I don’t know about you, but there is something about doing puzzles that seem to give my mind a break from all the hustle & bustle around me. A cup of tea and a half-hour break from the action seems to do the soul some good. For me, a puzzle is a combination of Where’s Waldo, shape perception, and math. I like to pick up a piece and look at the picture to find the exact location of that piece….
By now, you all know that numbers are my thing. I love working with numbers, accounting, statistics, measurements, and more. In my former life in the Park and Recreation industry, putting together the budget for the department was just plain fun. So a new important number popped up today for me, thirty-four. In January of 1989, George Bush was sworn in as President, Phil Collins’s song “Another Day in Paradise” was popular, Tiramisu was a trendy food item, Mcdonald’s actually…
A couple of months ago, I dropped Suzanne off at a Hobby Lobby as I ran over to Menards in Champaign. Back to pick her up, she looked puzzled, so I asked the reason. She said, “I ask a clerk where I could find a sex book, but she didn’t seem to understand”. Looking at her with excitement in my eyes, I shared that I didn’t think Hobby Lobby was the right place to look for that item, then repeated…
Some Christmas card letters are epic novels, some Christmas cards are just signed, some with photos, a piece of candy, or just a brief note about the year a loved one had. I told myself that this year, I was going to start to send Christmas Cards out again. Obviously, I told myself that too late as my bout with influenza took over the past few weeks and it appears, this is going to be the best I can do….
The Christmas season brings out cherished memories with friends and family. One of the most cherished periods of my life was publishing my dad’s WWII diary back in 2012-15. As a tribute to him, I put together a video of how he spent Christmas each year he was overseas. Now, watching this video every year brings a smile to my face as I remember him and our journey together. So here is my annual posting of Christmas for a WWII…
Since Suzanne’s diagnosis 735 days ago, my total focus has been on her health. Setting up appointments, driving her anywhere she needed to be, additional ears to be sure what has been said, sitting with her through treatments, and doing what I can to be sure she was getting the best care possible. It has been a long road and yesterday that road took a turn, it was my turn. Let me set the stage. When we went to Las…
Typically, I’m pretty much in charge of planning where we go on vacation, the sites we see and the activities we participate in. There are two exceptions, The Louisville Livestock show and the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas; those two are non-negotiable. So we were off on the big bird to LAS. Day 1 – Right off the bat there was drama. A snowstorm in our Minneapolis connecting flight had us worried but after forty-five minutes of de-icing…
Sometimes you get to the point where you hate to answer the phone. Someone raising money, and another to sell you something. But the call Suzanne is really tired of is from a friend or family member who says they have cancer. That call came in again this week from Suzanne’s oldest and dearest Cissna Park friend. This friend accepted her into her life when Suzanne was new to the community; shared her family with ours; traveled to quilting events…
To all our friends & family, Happy Thanksgiving. It’s hard to put into words how grateful we are to still be together for Thanksgiving this year. It seems so long ago that Suzanne was diagnosed, and now we think we have figured out how we will share this life from here on. Since we got married, Thanksgiving has usually been a day we celebrate with Suzanne’s side of the family. Big dinner at Suzanne’s dad’s; both of her brothers &…
A weekend ago, actually a couple of days after the great fall, we traveled to Louisville. KY for the North American International Livestock Exposition. This is the trifecta of events for Suzanne as it includes Rodeo, Daft Horses, and western shopping. We arrived on Thursday as we had tickets for that evening’s performance of the Professional Rodeo Association Great Lakes Regional Finals. This is the last big rodeo event in the area before the big show in Las Vegas, the…