BACKSEAT DRIVER

I made it back at around midnight last night. Oh my is it COLD here!!! Of course there were some major delays, first out of Memphis and then in Minneapolis. I had to RUN the entire length of the airport in MSP to get to my flight home to Grand Forks. The plane from Memphis landed just 5 min before my flight home was due to take off...and I was in row 45! Needless to say it was a run at breakneck speed for many of us, which under normal circumstances may have been quite exciting but after a few hours in a pressurized cabin the last thing you need is to sprint into another pressurized cabin! I coughed like crazy for about an hour after that and thought for a minute that my first hour back would surely kill me. Going from a high humidity environment to a near zilch humidity was like taking a fish out of water...I just couldn't breathe!

We have a LOT of snow on the ground, several inches or maybe feet I dunno and I'm not going outside to measure it. My hubs is the snowblowing freak, he's out in that awful stuff for hours clearing the driveway. Me I will stay holed up in hibernation for the winter :) I am just "chillin"
at home today with Jaiden, we took the boys to school this morning and as I was cautiously sliding to a stop at a light, Jaiden pipes up from the backseat "GOOOO Momma Goooooo!" Guess we need to teach her that red light means Stop.

Overall my trip went very good. I just missed my plane out of Memphis on Sunday so I had to spend 4 hours there but other than that the flights went smoothly. It was the typical funeral, go to the viewing, see lots of family and friends you haven't seen in decades HUG, HUG, HUG lot and lots of HUGS. I think I'm all hugged out. I was feeling a bit suffocated after a while. My dad looked like my uncle (his younger brother) so that was a bit weird. He is home now and I have great comfort in that. I know he is at peace. It didn't really hit me that he would not be there anymore until I got on the plane to come home. That was a little hard but I've always known this day would come. My mom attended the funeral, which in an odd way made it so much easier to let him go. I guess knowing that I still have one parent left in the world and I'm not totally alone. I know there will be days ahead when I just want to see him and give him a hug again. I loved his smell. He always smelled like an apple tobacco pipe. When I stayed at his house, the smell of him was gone. I slept in the bed he slept in for over 20 something years and could not feel his presence there. That in itself was more of a comfort, knowing his spirit is with God and has gone home to rest. He's no longer "All stove up and can't hardly walk" That was one of his most used phrases. He is walking and talking with God and I'm sure he can now hear every prayer that I whisper. I will no longer have to scream out loud for him to hear me. He will always be here with me in my heart and those memories are like hugs that I can pull out anytime I need him.