June 8, 2018. 7:38pm. It’s Friday night, and I wanted to go out and do something, but I need to get a good night’s rest. Tomorrow morning I will drive to Lukenbach, Texas, where Adam’s family will scatter his ashes. I am really dreading it. We ended up in Luckenbach on our first date. That is where our love began. One week later, we returned there on our second date! In addition, whenever we discussed getting married one day, we talked about getting married in Luckenbach. 😦
Luckenbach also has significance to Adam’s family and that is why his dad chose to scatter his ashes there. His grandpa used to have a deer lease right down the road from Luckenbach, so Adam grew up going to the lease and I believe to Luckenbach as well. Also, his dad plays guitar and sings and he has played several times in Luckenbach.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out, let me get back to where I left off on my last post. It was Tuesday evening, June 6. Yesterday, June 7, was another good day. I had an appointment with my dermatologist in the morning, and it went well. I last saw her a year ago. I was supposed to go in for a four-month check-up but I never did make it back in! There was one spot on my upper back that she decided to remove, but she did not seem extremely concerned about it. Other than that, everything looked good and she said she only needs to see me once a year! Yay! I have always been paranoid of skin cancer because of my light complexion. I have a ton of freckles, I burn easily, and I had several BAD sunburns when I was younger.
In addition to a successful appointment, another highlight of the morning was, my former counselor, Shelia, texted me two images (below). The second one, I had actually seen on her Facebook page before she texted me and I really liked it. Both of these really spoke to me.
After my appointment, I went to Walmart for a few items, then headed home. I continued to work around my house, then around 2:30 I went to Julie’s house for swimming! Lori came as well. I believe I have mentioned them in other posts; Julie and Lori are both co-workers / friends. Julie has three kids and they were there as well. We had a great time. Julie’s home is next to a ranch, and some of the cattle frequently come to their back fence line. She and her kids enjoy feeding them. They showed up yesterday before we got in the pool and I had to take pictures! If you have never seen a Texas Longhorn, here you go! 🙂 And Julie, if you are reading this, THANK YOU AGAIN for the invite! I thoroughly enjoyed myself!!
After having adult beverages and being in the pool for several hours, we decided to go to the local Beer Market. Lori and I both went home to change clothes, then we all met up. We were sooooo hungry! Ha ha. We sat outside, had more adult beverages, ate, and then called it a night. I was super exhausted. Heat and swimming will wear a girl out! I came home and went straight to bed!
Today I woke up a little before 10am, had my morning devotion time, and continued to work around the house. I am so excited about everything that I have gotten done this week, and it’s only my first week out for summer! Woohoo!! 🙂
Shortly before 2:30, Julie picked me up. I tagged along with her and her kids; we went to Salado Glassworks in Salado, Texas, 35 miles from where we live. They went to create a glass blown mug for their dad for Father’s Day. I am SO thankful I got to go! It was an AWESOME place, AND something really cool happened! I won’t share the backstory to this at this time (I want to save it for the page on this blog that will be all about Adam), but, after he died I decided to have a glass blown “Eternal Flame” made with his ashes in it. I was going to have it sent off by a funeral home in my hometown, but my sister mentioned Salado Glassworks to me and said they do memorial pieces. I had first heard of Salado Glassworks from Julie; she took her kids there this past Easter so they could make glass blown Easter eggs. Anyways…..I checked out their website and looked at their memorial pieces. They offer the “Eternal Flame,” but their cost is substantially higher than the funeral home cost; however, I thought it would be worth it to pay more if I would be involved with the process. I talked with Julie and Lori about it, and Julie recommended that I contact them and find out exactly what involvement I would have. I had not thought of that! I emailed them towards the end of April and I am so glad I did. The Marketing Director, Jess, responded and said that they do not offer the memorial pieces as items that can be participated in, because it is such an emotional process and there are too many unknown factors when working with glass. The only thing that I would be able to do is pick out the color scheme. With that information, I told myself that I would just save myself money and have it done through the funeral home.
As I watched the process today, I was mesmerized. As Julie was finishing up, the girl who got her started walked past me and I asked her if her name was Jess; she said yes. I told her that I had emailed her about a memorial piece for my boyfriend. We talked, and I asked her if I would even be in the shop to WATCH as the “Eternal Flame” is done; she said no. She explained that I would drop off the ashes, pick a color scheme, and then they would do all the work. She asked if I wanted to see an “Eternal Flame” and I said yes. The one she showed me actually has her pet’s ashes blown into it. When she brought it out and set it on the counter I started crying. It is so beautiful…..here is a picture. The white part in it is the ashes.
Even though it costs more, after seeing the process in-person today, I decided to save the money and have it done through them, even though I won’t be part of the process. My goodness, I started crying just by looking at this one! I cannot even imagine how I would be if I tried to be part of the process! I believe that I would feel much more comfortable with having them do it, as opposed to giving his ashes to a funeral home and having them ship them off to a place that I am not familiar with. My plan is to have this done in the next several months. 🙂
Once we left there, we stopped by a McDonald’s, then made our way back to Liberty Hill. Julie dropped me off at my house. I made a quick trip to ULTA, then came home. I worked on organizing some pictures on my computer, then took a shower and came to blog! It’s now a little after 9:00. Oh! I almost forgot…..
Lately I have been having dreams with Adam in them. I believe the first one I had was two weekends ago. I think we had broken up, but for some reason I went to see him one day. I did not recognize the place; it was a single room but it was not the small cabin he lived in when he was alive. I also feel like it was not far from my mom’s house. I remember thinking that my mom would probably be mad at me if she knew that I went to visit him after we had broken up. Anyways, Adam told me that Bob (his boss) told him that he was letting him go. He had been working on a roof for Bob. Bob questioned him about what he had been doing, and Adam told him he had been working on the roof. Apparently there were other things that needed to be done, and Bob was upset that Adam had not gotten to them so he decided to let him go. The weird thing was, Adam seemed very calm…..like he wasn’t extremely concerned about losing his job. Had this been real life, he would not have been that calm. Perhaps this was his way of telling me that he is just fine in Heaven? No stress; no worries…..
I have had several other dreams, this week I believe, but I don’t recall them in great detail. I remember in one, I was worried because a great deal of time had gone by and I had not heard from Adam so I was very worried about what was going on. I believe two nights ago (heck, these two may have been on the same night, ha ha), I had one where there was some event going on, and I was with my mom but had seen Adam prior. Again, I was worried because I had not heard from him in awhile. I remember asking my mom where Adam was, and she said he was busy cooking. I don’t know what the event was, but apparently Adam was cooking for it – or helping some of my family cook. This was a positive thing, since some of my family members did not approve of Adam when he was alive. The day before he was in the fire, my mom sent out a group text about Easter plans, and I was shocked (and excited) because Adam was on the text! Unfortunately, he died before Easter. 😦
I really wish I could recall these dreams in greater detail. From now on, if I have anymore, as soon as I wake up I am going to jot down everything I remember.
Whew. I think I’ve said everything I wanted to say. Ha ha. I am going to go to bed soon so that I can hopefully get some quality rest before heading to Luckenbach in the morning. Until next time…..
Note: My blog posts are shown with the most recent posts at the top. If you’d like to read about how this journey began, scroll to my first post, titled “The Journey Begins.” 🙂
My Strength 