go on a Sunday morning that is not called Christmas or Easter. . The Dad just makes snarky comments here and there jabbing at the Church and my church more specifically. So Jesus is pretty much an off-limits topic with those two. (The Sister's just started being normal, so the jury is still out on whether she will take the Jesus route or not.)

All that to say, The Mother has also started implementing a policy regarding saying Grace. By that I mean she's started insisting that whenever the four of us sit down to eat, we MUST say Grace. At which point The Sister and I look at each other rather confused and The Dad has to put his fork down. On the High Holy Holidays, I'll throw The Mom a bone and say the prayer, but every once in a while, the mischievous side of me wins out, and I make her do it.

Like tonight. And how did she respond?

"God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food." And she kept going from there. Towards the end, when The Sister and I could not contain our laughter much longer, The Dad started interjecting random phrases and throwing in an "Amen" before she was even remotely finished. At which point she play-threatened him with her steak knife. I'm sure Jesus was proud.

When I was telling The Aunt this story, I had to preface it with "I couldn't make this up" and she still didn't believe me. She was just hoping I was about to tell her that Mom started saying the Pledge of Allegiance.