Senior Board

This was a big weekend for Matt and his 4-H involvement. He has served as a member of the Senior Northeast Georgia 4-H board of directors over the past year. He was elected to this position by popular vote among his peers at this time last year. This weekend he relinquished his position at a camp wide assembly. This camp wide assembly is a loud media filled event that involves the hundreds of members within the Northeast district that are involved in 4-H. It’s also, as you can see from the picture, a rather formal affair.

During this assembly new board of directors are announced and introduced. Additionally the eight or so current board members are spotlighted in a video presentation with a voice over of the member thanking various people for their help and encouragement over the past year. As each of the current board members video portion comes onto the large screen they can be heard thanking various 4-H officials, friends, co-board members and usually last but not least their parents. As each of them thanks their parents they mention both their mother and father. I listened intently over the roar of hundreds of young people and the background music and wondered how Matt would address the crowd. I wondered what he was thinking when he recorded his portion and wondered if he were thinking about his mother.

Finally it was time for Matt’s video spotlight and onto the huge screen popped one of the baby pictures that I had supplied and Matt’s name in big red letters. We had been asked to supply a number of pictures for this video presentation and I had sent the cutest baby and toddler pictures that I could find. The crowd of children ( the majority of them girls) screamed and clapped as Matt’s picture came onto the screen. Then as the background music faded, I heard Matt’s voice come onto the sound system. I braced myself hoping that he had found a way to express himself and thank his friends and family. The first person he thanked was mom. He simply said, without a quiver in his voice, “Thanks Mom, I know you would be proud”… he went on to thank me and many others but I didn’t hear the rest of it. All I heard was a young man that found courage and the words he needed to confront yet another event that Mom was not here for.

He didn’t even miss a beat and he mentioned Mom and Dad first not last as some had done. His voice didn’t shake and you could tell he was in command of his emotions. The voice over was heartfelt and sincere. I, myself was in such a daze that I would not have known he had finished the voice over had it not been for the crowd of kids cheering and clapping at the end of it.

Yes son, you are right, she was and still would be very, very proud. Just as I am…

March Forward

Sometimes I feel like a recovering drug addict… 

I have written before about how grief is something like an addictive drug.  If you allow it, it can consume you and hold you captive.  It can take control of your life and spiral you down to unknown depths.  It’s quite amazing how controlling it can be of your very existence.

At times, I find myself moving in and out of this addictive state in a seemingly uncontrolled fashion.  One day I’m fine and the next day – POW.  The addictive influence takes another toehold and wants to take control of me again.  That’s how things have been the last week or so.  One day I’m fine and the next day I’m not.

It has changed over the years, however.  It doesn’t feel the same.  It’s more like a dull throb as apposed to a sharp pain.  In fact, so dull that I often don’t recognize it as grief anymore.  To me it’s more like a recurring withdrawal sickness of some sort.  Its strangely familiar but at the same time all new and different.  I’m sure if I looked long enough I would find some guy out there that has put a name to all this and made a fortune diagnosing the issue in folks like myself.

I don’t need a fancy diagnosis however.  I am familiar enough with the drug to know its power and taste.  Call it whatever you wish, put a name to it if you find comfort in that.  I prefer to call it ongoing healing.  Like a scab that comes off a wound from time to time.  Each time the wound is exposed it’s a bit less tender and has healed to a further extent. 

There is a saying “time heals all wounds” –I tend to think that it’s what you do with the time that matters.  Everyone struggles in life, but it’s not what happens to us that matters most.  It’s how we handle what happens to us that matters the most.  Do we choose to become addicted to the grief or do we chose to recover and move forward and make the most of our situation and our life?

Tomorrow is Lisa’s birthday and I choose to remember & recover…

Now I just have to put wheels on that!

Spiffy New Doors

We finally had some nice weather and I was able to get the new garage/shop doors and gutters installed.

In sharp contrast to last weekend as you can see by all the snow.

The place is looking good!  Now all I have to do is get the stone path and stacked stone walls installed and the outside of the place is in pretty good shape.  Well, almost… 

I know there is always something to do around here.  That’s what happens when you buy a fixer-upper.  You get one item crossed of your list and move on to the next item.  And there’s always a next item.

But don’t those new doors look spiffy?

Red Milk

As holidays go, Valentine’s Day is one of the more treacherous ones for me.  Valentine’s Day has a tendency to sneak up from behind and then jump out in front of me at last moment. 

