It all depends on your perspective

Posted on 06/10/2009 by RLW3

I usually like surprises. I think most people do, especially when someone brings or gives you something that you didn’t expect.

But not always…

My youngest daughter is in her second week as a hostess at The Bonefish Grille. She had the closing shift so she didn’t get home until 9:30 P.M.

When she walked in the door, she had a large “To Go” bag in her hand. She had brought home three different appetizers and a salad for all of us to share!

My wife was excited. Their food is VERY good!

My 18 year old son was excited. It was food! and he doesn’t have a tournament this weekend, so that made it even better.

I was the only one who was less than thrilled. Why?

Because I had just eaten a full meal of my wife’s delicious chicken and vegetable soup just three hours earlier!

And, although I don’t quite understand why, I tend to gain weight when I eat too much food, especially when I eat right before I go to bed…

So, here I was, already full with a table full of delicious food and three happy, beaming faces egging me on to join them…

I caved!

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A little here, a little there

Posted on 06/09/2009 by RLW3

Little by little, we are making progress.

My wife and I now have full access to our bathroom. After a little over a week with an aisle of  just 1 1/2 feet wide, it feels huge! Objectively, it isn’t as big or as nice as our last apartment, but…

My wife has nearly finished lining the kitchen cabinet shelves and we are 60% moved into the kitchen. We can finally see the counters!

There are some people who would just press to finish everything as quickly as possible. I don’t do that. It is probably the residual effect of remodeling a house for 19 years.

I knew that I couldn’t finish everything quickly, so I decided that it was more important to live life while we fixed things up.

We are now taking that same tact in unpacking. My first priority and desire is to spend time with my wife and children. Hopefully, we make a little progress unpacking. If we don’t, oh well.

Eventually everything will get where it should be and when it does, we will all have enjoyed the time that it took to get there.

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A small step toward a surprise

Posted on 06/08/2009 by RLW3

I received a call when I got home from work. A man wanted to buy my filing cabinet and a bookcase that we were trying to sell.

It is all part of a big experiment in alchemy…

I am trying to turn a filing cabinet, a bookcase, two wingback chairs, some books and software into money and then turn that money into…

Oh,…

I can’t tell you that yet.

I plan on suprising my wife and you never know, she just might read this blog!

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Back to square one

Posted on 06/07/2009 by RLW3

I realize that there is no perfect church. I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for a place where we can join and help build.

I thought that we might have found a place we could do that but we suffered a setback in our search for a new church home today.

We were attending classes to learn what the church believed. Most of it was fine. However, nearly every week, I would find myself voicing an opposing viewpoint to what was being said. In nearly every case, what I said was received well, but…the point still remained.

I was looking for a way to make this work so I decided to overlook the areas where I held a different viewpoint on the critical issues. However, today, it became apparent that we would have to ignore too much.

So, unfortunately, it is back to square one.

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A happy ending but not a fun ride

Posted on 06/06/2009 by RLW3

He did it…

He lost 12 pounds in 48 hours…

and won the tournament!

But the last 12 hours before the weigh in were not very fun.

When my mother called, I filled her in on the last two days and playfully asked her what she was doing to him. She said, “What do you mean? I had no idea. I lost two pounds!”

I know how she did it…

He ate all of her food!

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Grammie whips him into shape!

Posted on 06/04/2009 by RLW3

My son got back from Philadelphia today. He had a great time.

On Tuesday, he went to class with a couple of the wrestlers, answered a question in Calculus class, offered his opinion in an English class. At night, he wrestled with the college wrestlers and held his own.

He spent all yesterday afternoon with my mother and my aunt. They introduced him to a gen-you-wine Philly cheese steak (in New Jersey, of course), took him to a diner and bought him several TastyClairs (by Tastycake). then he went out to the California Pizza Kitchen with some of the wrestlers.

Oh, he had a good time. I’m happy for him.

He must have forgotten that he registered to wrestle in the 160 lb. class in the Kansas State Freestyle tournament on Saturday.

I say he must have forgotten that because he weighs 172!!!

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Get Out of Jail Free!

Posted on 06/03/2009 by RLW3

Our new apartment has brand new carpet.

We no sooner got moved in before my wife started saying that she wanted everyone to take off their shoes when they entered the apartment so the carpet would stay nice longer.

