Hello there. Welcome to Original Gimi!
Original Gimi…a crazy, fun name for hopefully a crazy, fun lady. I am what you might call a late bloomer in life. During my college stint I met and fell in love with my husband, Neil, of now 33 years. We got married and had a beautiful son. He was soon to be followed with another beautiful son and a beautiful daughter. Having postponed my chemical engineering degree in my senior year to have a son and get married, I made the decision to go back and complete my degree when my baby girl was 3 years old.
Fast forward to 2018 or what I like to call one of the best and worst years of my life. I was very unsatisfied in my career as a female engineer and found myself in my car every morning chanting my mantra, “You can do it. Get out of the car and go inside.”
The lowest point of 2018 came when my sister called me to tell me that we needed to get Mom to the hospital. A beautiful woman, who inspired me to be anything I could, was very ill. I had never heard of “Palliative Care” but was devastated to learn that meant she was dying. Your world is shattered and you are constantly having one of the worst days, months, years of your life. The two months after my mother passed, I became a grandmother to my precious granddaughter. So now you go from one of your lowest moments to one of life’s highest moments. Two months after my precious granddaughter arrived, my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer and passed quickly.
At this point, it was the love of my family, my new granddaughter and the impending marriage of my baby girl that kept me with one foot in front of the other. I can only say that I have the best husband/children/family ever (and yes, I am very biased). They encouraged me to leave that engineering role behind and pursue something I loved. I started the new year as an active wedding planner with my daughter and we threw what I consider to be “the wedding of the century.” Removing my income from the wedding budget allowed the creative juices to flow.
So here we are today…a new grandmother, a new mother-in-law, and an old lady with a lot of original ideas for every occasion. If nothing else, my mother’s death taught me that you don’t wait to do something you love. Surround yourself with the world’s best people and the rest comes naturally.
Oh yeah…Original GiMi…strange name. When my granddaughter was born, we needed a name she could call my husband and myself. Not being the first grandchild on my daughter-in-law’s side, many of the cute and usual names were already taken. Some early disregarded names; Cookie, and Grandma were all discarded as not quite fitting. After suggesting a few grandfather names that we all dismissed, Neil latched onto G-Dude. He thought it was a natural progression from one of his favorite movies. Don’t ask. Mine wasn’t coming though, so I finally said to myself, "Just make it Grandma Michelle"….but that’s an awful lot for a little one to get out. G-Dude is going to evolve into DooDoo but Neil gets to deal with that. And that’s when it hit me…Grandma Michelle…Grand Mi…Gimi. It’s easy and it fits. It feels right. As for the Original…my daughter says I am the original OG, so there you go. And yes, I had to ask my son what OG meant. After he gave me the definition, I decided Original Gimi…yep, that’s me.
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