The kids still miss the heart shaped cookies that Lisa made them.  Heck, Abby is nineteen and still talks about how much she misses the red food dye in her breakfast milk on Valentine’s Day.  Not to mention, they still expect me to do a little something for them on all these mass produced and repetitive holidays.  I think they would like, at the very least, milk with red food dye and maybe a little red bag with some sort of goodies and or a small gift or two.  You know, like mom used to do.  Would they give me any grief if I did nothing, of course not.  However, if I can make it hurt just a tiny bit less by doing a little something for them, then what the heck… 

This year was not so bad.   I have had my mind on other things but I still knew that Valentine’s Day fell on Sunday this year.  So, this year I took precautions.  I knew Pastor Tony would be in rare form on Sunday.  I was sure that he would render a Valentine’s Day sermon to be remembered.  Considering he is a devoted Husband, I had no doubt that he would take full advantage of the day and be prepared with plenty of laughs and some solid marital advise.  So, I planned accordingly and ditched church.

I came up with a plan to make it a boys day out.  After all, Abby was spending her day with boyfriend of the month.  I decided it was time for another highbrow cultural excursion into Atlanta.  I convinced Matt and his buddy William to go to the High Museum in Atlanta for the day.  We saw the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit.  It was an awesome experience and some of the works in bronze (most by other artists) just left me speechless. 

Without exception, I always have a good time with the boys.  When it’s just us guys it’s a drama free day.  The only issue tends to be over exuberance.  That’s typically easily rendered with a glancing blow to the back of the head (I’m just kidding so don’t go turning me in to the state department of child services or anything!!).

The day pretty much passed without a hitch.  Later that evening Baby Girl was able to ditch the boyfriend and make it out to the farm.  Once it was finally just the three of us I passed out those little red bags filled with goodies.  I will never pretend to believe that I do as good a job with these things as Lisa did.  I do believe, however, the kids will never forget how much she loved them and that I always will (even if I don’t do the red food dye in the milk).

The Big Step

I finally feel like I am in a place that will allow me to breathe a little bit. So, I finally did something that many have encouraged me to do for some time now. This is a big move and I have not taken my decision in this area lightly. I have thought about this move many times and have been close to pulling the trigger on it more than once. (Okay, maybe I could have chosen a better way to describe this than “pulling the trigger”. Get back in your chair and continue reading) You can also imagine that I wonder how Lisa might feel about this step. I have had more than one person also try to push me forward in this area.

My little buddy Jamie has been pestering the crap out of me since just about day one. She has all but mandated that I take this step. She has chastised me, cajoled me, and even attempted to shame me into it. She would not rest until I took this step. She has texted me, e-mailed me and called me for over two years. She has continued to badger me and has been unrelenting and un apologetic the entire time. I of course know, while she has been aggravating, abrasive and overbearing, she just loves me and only wants to help me move forward.

Others have just patiently and methodically gave me gentle persuasion. Softly pushing me and encouraging me to take this step. They have not pushed too hard nor too often. They have just nudged me from time to time. They too just want me to be able to breathe and move forward and be happy and content.

This in comparison to Jamie’s “baseball bat to the head approach” is a more palatable and never unwelcome approach.

So yes I did it, I really did it… I took that big step that probably every widower and maybe widow has at minimum talked about or at least considered while sitting in the dark alone at night. It’s a step that some feel more comfortable in taking early on while some travel far on this path before they realize it’s time. Then again, some I think, just cave in and can’t stand continuing another step without making this all important change.

My friends, it is now my time… I wanted you all to hear it from me. There is a new woman in my life… I finally hired a part time housekeeper!

Maybe Jamie will stop haunting me now?

What's For Dinner

While catching up on some blog reading this morning, I realized that I had not posted anything since Thursday.

Well sorry kids…

I write when I feel moved to write and don’t when I don’t. Tonight, I do…

All is right in the world, well at least my world, as I know it today.  I say, as I know it today because it always seems to change so stinking fast.  It seems like there is always something changing and sometimes life has to grab me by the neck screaming and kicking and drag me forward through that change.  Then again, sometimes I go willingly.  Go figure…

So, as I said, all is right - I think…

Abby is spending a second night here with us and managing to drive us only a little crazy.  I think I need to get one of those custom signs that say “drama free zone” and hang it on the kitchen door.  She is finally settling in and is sitting at the kitchen table studying.  Matt is in the back room studying. Well, Matt may actually be pretending to study!  And here I am with you.  So what do you want to know? 

Do you want to know that we went to church today?  Do you want to know that it was awesome?  Do you want to know that I might finally understand why all those folks in the choir smile so much?  Do you want to know that I had lunch with my kids after that?  Do you want to know that it was just the three of us?  Do you want to know that we laughed and enjoyed just being with each other?  Do you want to know that I came home and washed three loads of clothes that belong to a college student that has a washer and dryer IN HER APARTMENT?  Let me know if you figure that one out… Do you want to know that I fixed a big home cooked meal tonight?

