A Great Weekend!

What a fun weekend it has been!

Friday started out just like any other weekend starting day for a third shifter, with a nice three hour nap.  I was hoping to have the opportunity after the nap to get over to my Grandma's house and mow her lawn, which is getting to be quite long.  Unfortunately the weather was not being at all cooperative.  After raining for most of the day, the high temperature soared into the low forties with lovely gusts of wind that would have made it very uncomfortable to mow, if the mower would have even started due to the cold.  Not to mention that if it had started, I would have had to stop after every two swipes to clear the blades of the wet clumping grass that would have bogged down the whole works.  Not my idea of fun, if you ask me.

Deciding to postpone that chore, I opted instead to go out with my family for dinner.  We all agreed on heading to Ponderosa over in Beaver Dam.  Upon arrival there we found that the joint was packed, which means fresher food at the buffet!  Not only was it fresher, but I think the crew was having a good night as well.  I say this because the service was a lit better than normal and the kitchen was turning out food that was beyond what we are used to when we go there.  Needless to say, we all ate too much.  We did not allow that to end the evening though.

Knowing that Melissa didn't have a dress that she wanted to wear the following day to a wedding meant that we drove over to Walmart to find her a dress.  While there she found three beautiful skirts and a nice top that looked amazing on her!  Making me smile even more was the realization that three of the four articles of clothing were either on sale or being clearanced out.  We then decided to take her new outfits and head home to get ready for...

Saturday!  Melissa's good friend Erica Creswell was scheduled to take the hand of Daron Young in holy matrimony.  We arrived at the church about 20 minutes early and saw through the glass doors that the flower girl, who's name we would come to find is Trinity, was sitting in the commons area bored out of her mind.  Then it seemed something magical happened!  She saw our son, Tommy, and quickly jumped out of her seat and rushed over to Tommy.  Standing in front of each other they just stopped and stared at one another, and there was a spark of something!  Well, I'll come back to that in a little bit.

The ceremony was absolutely wonderful.  The church set a beautiful scene for a beautiful bride, vows were said and smiling tears flowed.

Later at the reception, it would seem that the spark between Tommy and Trinity was kindled.  The two started out playing and running around the reception hall.  The the DJ started his music and they began dancing!  They danced straight for about a half-hour and then collapsed, exhausted next to the dance floor.  I realized as they lay next to the dance floor that they were holding hands!  The cutest thing I have seen in my life!  Soon Tommy was beginning to wind down, and he asked if he could go over to his Grannie's house. 

After dropping off the tired dancing fool with my mother, Melissa and I decide to head over to another friend's birthday party at the bowling alley.  It was a nice visit that I realized has been way too long coming.  We need to get together with these friends much more often.  After watching her bowl, we all headed into the bar that was attached and did some karaoke.  It was a good time catching up with good friends!

Now I'm sitting here looking back on the weekend wishing that it didn't have to end.  Maybe I'll call up my boss and see if he'll pay me to just have fun with family and friends for the next few weeks!  Think it'll work?

Sometimes its a bit difficult...

Recently I receive a message on Facebook from very good friend of mine.  In the last few months he's been going through some difficult times.  Knowing his situation I have tried my best to keep in contact with him, which has proved difficult.

We are separated by a couple of counties, so just popping over to say "Hi," isn't exactly easy.  Granted when I was single I  didn't have any difficulty making the journey, but being married and having a family makes planning for such an outing much more difficult.  Not that I'm trying to make excuses for not going to see a very dear friend, but its difficult.

I've tried calling him a few times as well.  The problem there is my work schedule.  Working third shift makes it difficult to call someone who works day shifts.  Knowing that when we do finally get into contact on the phone that we tend to talk for a good long time also leads to not dropping a line at the drop of a hat.  There's so much to do that I don't often have time to spend talking for twenty minutes to an hour on the phone.  Again with the excuses.

As I said before, I just received a message from my friend after a lengthy period of not talking to him.  The message read, "Sorry I have been a shitty friend lately."  I don't think that his stance on this is warranted.  If anything, I'm the one who has been a shitty friend.

I know that he is going through a life changing situation, whether its for worse or for better is something for him to decide, but I don't feel that I have made a good enough effort to contact and support one of my best friends in the world.  After all, if he is the one who is going through difficult times, he's also got to deal with all the emotional stress, negative feelings, heartache and depression that goes along with all he and his family have been through.

And I haven't been there for him.

To my friend, I am truly sorry.  You are a great man and a great friend.  Please know that I have been praying for you and your family to find peace within your hearts.  I know that this is a hard time to go through, and I'm going to tell you something you taught me a few years ago; even when it doesn't feel like it, God is always there for you.  Even if you're mad at life, or mad at Him, He's always there for you, no matter what.

Tommy's Birthday

This past week has been an exciting one, especially for my son, Tommy.  On Thursday, we got the chance to celebrate a milestone for the little guy.  The milestone--his fifth birthday!

Where has the time gone?  Seems like just yesterday... I know they sound like clichés, but the clichés hold some meaning.  I don't know where the time has gone, and it does seem like only yesterday when he came into this world!  It's weird because it does seem like just yesterday, but it also feels like a lifetime.  Though I guess it has been a lifetime, his lifetime!

On Thursday we kicked off the festivities by sending him to school with a bowl of hand decorated sugar cookies.  Melissa and Tommy did a wonderful job of placing Bat-Symbols on the cookies.

After school was done, we had invited all of his classmates to the McDonald's in Sun Prairie where they have a very large Playland.  Out of the twelve other kids in his class, six were able to show up.  I thought it was a wonderful turnout!  They all had a blast running around the Playland and eating birthday cake, and even though we weren't intending on hos classmates bringing him gifts, he made quite the haul!

