To the Best Man I've Ever Known

Arnold O. Hanson: August 22, 1924- April 10, 1009

Last week on Friday, April 10, 2009, my grandpa passed away. I wasn't even at home when it happened so I never really got to say a last goodbye or anything. In an attempt to try to compensate for not being there when he passed, I really want to do this post to tell people about this great man who left the world...

First off, in the blog title, "best man I've ever known" is not in any way an exaggeration. My grandpa was literally the nicest, sweetest, and funniest guy. When I shuffle through the memories I have of being out at my grandparents' house (which occurred quite a lot being that they only lived across town), I honestly cannot remember a single time when he was unkind to somebody. Don't get me wrong, he was strict when he needed to be...but he wouldn't hurt a fly (maybe a cat, though, haha).

At least a third of my "Grandpa flashbacks" are of him hauling us grandkids around in a little trailer that he'd hook to his lawn mower/tractor. My grandma and grandpa had a house just outside city limits and had a lot of property to ride around on...and boy did we cover it all (INCLUDING ditches....backwards....) Grandpa was ALWAYS the jokester and a visit never ended without a good laugh and big goofy grin from him. Even when he was in his last stages of Alzheimer's, every now and again his "old self" would just shine through with a hysterical look, complete with crinkled eyebrows and ridiculous smile...what a ham!

I remember when he got really sick last year and he was in the hospital for quite a few days...I was there pretty much every day over the weekend and would talk to him when he was coherent. During one of our strained conversations, it got brought up that I was going to school for Nursing, and he stopped and looked up at me and said "You will be the BEST nurse!" and I just lost it. I really do hope I can make him proud!!

His visitation and funeral were really beautiful and you couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by all of the love and support of all of his family, friends, and acquaintances that showed up. The night before the visitation, all of the family got together and gathered pictures of him to display...boy had I forgotten Grandpa over the last year when his Alzheimer's got really bad. Going through those pictures was so neat, remembering how he really was.

He was just such a wonderful man and somebody who I will always feel nothing but respect for. EVERYBODY loved him and I can only hope that one day, somebody can say the same about me. My grandpa is somebody who loved life and found pleasure in simple things like morning coffees at HyVee and buying bananas for people (haha).

Most of all, he's somebody I will always love and will never forget.

Dancing With Myself!

And so here's the post I was anticipating to be the official "I'M GOING TO ARGENTINAAAAA!" statement...not so much, kids. However, it has been postponed and is scheduled to commence in May of 2010!

Why the delay you ask? Well, basically, timing. While I never thought I'd let something like timing get in my way of a study abroad experience (see previous enthusiastic post about nothing stopping me), I guess that's part of growing up...you start to really take different things into account. You weigh the pros and cons. Needless to say, I was bummed at first but so many wonderful things have come of my change of plans and I'm very excited to see what the near future holds!

Aside from the itinerary switch-up, I've had some really great weeks since I last blogged---and I'd like to document a few of them. This is probably going to be a longer post, but stick with me folks...I feel like I have some good things to say!

First of all...
I worked at the Festival of Cultures last Friday. My initial motivation for doing it was basically to just get a few extra credit points for my Spanish class (typical right?)...but I ended up staying twice as long for other reasons. Our booth was sort of a "drinks paradise", if you will, where we were making pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, etc (non-alcoholic of course!) I arrived and was immediately overtaken by the hustle and bustle of getting the drinks made and out to the line-waiters chop! chop! Upon leaving awhile later (and only when I really had to), I was stung with a rather uplifting realization...when people work together for a common cause, even one as trivial as making slushies, we can accomplish so much and in such powerful ways! I know, I know...we were making slushies....for a festival....but seriously! It applies to a lot of deeper things, too! :] Ha. (Insert the peace & love hippie euphoria here.)

Secondly...
I'm only 21! I guess it turns out I'M STILL YOUNG!! This rather obvious self-characterstic has been something that I keep re-realizing lately (not sure how you re-realize something but let's go with it...) Quite a few things have been happening recently that have been tough; and they are things that bring to light how important it is to live these years up as fully as I can! I have great friends and awesome family and soooo much to be thankful for and soooo many years ahead of me (God-willing!) And sometimes the things that get me digging holes are things that should be making me want to climb mountains! This year (it's already April?!...well, for the rest of this year) I am going to make the honest, daily, devoted effort to be happy with every day...and to make the best out of every situation. Life sucks sometimes. Yes, we've all been down at the bottom of that hill; but life is also too short to not turn the not-so-pleasant moments into ways to make the future moments 10X better. (My apologies for the cliche-ness and overly optimistic quality of the above paragraph...but it's all sooo true, right?!)

Thirdly...
Kudos to a good friend of mine for showing me a song by The Donnas called "Dancing With Myself"! To all of you girls out there who think being single is lame...think again! :P Sometimes I really think the world gives us this "To be happy: Be in a relationship" expectation. FALSE. Half the people I know that are in relationships are not happy. And if they are happy, a good share of them don't have very many experiences to show for it! Now, don't get me wrong, I do think relationships, when had at the appropriate times, are a wonderful thing---statistically, they have even been shown to improve men's overall health and well-being (ha, wonder why that is...) But I also think flying solo is liberating if you have the right mentality. If you sit around and wish on every star that somebody, anybody, comes along so you don't have to be alone...good luck, amigo! However, if you look at it like The Donnas do and have the "if I had the chance, I'd ask the world to dance" outlook...you'll do just fine ;)

In closing (whew! told ya!)...I still will indeed be doing the whole "Carpe Diem" thing like I said in my previous post...but just in different ways than I had anticipated. Ahhh, life...so full of surprises, no? Until next time, I'll just be up on the table dancin' with myself (and my friends of course!)---Ha!

Happy week, all!