A little nervous

Tomorrow is the first meeting for Grief Care. I'm apprehensive about it. Not about talking to strangers; I can do that. It's that I know it will be like ripping a wound open for everyone to gape at. But I have to think of it in medical terms...it's not a healing wound that is there...it's still got infection and stuff that needs to be cleaned out, so this opening is for the healing to take place, so I know it's a good thing, but the process won't be much fun. I also have to remember that while everyone may be gaping at my wound, they will have one of their own, as well.

After work I got Amanda's phone out as I wanted to see if I could transfer her pictures to my phone; I transferred almost 50, including a few videos.  Looking through her pictures and videos was comforting and broke my heart. I loved seeing her silly faces and hear her laugh, but it was a painful reminder (like I need one) that she's not here. I am so thankful, though, that I do have those videos that I can still listen to her voice and hear her laugh. There were two videos from her birthday, one I wasn't in but in the kitchen, and the other one where we were both singing happy birthday to her and dancing in a silly way. Everything seemed good then. She was on the mend from her surgery after her accident. We'd gone to Sherman for a Chinese buffet that she loved, and Tim had bought a song and video on iTunes by Shane and Shane that I'd shown him the day before that reminded me of his and Amanda's relationship called The One You Need. She had sat down at my computer and we watched the video together, just rubbing her shoulders and loving on her. I remember we were all crying and telling her how much we love her and she, us. It was a special, loving time that I treasure.

Tim and I started painting the outside of Dad's house this past weekend (Saturday). We had to match the garage, so it's a sort of peachy/apricot color and white for the trim. Unfortunately, we no longer like the color of the shutters that we bought so will have to either paint them white or buy new ones. I've enjoyed the work.  We worked after work yesterday and today painting. Yesterday we did the white trim, 2 coats, and today did a third coat of the white trim and painted the metal ornamental support thingies. That really helped them. They went from being this yucky, blah brown to white, and it helped them stand out instead of blending into oblivion. Of course, we have to do more coats to make it look great, but it already made quite a difference.

Tim had talked to Michelle on Sunday, which apparently she didn't take too well, and so then she went and talked to Dewey about it all, and he asked her the same thing Tim did, and that was if she's ever been diagnosed as being bipolar. That REALLY didn't go over well with her. But anyway, the last 2 days at work have been so nice! I've gotten to do the work I needed to and Tim and I have been able to talk. I did offer to move my work station to the room behind his office so that he could feel free to have the students come in and visit with him, and I could still be able to do my work and have my space/privacy. We may do that next week or at least over the summer sometime.  We did see Michelle come down the hill across the street while we were sitting outside eating our lunch. She went to the Southeastern Police Station, but we went back inside before she came out.

Anyway, I need to go do some research for the group, finding some websites, etc., for the group.