Cari

I’ve had some recent meet ups with a friend who’s writing a book where we share some stories about our lives but also our past.

And from those conversations it’s become very apparent that I rarely give myself the opportunity to grieve.

She’s been gone for so long now but she’s still always with us.

I think about her always, wish I dreamt about her more (I do still have dreams, thankfully), and continually make her apart of our lives even though its been so long.

And now that I have a recent graduate in the house, who is literally 1 month away from heading to college, the fact that she’s an adult and soon to be on her way is looming heavily.

I’ve been asked on multiple occasions how I’m feeling about her leaving and every time I say something like I’m good, she’s ready to go. I just don’t think I even let myself think much about it, yet

And because of those recent meetups I decided to go and read some of my old posts … tearjerker’s for sure.

All those little memories that I decided to write down. Omg, priceless.

Early milestones, activities, relationships, holidays, challenges … all those things that seemed important or worthy of a post or two … I couldn’t be more thankful that I took the time to write things down.

She just graduated, we’re actively planning her graduation party and getting ready for her to head off, this enormous milestone is such an accomplishment and I’m beyond proud of everything she has done and become. I’m excited to see her take this next step and how in so many ways she is just like Cari but me as well (hopefully the good parts of both).

He’s not far behind and before I know it I’ll have an empty house. That’s crazy!

But with her graduation we planned and executed a successful European Vacation to Italy, Paris & Ireland. Their feedback on the trip was nothing less than amazing. And for me it was such a joy to spend time with these two teenagers. I’m certainly enjoying this phase of our lives together 🙂

My body hates me today.

He and I golfed 45 holes over the weekend. The most I’ve probably ever golfed in such a short period of time. And he’s loving it! It only took 16 years to get to this point.

Besides golf I also finished painting another room at the lake. Got the boat out of the garage and covered. Took a satellite dish off the house cooked and cleaned and barely sat down. To say I’m exhausted is an understatement. I don’t think my body knows how to handle all that.

She’s getting ready for college. She’s ready to go. I am excited for her. But also nervous and certainly not entirely ready to accept the reality that she’ll be on her way soon. Hard to believe she’s 18 already!

Softball is coming to an end. Senior day. Pink out. And just another week and that’s a wrap 🙁 But on to new and more exciting adventures I can guarantee!

He’s got 7v7 football going on. He’s loving golf. He can almost, but not quite, drive the ball as far as me. I’m driving the ball better than I ever have. We started going to the cog hill driving range in the fall and continue to go on a regular basis. I’m even there a bunch on my own. I’m loving it too.

A neighbor of ours just listed their probably 800k house for 1.1mil and got an offer in days, WTH? Should we list ours? Even if we got a bunch of $$ though it’s gonna be expensive to find something else. I think I would really like to buy something at SC where she’s going to school. Something I can use, but something she can also live in, in a few years, and maybe something we can rent out to friends and family who visit… But again, $$$$

GS has fallen quite a number of times in the past couple years and even more lately 🙁 It’s heartbreaking. Getting old is no fun. But it’s still nice to talk to her. Even yesterday we called and while she’s not feeling perfect she’s still laughing and enjoying the conversation … I’ve always enjoyed her sense of humor, the same sense of humor Cari had 🙂

What else???

Oh, we’ve got that vacation planned so that should be an amazing experience they’ll never ever ever forgot. I can’t wait to write about that.

We now have 3 cars in the driveway. Her jeep patriot, his hyundai santa fe, and my explorer. His cost $2500, a really good deal, even though we had to put another $1k into it … windshield, starter, leaking gaskets, loose tie rods … thanks uncle J! But it’s a pretty solid little car, especially for the cost. Hers, I think we might sell when she goes off to college, just so it’s not sitting in the driveway. Maybe we’ll talk this through on our 12-14 hr drive all the way down to UofSC to move her in in August… Yikes

I wondered if I did easter baskets last year, hmmm. I think I might have. But I didn’t this year. Should I have? Maybe. Does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Probably not, idk.

