The boys of summer have gone

As we wind down to the end of summer and the beginning of school, I can't help but wonder where the time has gone. All I've managed to accomplish this summer is yard and garden work. We made no trips, did no major family activities and did nothing other than attend baseball games and practices and football practices.

Seems like we spent a lot of our time re-arranging our schedules due to car repairs and the like. How did the time get away from us so fast?

It was a good summer for the most part, except for the various health issues that cropped up. Sherry and her knees, Jared and his pulled muscles and sprains and me with my Menieres disease and the random dizzy spells that accompany it. Didn't go to any Royals games... (Amazing considering we'd been to probably 18 by this time last year!) Have tickets for some games at the end of the month, but hard to believe we still haven't gotten there yet.

Dustin got a job this summer and has worked some hours here and there. Jared played spring/summer baseball, but opted out of fall ball, choosing instead to try football...which is a love-hate relationship for him.
He doesn't like being tackled although he can run like mad when he's got the ball. A sprained wrist already may mark the end of his football career. I hope not...he's a good little player.

Spent some family time with the boys, Sherry, and Dustin's girlfriend, Hannah and played a lot of board games. That seems to be what the boys are into lately...which is fine, and kind of retro. They don't like it that I know 90 percent of the trivia questions, although when they need help with an answer, it seems to be fine...

Kevin and Socks recovered from their Easter dog attack, and seem to be doing well except for they don't let anyone or any dog pass the house without barking at them. I'm hoping this is a habit we can break them of as it is a bit disturbing at times.

I've gotten really lazy at blogging, which is sad because I love to blog... I'll have to make a greater effort to get on here from here on out....  Take care, enjoy the new school year and join with me at scratching your heads in disbelief at the fact that Dustin is going to be a Junior and Jared is starting his last year of Elementary School.... Where did the time go?

David

Watching them grow

The other day, I watched my 16 year old son drive out of the driveway and I had to stop and wonder where the time had gone. Here was a boy who at the age of two, could name just about any dinosaur including some I'd never heard of, and now he drives a car, plays in the school orchestra and is celebrating his first anniversary with his girlfriend.

Yesterday, my youngest son turned 10. His basketball team placed first in the city-wide tournament and he was happy that most of his friends gave him money for birthday presents. Gone are the days of action figures and Hotwheels. Now conversations usually deal with sports, girls or passing gas.

This year I'll celebrate 21 years of marriage to my beautiful wife. We still hold hands and snuggle, but now we talk about the kids more than we do ourselves and money that once would have gone for movies or cd's goes for more responsible things.

I'm wistful, but not remorseful. Oh sure, I might have done things a bit differently, but the outcome has been pretty good. I just can't believe how fast the time goes. People pass away or move on and others come to take their place. Sometimes you wish you could go back and relive a certain moment or see again a place that exists only in your memories. But still you must move forward. "Progress," they call it.

I'm content to watch them grow...I hope to grow along with them...

David

Inspirational

I try to inspire my Sons...

Love God
Be Kind to Others
Try Hard at Everything You Do
Don't Give Up
Make a Difference
Be Somebody

Sometimes I fail...

I want more for my kids than I had
Not that I didn't have plenty
I want more for my kids than I have
Save your money
Do well in school
Live a God-Filled Life

How do I tell you I'm proud of you
While telling you to try harder
Be Smarter
Don't make life more difficult than it has to be?

Pray
For others
For peace
For yourselves

Love others
Seek peace
For others
And yourselves

I try hard to be inspirational
Just as I have been inspired by others
So many times
At times I know I've succeeded
If only in tiny little ways

I love you
Even when I don't say it
You can see it in my eyes

I'm proud of you
Even when I don't say it
But I try to say it often
And out loud

If it isn't enough
Just tell me
I know
Sometimes I need
To hear it too...

It helps to Inspire Me


-Dad

Paranormal Activity...at least I think it was...

Let me emphatically state first and foremost that I do not believe in ghosts. When I was younger, we used to joke that our house was haunted because when the furnace turned off at night it would make a sound as it was cooling off, that sounded like someone walking up our staircase. That was as ghostly as things ever got at home when I was a boy.

In later years we had a furnace that would growl (sort of) as it was starting up and we would tell people that it was Spot the Dragon, who lived under the stairs.My Cousins and I used to swear that my Grandpa's farmhouse was haunted. After my Grandma passed away, there was an upstairs room where the light would come on by itself.  Being kids, we just attributed it to the fact that our Grandma's ghost was looking out for Grandpa and us kids, too.

In the not-so-distant past, I recall a night when my Son, Dustin cried out in his sleep and as I groggily walked into his room to check on him, his tennis shoe rolled across the bedroom floor right past where I was standing. My Wife, Sherry, swears that I dreamed this, however, how does this explain the fact that after it happened, there I stood, wide awake in the middle of my Son's bedroom?

Then there was the Tony Hawk incident. I know, Tony Hawk...Skateboarder...Scary, right? To explain: Dustin received a Tony Hawk remote control toy that featured a large Tony Hawk figure on a skateboard. The remote control not only made the skateboard go forward and backwards, but you could also control Tony's movements from side to side so that if he fell over, one push of a button and Tony would swivel and push himself back into an upright position.

