I love these feet....

Don't you just love these feet? You can look at them and almost know they belong to a 5 year old who has just had a great day. I love these feet because they are attached to a little boy who stole my heart 5 years ago and hasn't let go yet. These feet love to walk through water, sand, climb on rocks, look for bugs, and worms and turtles and lightening bugs. And, as on this day spent fishing and crabbing and walking and talking with his buddy Herman.
Occasionally they even serve as brakes when he forgets he's not wearing tennis shoes while riding his bike and needs to slow down quickly.
They walk with me at night and we look at the sky and track the moon and try to be the first one to find a star even though we both get to make a wish.
Yes, I love these feet.

Mandatory Company Meeting....

Tomorrow morning we have a mandatory company meeting. We don't have these with any regularity. Usually after someone does something illegal, immoral or just plain stupid, then we call everybody together and say....oh by the way don't do that again.
The agenda for the meeting is accidents or injuries on the job: if you get hurt, stop what you're doing and call the office and get to an emergency room or Patient First so you can be checked out and file workman's comp if necessary. Don't try to work through it cause you're a tough guy and wait til the end of the day to call us and say by the way I hurt my back today. Next on the hit parade: accidents in a company vehicle. This one you would think goes without saying, but if you are involved in any type of accident while driving a company vehicle, stop what you're doing and call the office. If anyone is injured make sure they are attended to and on and on. Of course, if you are currently on probation and are not legally eligible to be driving anyway and you hit a parked car and then leave the scene of said accident, that's ok, we'll cover your ass and pay extra to make sure that no one knows it was you behind the wheel and not your partner. And, we'll even lie to the other vehicle owner and tell them that yes you did leave them a note on their old non-licensed van and it must have blown away.
So they are the main topics of our meeting tomorrow. I do love these boys. Never a dull moment.

Happy Accidents....

Spotting a deer - after he's already spotted us - running through my suburban townhouse community. Watching bats dance around at dusk coming close, but not too close. Taking a walk and finding a live snail who actually comes out of his shell to try to get away. And, on that same walk find a turtle wandering around. We take him back to the house for a little photo session. Jacob thinks I'm keeping this turtle forever as a new pet. I'm sorry Jacob, he was just another one of our happy accidents.

Good Bye Erma....

This is Erma.

One Saturday morning 16 years ago my daughter said
"we have to go today. We have to go to the pound today because Erma will be there." Who is Erma and how do you know she will be there today, I asked. She had a vision, a dream that night that Erma (an already namedblack and white kitten) would be at the SPCA that morning waiting for us. So, I said OK and we took off for the SPCA. There were so many kittens I remember. Gray ones, orange ones, striped ones. But only one black and white one. My daughter immediately went to her cage and said Hi Erma, you're coming home with us. I thought we should at least look at all the kittens, but it didn't matter how many we saw, Erma was coming home with us.

And, with us or at least me, is where she's been since that day. She had a long happy life and I know she's ready for a well deserved rest. Remember - All Dogs (and Cats) Go to Heaven.

Goodbye Erma...rest in peace. We love you.

Dinner - a la Rachel Ray

Tonight I tried a recipe I saw Rachel Ray make one night last week on her 30 minute meal show. I don't usually try them, but this one seemed like a no brainer to me.
In a big saute' pan heat olive oil and garlic. In another pot you're boiling water for pasta. Baby spinach goes into the garlic/oil,til it all wilts followed by your pasta of choice. Toss that together along with 4 or 6 oz of Asiago cheese. If it's not cheesy enough for you throw on some Parmesean. Toss in about a dozen cherry tomatoes cut in half. Mix it all up and yum yum.
It was delicious.

Now, the other part of my day. Got home, no TV. Can't freaking believe it. So, I'm thinking did you pay the bill fool? Well, yes I did. Never as much as they want and never when they want it, but yes. So, I called Comcast and said my TV's cable is not working. I have an appointment on Wed between 2 and 5. Wish I could fix it myself. Now I'm going to miss The Closer tonight. That really sucks. This has been a great season.

Lewis Ginter..

This afternoon I went to Lewis Ginter Botantical Gardens with my sister-in-law. I hadn't been in a while and they had recently planted a new rose garden with hundreds of varieties of roses. One of the donors of the rose gardens is an artist and some of her work was hung in the library.

The rose garden was beautiful and there are still so many things in bloom. This is where I take most of my photographs of flowers. In Spring I think the tulips are my favorite, then the peonies bloom and they are my favorite, and then the hydrangeas. You see where this is going, right? I just love them. And, they have a terrific Children's Garden with a huge treehouse and sprinklers on hot days.

I really love the garden during the Holidays with the million lights. That may be my very favorite.

Take a peek at lewisginter.org. It's worth the trip.

Birthdays...

I called my daughter-in-law on Sept. 1 to wish her Happy Birthday. I didn't get to talk with her, so I just left a message. On Sept. 2 she called me back to thank me and let me know that her birthday is Sept. 3, but she appreciated the thought anyway. I have such a hard time remembering the date, I can usually hit on the correct month, but then I'm lost. The good news is that last year when I sent her card late it actually arrived right on time. Life is good.

Forgiveness....

Years ago I taught a Sunday School class of 6 and 7 year olds. My daughter was in the class, but I don't know if she even remembers it. One Sunday morning the topic of the class was "forgiveness", especially God's forgiveness. I opened the class with the question
"who knows what to forgive means" . One little boy raised his hand and said "it means letting go". It almost brought tears to my eyes that morning as it does now just remembering it. After church that day I found his mother and told her what he had said in class. She just smiled and nodded her head and told me he had been in therapy for several years because he had been sexually molested by his grandfather and he was working on forgiving. The mom of course was having a harder time forgiving than the little boy.

red sunflower

Working Girl.....Again

I know it's been quite a while since my last posting, but I'm happy to say that I am indeed working full time and have been at my current job for about 16 months now. I'm working for a heating and air conditioning contractor as a dispatcher. It is a busy little office - family owned and operated. The owners are a man my age and his son-in-law, in his early 30's. The younger one, we'll call him AJ for short, has the master's license and Tim, the older one has the business savvy. Gina and I are the driving force of the company and keep the wheels turning.

Family owned companies are great and I admire anyone who puts their heart and soul as well as their financial well being on the line to make it work. It's also not a democracy with a private company like this one and sometimes venting about management is...well next to impossible, cause who you gonna tell? I know who signs my paycheck every week. And, now the wife of the young one has started to work with us because she got angry at her job and gave her notice before she had another job to go to. We were told it's a temporary placement for her, but I haven't seen her leave for any interviews yet.

Anyway, enough about the job. It's good to be back.