Day 166 of 365

I don't do weddings and funerals.

Never have. I make it a practice to stay far away from both. I've been to five weddings during my lifetime - and one of those was my own and a couple others were ones my daughter was part of when she was little. As for funerals, I've been to three- and all three were my husband's relatives.

I avoid funerals at all costs. But today made number four. Today should have been my husband's first day of school, but instead it was the day he buried his mother.

She had been in a care facility for some time now. A couple years back she started showing signs of dementia and when it became clear she couldn't be left alone, she was placed in a care center. My husband used to call her on the phone when she resided there. But soon she became confused and agitated and he was asked by his family to stop calling.

So then he visited her. The last time my husband and daughter visited his mom in person, she thought our daughter was his wife. Then the visits stopped. So while his mother was buried today, the mother he knew left a long time ago.

Today was a rough day anyway. He handled it all well, and I think he is relieved it's behind him now.

When we got home, I had a nice surprise waiting in my mailbox. A freebie pay it forward from someone on the quilting website I visit. A small quilt top with some extra matching pieces. I'll add some of my pinks and I'll have another charity baby quilt soon.

Day 165 of 365

Our daughter used to steal our batteries. I think I had something to do with it.

When I was pregnant with her I used to listen to the stereo all the time. My first choice whether I was reading or cleaning or cooking was to listen to the radio. I never put headphones up to my tummy, but the music was always on in the house. (Even when I was a teenager TV wasn't important to me but my records and cassette tapes were.)

When she was young she wanted to be a dancer. She loved turning up the music and singing and dancing around the living room. When she got a bit older we bought her a Walkman.

Something she loved as much as singing and dancing was rocking in a rocking chair. (That one came from her dad.) She would rock for hours, listening to her Walkman, belting out songs.

She would listen to that Walkman so long she'd run the batteries down. Instead of asking for more batteries, she'd go into our battery-storage drawer and take them. Again and again and again. So we eventually cut her off. No more batteries from us.

But then we started noticing things around the house weren't working when we needed them. Clocks stopped working. We'd need a flashlight but it would be dead. TV controls didn't work. I'd like to say we caught on quick to what she was doing, but alas, we did not. We were quite stumped.

No ghost, no electrical interference. Just a battery thief. A battery thief who would replace our working batteries with old, they've-been-used-up-in-the-Walkman batteries.

The day she moved onto an iPod was the day our battery drawer stayed permanently full.

Today our battery thief is returning home for a few days. Her grandma's funeral is tomorrow, and our thief is sticking around to earn some money by helping us catch up in the gardens.

The focus of today's picture requires no batteries, but is certainly helping herself (or is it a himself?) to the garden.