One night I awoke to hear an electronic buzzing sound followed by a thump. This process repeated several times until I was fully awake enough to realize that something was bumping around across the hall somewhere. I followed the sound to Dustin's room where I found Tony Hawk, rolling across the floor, thumping into the baseboard and tipping over. When he hit the floor, he swiveled and popped back up and rolled back across the room. After running into a Batman beanbag chair, he'd go back across the room and perform the same routine.

I immediately began looking for the remote control to see if the kids had put it down with something on top of it, pressing one of the buttons. I located the remote on Dustin's desk chair and picked it up. As soon as I touched it, Tony stopped moving. I carried the remote control back across the hall with me, and laid it on the nightstand before climbing back into bed.

No sooner did I close my eyes than I heard Tony start up again, rolling slowly across the floor and then "Thump."  I raised up in bed and fumbled for the light switch. I pulled off the back of the remote and took the batteries out and sat them down on the table. Fastening the remote back together, I put it down and then slid back down under the blankets while flipping off the light.

A few minutes later I heard a buzzing sound, followed by a soft thump. Now I was getting ticked off. Was one of the kids playing with me? I walked into Dustin's room, where he was fast asleep. Out of the corner of my eye I see Tony Hawk, raising himself up off the ground and beginning to roll towards me. I reached down and picked up the toy and carried it down the stairs to the garage, where I left it to roll and buzz all night.
I can only think it was some sort of electrical interference of some sort, but who knows?

After our youngest Son, Jared was born, we installed a high tech video camera and baby monitor in his room, just above his baby crib. Night after night I would fall asleep watching him squirm and wiggle until he fell asleep. One night I heard him cooing and gurgling and as I looked up at the screen, I saw a shadow pass by his bed. Remembering the shoe incident of some years earlier, I spent the remainder of the night in a rocking chair beside his bed.

At other times I'd see floating things cross the black and white screen of Jared's monitor. At first they appeared to be white dust particles, but some of them were just too big to fit my dust theory. Since I don't believe in ghosts, I assume they were also some sort of electrical disturbance. In other words, I'm sure there is some sort of logical explanation.

More recently, in the area of unexplained phenomena here at home, I can't figure out how Luke, after many years of living in our garage, suddenly figured out how to open up the garage door by hitting his nose or paw against the keypad, or why Socks has suddenly become so "talkative," or how Kevin gets my gloves out of my coat pocket without unbuttoning my coat pockets?

I wish Robert Stack was around to solve these Unsolved Mysteries!

David

A Man for all seasons...except for this one.

At the age of 44 he became a cranky old man. The winter mornings woke him with the slow feel of ice-cold death. His knees and back and shoulders creaked as he sat up in his bed. His lovely Wife of many years continued in her slumber, blissfully unaware that another winter's morning had arrived.

His feet recoil at the touch of the cold, wooden floor and he hurries as best as his stiff legs will carry him, to the bathroom, where a warm, fluffy rug awaits his trembling toes.  He looks in the mirror at the bleary-eyed man. "Can that be me?" He thinks, surveying the bag-laden eyes, complete with dark circles and the vast expanse of stomach that hides the very top of his pajama bottoms.

The cranky old man turns without thinking and reaches down to scratch the ears of Kevin, his Yellow Lab. Kevin is always at his side and is always ready for a good scratching. Kevin folds up on the floor in a thump as the man undresses and steps into the shower. The hot water, as good as any amount of caffeine he might imbibe, wakes him quickly.

He washes as fast as he can and then suddenly stops, arms loose at his sides as he stands, face into the steaming stream of hot water. He stands there for a full five minutes until he reaches the understanding that he is now ready to face the day.

Kevin feigns sleep, but at the sound of the shower door opening, he thump thumps his tail on the warm, fluffy rug without even bothering to lift an eyelid. The man thinks Kevin is just trying to be modest and offer him a wee bit of privacy. Privacy is something that the man has not known since he became married and had children and adopted his two dogs.

Dressed in his blue jeans, he irons his shirt. There is still a chill in the house on this morning, but in his busyness, the man does not feel it. Kevin, behind him on the floor, seems not to notice it either, nor does he care, because Kevin is a snow dog, just like many of his type are water dogs.

The man puts on his shirt and calls to Kevin and to Socks, Kevin's friend, the Lab-Shepherd Mix. She and Kevin bound down the stairs after the man and wait patiently at the door as he unlocks it.

They're off! Out the door and into the shiny whiteness that is this winter. They play for a moment until nature calls and then they're off again; leaping over piles of snow and plowing through snow drifts. They romp and they roll until Socks, with her black coat, is speckled with white snowflakes. Kevin, who is  not so quick to give up, starts running again, as Socks plops on the snow to rest.

The man takes this all in and enjoys the view from behind the glass, where he is comfortable. He hates the thought of having to go outside to warm up the car. He thinks of moving to Florida or New Mexico or some other, warmer climate. He can't bear the thought of another, possibly colder, maybe even wetter...winter. He loves that his dogs love the snow, and he loves that his kids love it too. Heck, not that long ago, he himself liked it too!

He remembers those days of snow forts and sledding with a smile..he considers himself to be a man for all seasons...except for this one.

David