And lastly … this one is tragic and just weighing on my shoulders a bit. This past Friday a horrific accident occurred at the main intersection adjacent to the school. It’s a busy intersection during school, especially. I actually drove through it about 1.5 hours earlier. A car went through the red, into crossing traffic, and not everyone survived 🙁 The loss gives me the opportunity to remind these kids how important it is to be attentive to everything around them while driving. But then there’s the online community of people behind their phone speaking their mind, sharing their opinions, spreading truths and fabrications … and then there are the virtual prayers which do absolutely nothing for no one, nothing! Nothing! Nothing at all! Instead of making a difference, creating change, improving dangerous situations, giving back, or the multitude of other things they might do, they offer virtual prayers instead … oh, it really doesn’t bother me that much, truly, but I do wish they could expend their energies with something other than that. Or maybe I just need to stay off the social and do something better with my time …

Speaking of that, I am trying to line up some work with the boy scout troop to assist an elderly couple across from us. I really hope this works out … gives the boys a chance to help out a family with some needs, but also get in some service hours, learn a little something new, and check off some merit badge requirements.

Yesterday I asked him to help me change the faucet on a pedestal sink.

It’s not a simple task but not incredibly difficult either.

I didn’t make him to do it without my help but I had him try, struggle, and we switched up taking turns struggling with the small space and tight fittings.

The cold water side has been turned off for a while because it constantly dripped. So we got by with only the hot water for months if not a year+. It was manageable but eventually I found the time to search for a similar model and it arrived this week.

He couldn’t understand why we bothered replacing it since at least one side of the faucet worked. I think that was his attempt at getting out of the project.

Still, we replaced it and even though he didn’t do it all himself at least he learned something he can hopefully utilize at some point later in life.

It makes me wonder how many parents would have actually done this with their teenager. Probably not many …

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This week he mentioned to me how his friend group has grown smaller over recent months and how things were sometimes boring when they hung out.

We talked about how friend groups change and what other things they might do to make hanging out more fun.

We also talked about how he’s at a school with 1000 kids in his grade alone and how there are probably dozens of groups just like his, dozens of others that are larger, dozens smaller … all with kids probably in similar situations. We talked about what other kids he talks to at school but doesn’t hang out with. We talked about how it’s okay to ask one or more other kids to come join their group. How you never know if that kid has a friend group, is looking for a different friend group, or is just interested in hanging out with anyone. How you probably never know if the kid you talk to every day even has a friend group or what their situation is outside of school.

Most times my kids don’t listen to the things I say. I know this because more often than not they say, you never said that, or literally make me repeat whatever I just said, or ask me a question I just answered. To be fair though I do the same when they talk to me.

Then tonight I asked who’s over. Our house is usually where they hang out. He names some of the usual plus one more. Someone who has probably never been here before or at least for a very long time. Maybe he actually listened to me this time.

Today was a tough

We laid to rest my daughter’s best friend’s mom

Ellie probably spends more time at their house than ours, or at least pretty close

They opened their doors to her and considered her family, her 2nd family

She would sleep over there, play games with the family, spend time at the grandparents, go out to dinner and on the night before she passed Ellie and the family fell asleep on the couch watching their moms favorite movie

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This loss is tough for me, yes, a bit because of Cari but really that’s not the main reason. Still, these past two days especially brought back a lot

This loss is tough for me because of how close Ellie was to this family

This loss is tough for me because it’s a mom

This loss is tough for me because I can relate to the dad

This loss is tough for me because it highlights our own longevity and that death is a certainty for all of us and how we just never know when it will happen

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I wasn’t planning to spend the entire day at the wake, but I did, except when I left to grab some food which also turned into a short nap (we drove 4+ hours from a softball tournament in the morning)

After the funeral service at the church, I wasn’t planning to go to the burial, but I did. I wasn’t planning to go to the luncheon either, but I did.

Her dad stopped me on the way out of the church and asked me to come. I certainly wasn’t going to say no. I’m glad I went. I’m glad I went for me and for him and for Ellie.

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I sat next to her dad at the luncheon, not necessarily on purpose, that’s just what happened. We talked quite a bit. I listened, mostly, but opened up about some of own experiences.

