The Holidays

Alan, Josh, Chris, me, Melissa (Josh' wife) and Katie (Chris' wife)

I hope everyone had a good holiday. I did -- but now I need to rest up. We spent a quiet day with friends for dinner. Our son came in early morning on Thursday and we went to Atlanta to pick him up. It was nice having a few days for just the three of us.





On Saturday, we huddled around the television set to watch UGA play Georgia Tech. For the first time in seven years, Georgia Tech beat Georgia. Since GT is Alan's Alma mater -- he was extremely happy. It was finally his year to gloat -- he certainly had to wait a long time.





On Saturday night Alan and I went to a "come see Josh" party. The photo above was taken there. If you have been following my blog, there are two young gentlemen that used to work for me that I continue to follow through their life's journeys. They are both a year older than Alan and when Alan went away to college, these two young men, Chris and Josh worked in the box office of the theatre that I was managing. They had many friends in common and they kind of became my "surrogate sons" for lack of a better word. I'm not sure they would agree that that is the proper word, but it works for me! Since that time Alan, Josh and Chris have all gotten married in the last year or so. Chris now lives in Ft. Lauderdale with his new wife Katie and he is going to medical school. Josh was home for some R&R as he has been deployed in Afghanistan. His wife Melissa just bought a new house and we went to see him and to see the new house on Saturday night. It is not often we can get together with everyone spread all over the world. Josh returns to Afghanistan in a week or so and will be finished with his deployment in July. These young men have been extremely kind to me over the years and are great about keeping in touch. I only wish the best for them. Since Chris and Josh are both huge Georgia fans, the defeat to Georgia Tech was a little more than they could handle.





Now Alan has returned to Washington DC and I need some rest.

I know, I know -- I have not been blogging in awhile. There's no excuse. I've been lazy.

I spoke last week at an assisted living center in a small town about 30 miles away. It was a very nice setting and those I spoke to seemed to be genuinely interested in what I had to say. They had some good questions and that is always a good thing for me.

My niece back in Illinois had a little baby boy last night. It's her third child and I'm glad she had it now so she can enjoy the holidays. She was three weeks early, but the baby and mom and doing fine. She won't have to go back to work until after Christmas.

I hope everyone enjoys the Thanksgiving holiday. Enjoy your families and the time you have with them!

Memory Walk Update

Well our Memory Walk is over for this year. My team raised over $15,000! The goal for the entire walk was $75,000 and we are short of that but we are expecting some more donations and we'll be close. Thanks Lauren M for your donation through this page!

I woke up on walk morning and it was pouring down rain. That was at 5 a.m. I rushed to the computer to look at the radar and it showed that it was moving out. By about 8:15 the skies were blue and it was windy but no rain. It turned out to be a great day weatherwise. Later in the day the winds kicked up and a cold front moved through but not before the walk was over.

Thanks again to everyone who supported my team!

Memory Walk

Is Saturday. There is still time to donate on line at https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=263086&lis=1&kntae263086=45CDC69FE5EB408ABAB1BC12959A015B&supId=9079347

Thanks for all your support.

Overwhelmed

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. I think what bothers me most is that I shouldn't be overwhelmed. I have a few things that I need to do, but I can't seem to wrap my arms around them and do them. The tasks seem daunting but they are not. In my "old life" I would tackle all of these projects in one day and be done with them. Now it takes me forever to get my thoughts together enough just to post to this blog!

Thanksgiving is in a few weeks. We usually get together with friends at someone's house. I was thinking of being the host this year, but I realized I couldn't do it without help. Alan is flying in from Washington DC on Thanksgiving morning and Ralph will be going to Atlanta to pick him up. That means that no one would be around to help me get everything together for a meal. So, I knew that I couldn't host friends coming over. The realization of that bothers me a lot. I realize that I could have asked some of my friends to come and help me but I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do it myself and I can't. That makes me sad. Of course, one of our friends volunteered to do the hosting and we will all be together on Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for that and for the fact that Alan is going to be here. But it makes me feel inadequate and I don't like that.