We’ll have to see about that.

Perhaps my wife sensed my less than enthusiastic response. Perhaps it is that she has a big heart. Whatever the reason, she gave everyone not one, but two “Get Out of Jail Free” cards (think of the board game Monopoly).

The very first day in the apartment, she brought home a broasted chicken from Costco. This particular one had more juice than normal. Now it has the normal amount…

because she spilled the rest of it on the carpet!

But, her kindness didn’t end there…

On our second night in our new apartment with the new carpet, she was sipping a glass of wine. Because there are boxes everywhere, she was taking great pains to be careful when she set the glass down. Somehow, she still managed to dump the entire glass on the carpet! She still doesn’t know how it happened.

Whatever the cause or the reason, I made sure to thank her kind and understanding response sometime in the future whenever I spill something on the carpet

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Like father, like son

Posted on 06/02/2009 by RLW3

Our family can’t call it travel unless there are some twists and turns.

My son got on the plane on time. I was really late to work today…45 minutes late.

By the time I finished writing the appeal letter, found the cable to connect the printer to the computer, printed the letter so my wife could proofread it…you get the idea.

He was supposed to catch a connecting flight in Chicago before heading onto Philadelphia. However, a big storm rerouted him to St. Louis for several hours. Instead of arriving in Philadelphia at 7:35 as planned, he arrived in Chicago at 5:25.

If he took the next available flight to Philadelphia, he would have gotten in around midnight. The guy who was going to pick him up can’t do it that late because he has a final tomorrow morning.

So, he arranged to spend the night with friends of our family that moved to the Chicago area quite a few years ago and then fly to Philadelphia in the morning.

At least that is what he told me yesterday…What actually happened is quite different…

Our friends came to pick him up at O’Hare International Airport. There is just one problem with that…

Our son was at Midway. That is 60 miles further away from our friend’s house.

He took the 9:00 flight and some other members of the Drexel wrestling team picked him up at midnight.

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Today’s big surprise

Posted on 05/31/2009 by RLW3

I wanted to stop so, so badly.

After my 60th climb up the stairs, I was tired…pooped.

Man, were the excuses flowing…”I worked so hard yesterday…I’m almost 50 years old…”

But the work had to get done…today. What am I going to do, let my wife and kids do it???

So, I pressed on.

My son and daughter did too. They were real troopers.

About 5:00, after we had hauled all of the furniture that won’t fit in the smaller apartment to the storage facility, my son received a phone call…(him and that dang phone!)

It was the guy at Drexel who was going to pick him up from the airport. But he thought that Big A flew in tomorrow.

“What is their problem. I sent them your itinerary. You are flying in on Tuesday!”

When we got back to our old apartment to finish up the last load, my son check his itinerary on his computer.

“Dad, I fly out tomorrow.”

“WHAT???”

“I fly out tomorrow.”

I was stunned. For the next 15 minutes, I walked around slack jawed, shaking my head in disbelief…

“How can that be? We planned it all out!”

Eventually, disbelief faded to a begrudging acceptance.

It was then that I began to grasp the repercussions of my miscue…

I have to finish the appeal letter before I go to work tomorrow morning!!!

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They want us to come over?

Posted on 05/31/2009 by RLW3

I just woke up…

I am unable to describe how tired I am. Words fail me.

And I have another day full of stairs and boxes and furniture ahead of me!

If you read my last post, you know how tired I was at 8:00 last night.

I wrote that post after sending my youngest daughter off to a birthday/pool party. My son wanted to go to youth group so I asked him to drop her off on his way there and pick her up on the way home. I also told him to have a good time, meaning don’t rush home. I wanted Cakes to have a good time.

My phone rang at 10:05. It was my son…

“Dad, after youth group, I texted Sam to see if he wanted to go out for a burger. He said no because he was at his graduation party.”

Sam’s parents are some of our best friends from the wrestling team. They had invited us over two weeks ago and I completely forgot!

“You’re kidding me! I didn’t even think of it. Shoot. I am so sorry!”

“They want you and Mom to come over.”

“It’s after 10:00!”

“I told them that and they said that they still want you to come over.”

So, I hopped into the shower, well…actually, stumbled and fell is probably more accurate and arrived at the party at 10:35!

I want my mommy!

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