I imagine there will be more of these conversations. For him, but also for me

There’s just something about this one, it hits really close to home

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A butterfly landed near us at the burial.

A song was played at the cardinals game Friday.

There are so many things that happen with death, it can’t just be a coincidence.

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Besides that, we wrapped up another weekend of softball, this time in a very hot and humid St. Louis. I sent Carson off to WV to go white water rafting on the New River (I’m slightly jealous). She leaves for a youth group camp next Tuesday after one more tournament. Then a week+ at the lake. And shortly after that football starts and then school and summer’s almost over.

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We visited the University of Iowa and University of Wisconsin Madison recently. I’m not sure what’s up next but college is approaching fast!

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Our garden is growing. We produced over 100 white round potatoes already. We’re also growing a variety of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, 2 varieties of lettuce, jalapenos, banana peppers, garlic, onion, cilantro, pea pods, green beans, dill, basil and I think we have a random pumpkin out there too.

Unfortunately we’ve had a lot of rain lately so I’m not sure how much we’ll yield this year, especially the cucumbers and zucchini.

I covered the ground with mulch this year and fed the new plants some bone/blood meal. The mulch does help with the weeds. The mosquitos are awful. The rain, however, has been either too much or too little and the heat/humidity is sometimes unbearable. Last year was too wet. So we’ll see. I also have a rabbit that keeps getting in. I thought I got it out but just today I saw it again 🙁

Until next time …

A lot of months have passed by since my last post.

He turned 15 and she’s 17.

He has his driving permit and she’s focusing in on her college choices.

He played football in the fall, wrestled in the winter and is trying out for volleyball shortly. He played WR and KR/PR for most of the season on the Freshman B team, seeing it was his first season playing. It was a really good place for him as he saw a lot of time on the field and is very excited for next year. Wrestling was a first for him too. And although his team was filled with a lot of experienced kids he still went out and worked hard all season, picking up a few wins.

She’s playing softball year round and is currently on a travel team with a few of her HS teammates. HS tryouts is happening next week. She found a new pitching coach recently and her improvement was quick and noticeable. I’m looking forward to the upcoming season 🙂

Over christmas break we went skiing and snowboarding in Telluride. The views were amazing. Pricey for sure but an awesome experience. It was their first trip out west and she expressed interest in going out that way again. She skied the whole time. He snowboarded and skied but his foot was bothering him so he skipped a day while the rest of us went 4 straight days (next time we need a rest day for sure). I twisted my knee on day one but wrapped it and kept on going. It still hurts. I need to head to the doctor soon.

He took aviation in the fall but moved onto small motors in the spring. I think he enjoys the latter more.

She’s in a bunch of AP and advanced classes, well beyond much of anything I can help with. She’s doing really good in school despite balancing sports, work, friends and everything in between.

This past weekend we went to Chestnut for a day. She tried snowboarding but switched back to skis after a couple runs. It’s not an easy sport to pick up. Plus the snow wasn’t great.

While we were away for the weekend he stayed with his cousins and is pretty sure they got him sick, although he doesn’t seem so bad today. Me on the other hand, I spent most of the weekend clearing leaves at the lake house that we didn’t get out there to deal with in the fall, big mistake. I also patched a bunch of drywall and started prepping to paint the interior. I’m actually hoping to paint both the inside and outside this year (we’ll see). The ceilings in the house are crazy high so I’ll need scaffolding to get into some of those areas.

Work is, well I’d rather be working part time again instead. The pay is better and guaranteed but somehow I seem to still work paycheck to paycheck. Maybe these kids have just gotten really expensive. I’m thankful for the job though as it allows us to do just about anything. Hopefully another few months or so and I’ll feel more financially sound.

In the meantime I’m trying to get him through scouting. It’s a challenge. He’s not super motivated but we talk often about advancing. This Sunday he meets to wrap up an Eagle scout merit badge which will finish Star rank for him. Then he just needs to get some more Eagle scout merit badges (it seriously isn’t that much work). I’m hoping he completes it.

Until next time …