If you don’t want to know all that, maybe you just want to know that we are fine and are still learning to breath and live again.  We are you know.  We are learning every day.  I myself might even be getting better at it.  Yeah, I also know that might be a matter of opinion.

What’s that?  Oh, you say you want to know what I made for dinner?

That’s a little personal isn’t it…?

Paroled

Well we have our first detention behind us.  The little law-breaker stayed after school Tuesday to pay his penance.  When he got home he told me that it was not as bad as he thought it was going to be.  He did his time without incident and hopefully he will not graduate to something more devious than being late due to breakfast with dad.  The picture that I’ve attached is his detention slip that he threw on my desk when he got home.  Just in case you cant make out what he wrote on the note with a marker before he gave it to me, its says “Some things are worth the trouble”.  I agree in more ways than most human beings will ever know…

and if I could have figured out how to rotate the stupid picture, I would have…

Going Commando

Success, finally… I finally got all my drawers installed and the base cabinets are in place.  I can’t wait to start loading all my tools into the drawers.  Of course, the easy work is behind me.  Now I need to mill all the wood for the exposed sides and drawer faces.  Once I get the finished drawer fronts and sides on, I can then put the nineteen-foot countertop in place.  That will have to wait for another day as my “mom” work is getting behind.  I was able to work for a few hours but called it quits early.  The laundry was build up and I needed to get on it before Matt was forced to go “Commando”.

Balancing all the things I need to do and want to do continues to be a challenge.  Gone are the days of spending an entire day out in the shop.  Sure I can still do that but it comes with consequences like being too tired to cook dinner.  While I could easily spend ten or twelve hours out there I find striking that balance is better for me overall.

Still, I do get a good deal more satisfaction out of building a set of cabinets than I do washing a bunch of dirty clothes…

Boyfriends and Detention

What a great day and a pretty darn good week.

I rounded the week out today by getting out early to have breakfast with Matt.  Nothing starts a day like a stop at the Waffle House.  The only problem was that Matt wound up dragging around and we got a late start.  He wound up being late for school and got detention.  He was not very happy about it either.  Talk about a fish out of water!  One of my kids in detention!  While I think its kind of crappy that he gets detention for being late just one time he did the crime so he will do the time.  I’m pretty sure that he believes it was worth having breakfast with good old dad.  At least I hope he believes that…

I was able to meet Abby for lunch.  We had a good visit and she let me know that she is ready for me to meet the current boyfriend.  She’s been seeing the aforementioned guy for a couple months now and I have yet to see neither hide nor hair of him.  Anyhow, she is going to bring him out to the house tomorrow night for dinner.  There’s nothing I like better than having the opportunity to give a new boyfriend the “stink eye”.  It should be an enjoyable evening.  Matt has suggested that we serve mint chocolate ice cream for dessert.  Matt wants to lace the boyfriend’s ice cream with wasabi paste as a practical joke.  I’m considering giving him the green light…

Cape For Sale

I have always been a problem solver.  Heck, that’s in large part what I do for a living every day.  People come to me with problems and I solve them.  This used to drive Lisa up the wall.  Some days, she just wanted to vent and have me listen.  Instead of just listen I would jump in and tell her how to fix the problem.  It’s what I do…

When our world imploded and fell apart, someone had to circle the wagons and get us through it all.  It took me a while to get my act together.  Thank God the school lined up meals for us that first month or so... that’s about how long it took me just to figure out that I was not dying also.  I wound up putting on my Super Dad cape and stepped up to the plate.  I got organized, figured it all out and got it all done along with a lot of help from some very wonderful friends.  I find myself at a new crossroad however.

I am finding that I can’t always be Super Dad.   I am learning that I need to step back some and let the kids figure some things out on their own.  It’s hard to give up control when you’re a control freak though.  I don’t know how some parents do it.  I don’t know how they just seem to be able to step back and let the little birds fly from the nest.  Yeah, I’m a controlling neat freak of a parent but a lot of it is love too.  I love them and don’t want to see them struggle.  What parent that isn’t a thug themselves would want to see their kids struggle.  However, I’m smart enough to know that they do need to struggle at times to some degree.  It’s healthy for them and it presents learning lessons that they can carry with them the rest of their life.

So yeah, it’s time for me to step back just a little bit and let them do some of the heavy lifting. 

Easier said than done…

Oh and by the way, my fricking drawers didn’t fit!!!  That’s right, all 25 drawers were 3/16 too narrow.  Before I could install them into the boxes I had to take all five boxes apart and cut them down by 3/16 of an inch.  That took the entire afternoon and into the evening on Sunday.  I don’t even want to talk about it…