Birthdays

So it has been about a week since I last posted! Unbelievable how fast the days go.  We had company last weekend, my brother came to visit and my sister and her husband moved to Chicago right before the big blizzard hit.  When I say right before I mean like they got in at 4:30pm the day the storm started.  Needless to say we had a busy weekend with visitors, RU's 12hour sale for me and a birthday party for Owen.  I am exhausted.  I am overwhelmed by the thought of having visitors come again tomorrow.  I was so excited 3 weeks ago to have visitors coming every weekend for 3 weeks but now, now I am just plain tuckered out-weary and want to spend the day-weekend reading and eating chocolate in my bed.  But the show must go on! Excuse my poor attitude today, I've just reached my breaking point.  Instead of complaining for an entire post I will spare you all my infectious bad attitude!  Let's start over!

This week is a week of birthdays!  Well, okay only 2 really important ones but it is a week of birthday's none the less! My baby brother turned 25 on the 8th, you are now officially closer to 30 then 20 Dom and my Grandfather Bert turned 85 on the 9th, if my Great-Grandpa Chiesa was still alive his birthday would have been the 10th.  We celebrated Dom's birthday this past weekend when he was here.  Okay, celebrated might be a little bit of an overstatement but we did get a cake and sing happy birthday to him.  We probably should have showered him with presents too especially since he cooked for all of us all weekend!  It was wonderful!  To have someone else prepare the food for you, to know that they are enjoying what they are doing.  The food was great not only because it tasted good but because he made it for us, with love.  He told me that I give him too much credit for his cooking but quite frankly little brother, you don't give yourself enough credit.  Just because a recipe doesn't turn out the way you think it should doesn't mean that it didn't turn out at all, you are just too hard on yourself.  I think the motto you should be looking at is as follows: Better NOT Perfect!  He introduced us to roasted broccoli, it was omg delicious!  I can't wait to make it this weekend!   I will mess with his recipe a little bit in the future to try new ways of making it but his way is so stinking simple (good for us pretend chefs) and that is what makes it so tasty! It is interesting learning about and getting to know your siblings in new ways.  We don't live together anymore and Dom and I haven't really lived together since he was a freshman in high school.  We are bound by blood and are just now becoming friends.  He and I are the bookends of the Chiesa kids, the oldest and the youngest and for a long, long time we were just family in passing.  I am thankful that we can learn things about each other that we never knew before, that we can explore our childhood and the things that made and make us who we are together.  You are Uncle Dommy the Tiger! The tiger rides that you give my kids, your nephews and niece, remind me of the bucking bronco rides with Dad and I know that they will always carry those memories with them and smile when they remember climbing on your back!  Come back soon!

I can't believe that my Grandpa is 85.  He doesn't really seem that old, but I know that every time I come back to visit him and Grandma they have aged a little bit more.  Grandparents aren't suppose to age, aren't supposed to die, they are supposed to be around forever!  Grandpa is so frank in talking about his mortality.  Every time I talk to him on the phone he sneaks in talking about his death and the fact that he is as old as dirt itself.  Oh Grandpa!  Trying to get a hold of him on his birthday is like trying to call the pope, you can't get through! Most of us grandkids are spread out all over the country, from California to New York and everywhere in between, so you have to time your call perfectly.  It took me around 45 minutes to get through to him and when he answered the phone I had called "Kelly's Pool Hall"! I love that, I love him and his quirks! I learned that my Great-Grandfather, Grandpa Bert's dad, lived with them for a little while before he died.  Great-Grandpa Hensick liked to go outside and pee in the bushes!  The neighbors would call and tell my grandparents that he was at it again and that they might want to bring him inside to pee.  I told Grandpa that every man/boy would rather pee outside on a tree or in a bush and that my husband had taught Owen to do it when he was 3 and if Owen (or any other man/boy for that matter) had his(their) choice it would be to pee outside.  I love learning things that I never knew before about my Grandpa and who he is and where he came from.  He has left me with many wonderful, cozy memories from my childhood that surround him and the house he and Grandma owned on North Michigan.  From the vegetable garden in the back by the garage that grew green beans every summer, beans that were best eaten when warmed by the sun, picked right off the bush to the perpetual smell of his pipe, the pea soup colored refrigerator that had the freezer on the bottom to the beautiful roses that surrounded the 3 season porch and the Christmas story from Luke 2 that he read every year from his favorite recliner,the same recliner that he watched MASH from every night, to the grilled chicken he always burned because that is just the way you make it; my Grandfather is an institution into himself.  If my sons and my daughter only have half of his compassion and generosity, I think that they will be on the right path.  I miss him.  By the way Grandpa, I forgot to thank you for the bean soup, Thank you! Thank you for all the memories and words to live by, thank you for taking care of Grandma and most of all thank you for being you, I love you!