Happy Birthday Marilyn

You've been the center of my universe for over 40 years, my right hand, my solid foundation, my friend, lover, mother to my children, and loving grandmother to theirs, and I would not change a minute of it.  The luckiest day of my  life, was September 19, 1967 when I met you at the Concordia Fall Festival, and it has just been getting better ever since.

I love you with all of my heart, and wish you the Happiest of birthdays.

Bob

OK, I've been gone for a while.

You may wonder just what the heck I've been up to.

The past week has been spent getting to know my siblings (4 sisters and a brother) again as we cleaned up my Mom's house.  Mom moved out a couple of years ago to convalesce from hip replacement surgery first with sister Nicki in Warrenton, Georgia, then with another sister Amy in Saline, Michigan.  In her absence my brother and at least one sister had been living in the house.  Lack of income and inclination to maintain it left it a mess, and a bunch of the 5 bedrooms were being used to store "treasures".

The basement had been Dad's shop, and in the 18 years since his death had become a purgatory for items nobody wanted to throw away.  Nicki, Amy, her friend Randy, and I spent the best part of the week schlepping stuff out of that mold farm into the back yard and eventually into a 40 yard dumpster.

This:

Came from here:

...And it was a LOT of work.

Many thanks to my children Bob, Gretchen and Jonathan, my brother and sisters, Randy, niece Joanna, nephew Donald and friend Donald for all of the hard, (almost) volunteer work.

The plan is for Randy, who is a contractor, to return in a few weeks with my brother to get the house in shape to sell.  Between Randy's expertise, my stash of tools, my brother's more-or-less free labor, and the help of whoever we can hire from the Home Depot parking lot, we should have about a month's worth of work to turn it back into a potential home.

In the interim, my sons and I will return to finish reclaiming the back yard from 20 years of wild growth, and falling pine limbs.

With a lot of hard work, and more volunteers, we should be able to give Mom a reasonable nest-egg.

Again thanks to all.

Stay well, and stay warm and dry.  It's raining, again, here.

An Interesting Weekend

We had a nice visit with the youngest this weekend.

Our youngest granddaughter was here spreading joy and toy kitchen accouterments around like snow in Cleveland.  She ran non-stop all day offering everyone tea, cookies, and just about anything else she whipped up in her little kitchen.  The picture is her and her daddy in a down moment watching "Peter Pan" in the den.

The other youngest was Shelby.  She's a husky mix, and belongs to Gretchen, my youngest daughter.  She seems to be a pretty smart little pup, whines at the door when nature calls, and enjoyed playing with Wally, who tolerated her presence like the veteran he is.

After all the excitement of the last week or so, the house is terribly quiet now that everybody has gone to their respective homes.  The good thing is that it will all happen again soon.  I'm blessed with a family other people can only dream of.

Stay well, and stay warm.

New Year's Resolutions

OK, it's New Year's Day, and I've renewed some resolutions.

1.  Be a better husband.  I've never lived up to the standards I set for myself, and that's probably a good thing.  It keeps me trying.
2.  Be a better father and grandfather.  Tyler is 14, Sam and Sara are 12, and Violet is 2.  I'm running out of time to play.
3.  Get the shed built, and 90% of the crud out of the garage and trailer.
4.  Spend more time working on Tyler's truck.  I've only got 18 months to get it ready to turn over.  (How did I wind up with a 14 year old grandson?)
5.  Landscape the front yard.  Gas line replacement, too many vehicles using the lawn as a driveway, and 2 years of drought followed by a very wet year have left more places to plant grass than I can count.  It's ugly, and Marilyn deserves better.
6.  Spend more time chasing trout and camping with my sons, son-in-law, and grandsons.  I've got the gear and the time.  Just need to get them all together and do it.
7.  Keep up with this blog.  I've neglected it for a lot of reasons, none of them very good.
8.  Exercise.  Maybe I need a new dog to take me for long walks.
9.  Stick closer to my diet.  The holidays have been heck on my eating habits.
10.  Back up my photo directory.  I was going to add "more often", but considering I lost a year's worth of pictures with the hard drive, I guess it was better to leave it off.
11.  Be more active politically.  Liberty really took a hit in 2009.

I know this was nothing profound, but it's good to use the keyboard as "mental floss" and clear out the plaque.

I sincerely wish every one of you a happy, prosperous, and free new year.