Category: Blogger Posts

Today’s useless bit of trivia information: the ZIP in Zip-code stands for “Zoning Improvement Plan.” Just in case you were ever wondering.

My uncle Terry sent us an e-mail updating us on the balloon release that they held on the 26th, the one year anniversary of my cousin Tyler’s death. It was too moving not to post here. No one can tell me that there is no heaven, that there is no life after death… (grab the kleenex now before you continue if you are a “cryer” like me.)

The helium balloon launch was a great experience. We probably had 70+ people standing in our front yard and released about 100 balloons with messages in/on them.

Other people came until about 8:00 PM. The last one to show up was a neighbor that we hadn’t met before. She brought a small rose bush and released a balloon and left. She said the letter would explain everything.

She said she had thought of us every day since last April as she drove by the house. On Valentine’s Day she bought the rose plant to give to us. She forgot about it on her way home and left it in the car. Needless to say it froze.

She took it in the house and watered it and put it in the sun. Nothing happened to it for several weeks. Finally she trimmed it back and said: “Kid (meaning Tyler) I am trying to do something nice for your family here, and I screwed it up. You have got to help me out here.”

Three days later she saw new shoots coming out of the ground. She now knows for sure that Tyler is in Heaven.

She wanted to drop the plant off at Easter but the weather was too cold again. Yesterday she read my guest editorial in the Winona Daily News and decided yesterday was the day she wanted to come by. She came by late to avoid the crowd of people that were at the house. She feels our pain everyday by imagining it could have been one of her kids who could have been hit and killed at the intersection that they use daily. She also thanked us for having the strength and courage to have the dangerous intersection ‘cleaned up’ by pressing for a stop sign.

Even though I miss Tyler so much, I guess this is one of the silver linings I am able to find in such a dark cloud.

My cousin Kristen (aka my cousin Ken’s wife) also sent out this on the 26th, and I had to ask her if I could share it too:

One year ago, my thirteen-year-old cousin was hit by a car and killed in the street right in front of his house. He was in a crosswalk. A bus had stopped for him, but the girl in the other lane continued driving and hit him. To this day, at every crosswalk I stand at, I have trouble understanding why people don’t know the law.
(snip)
Pedestrian law varies by state so please know the laws in your state.

I’ll post the Minnesota and Texas laws later on a separate page, but for now just wanted to leave you with that to think about. Know the law for your state.

She got her Venus razor Saturday, but poor Julie still doesn’t have one!

Hey, Pischina, I have to agree with you about Tina Fey – she rocks! And I *love* her glasses. I want some glasses like those! They are so cool, but they would probably look terrible on me.

I watched Final Destination earlier today on the Tivo. That was weird, but in a good way. Thought provoking. I could have done without some of the scenes, they were a bit too graphic, more than they needed to be. But the overall concept of the movie was good and it was worth watching. I would even watch it again.

I am such a goober. I talked to the IO tonight. Ugh… why do I do that? I did manage to find out that he hasn’t talked to chicky-poo for a week now. I don’t know why though. He said he hasn’t talked to her since last Sunday. I am wondering if that was why he was all the sudden so chummy a week ago Sunday – maybe he thought he should end things with her and try to work things out with me? Which leads me right back to my favorite question – what would I do? What would I do if he called me right now and begged me to try to work things out? I have a long list of reasons why I should say “no way you FREAK” but then there is also a list of reasons why I want so much for us to be back together. Blah. I hate feeling like this. I am terrified that I will dare to attempt to work things out again just because I don’t want to be alone, and end up miserable. I just want to go crawl in a corner and hide from the world. Matter of fact, I think I will go hide under the covers for awhile and sleep!

Just found Vaille que Vaille. Loving it…

Meanwhile I have to address the latest concern about this horrid pop-up ad situation. Please don’t hate me because of my host’s pop up ad… I swear, I am working on getting it fixed – getting them to get it outta there. I promise. It’s killing me too, it just appeared out of *no where*. UGH. I don’t want to move to a different host and be down for who knows how long – so instead I am yelling at my current host. If I have anything to say about it the pop-up will be gone ASAP. I didn’t put it there though, I promise. I *hate* pop-ups. I *really* hate pop-ups. Don’t give up, I promise they will be gone! Come back! Come back!