The following day, Friday, we has plans to take him up to Knuckleheads Entertainment Center in the Wisconsin Dells.  Plans got off to a rocky start when I received a bee sting right as we were about to leave.  Luckily my father was nearby so he was able to give me a ride to the hospital as I'm allergic to bee venom.  After about an hour long treatment in the E.R. they released me to "Take it easy."  I couldn't let this destroy the plans we had made, so I soldiered up and pushed on.  We went to Knuckleheads and had a wonderful time!  They had all sorts of rides, games, bounce-houses, and playplaces for Tommy to completely wear himself out on!  They even had a few rides and attractions for the whole family, including a high-ropes course for Melissa and go-carts for me.  We even went on some of the indoor rollercoasters.  It was a ton of fun!

All in all I do believe that Tommy had a wonderful weekend for his birthday!  I know that his mother and I had a great time watching him smile and laugh and play throughout the festivities.  Even with my slight health scare, it was a good weekend.  I am happy to report that I'm feeling much better since my bee sting but I hope that I don't have to go through that again.  I hate to say it but I did enter a panicked state, but thankfully I'm all better now.

Catching up.

It has been a long time since I've posted anything here, and I do apologize for that, but life has been very busy.  Sometimes I wonder where all the time has gone.  Tommy is getting so big, and turning five next week.  As a family we have moved to Columbus, Wisconsin into a wonderful downtown apartment.  We've made some new friends and have become part of a new community.  All in all, the journey has been a good one.

Over Christmas we took a trip to Tennessee to spend the holiday with Melissa's mother.  We had a wonderful time while we were there, but we did have some problems on the trip back.  Halfway through Indiana, the engine on my 2003 Ford Focus decided to die. It was very disheartening, especially since we had spent close to $1,500 getting it ready for the trip.  We put a new motor mount, EGR valve, and new tires on the vehicle just to have the engine rod blow out.  This pretty much spelled an end for my Focus that I drove for eight years.  Man, I loved that car!

Leaving us in need of new wheels, I decided to purchase a new used car from a dealer in Rennsaelear, Indiana, because he was willing to take my Focus in on trade.  We ended up purchasing a 2001 Kia Optima with a 24,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty.  Thus far, it has proved to be a good car, and has a sun-roof, which is a new and much appreciated feature to me!

I do hope to find the time to publish a bit more here later, however I do need to get some sleep in before I head off to work tonight.  Until next time...

Tommy's hopefully on the road to feeling better...

For the past day and a half, my son, Tommy hasn't been feeling well.  Monday night we drove to Windsor to watch some of the Monday Night game with Melissa's step-mom, Lisa.  Tommy was happy as a clam to play with James, who is Lisa's fiance's grandson.  They are around the same age and always have a good time together.  After we left and went home, we were just about ready to put him down to bed, when Tommy threw up all over the garage floor.  We took him down to his room and quickly changed him and he threw up again!  Then we started noticing a fever come on.  We gave him some tylenol and he wanted to go to bed, so we laid him down around 2:30 after his vomiting calmed down, though he still had a fever of 100.5. 

About 4:45, Melissa woke up to him whining, "Help."  We rushed into his room to find that he threw up again, and he had a fever up to 103.6.  We decided that we should take him to the emergency room.  They gave him some stuff for the nausea in a dissolving pill.  It worked pretty quick!  As soon as the nausea was gone he seemed very happy, and by that time, the second does of tylenol we gave him brought the fever down to 100, so we got to leave the ER right around 6:45.

Tommy then fell asleep in the car and didn't wake up until we got home after going to Walgreen's to fill the prescription the doctor gave us for his nausea.  He woke up when we got home and didn't want to go to bed because it was quarter to eight and it was light out.  So he played in the living room with his Fisher Price castle and Playskool zoo train.  He still wasn't feeling 100% and couldn't shake the fever.  But we were all tired and he asked to go to bed around 11:00 in the morning.

Melissa then didn't wake me up until about 7:40 in the evening.  As I was getting ready for work, she informed me of how he was through the rest of the day, he still couldn't break the fever.  Around 9:00 I was beginning to pull my boots on for work when Melissa took Tommy's temperature again.  104.6!  I called work and told them that I wouldn't be coming in tonight and explained why.  My supervisor told me to take him in to the ER right away.  Before taking him in, Melissa and I ran a quick bathtub of cool water.  When we put him in, he sat down and it looked like he was starting to feel better.  He began splashing the water and he liked the way it cooled him down. 

When we took him out of the tub and dried him off, we took his temp and it was down to 102.  Again at about 11:30 it was at 101.5.  He kept saying that he was thirsty, so Melissa sent me to the store for some pedialyte for him.  When I saw they were out of the flavored stuff and they only had regular, I knew he wouldn't drink it, so I got him some gatorade and we watered it down.  Another temp check showed him at 99.9 at about 12:45.  He didn't want to go to bed however, but he was perfectly happy to sit and watch me play Mario 64.  Around 2:30 am he started getting tired, so I gave him one more of the nausea pills and some more tylenol and he quickly laid down for night night.  I'm really praying that this is all over and that he'll sleep in really late in the morning and let his body recover, but I'm pretty sure that the fever has broken! 

I plan on staying up for the whole night/morning (whatever you want to call this) and maybe even in to the after noon and let Melissa sleep as much as she can.  She has been so great through this whole ordeal and taken wonderful care of Tommy.  I'm so blessed that I have both of them in my life!

Turning around.

Lately I have felt that I am personally in a slump.  I don't know why exactly that I feel this way, I just haven't felt like myself.  I've been kinda depressed and mopey and I know that it has been concerning my wife.  However, I think that I had a bit of a breakthrough last night.  We had a rehearsal for Sunday worship with TuEternity.  Usually, this rehearsal time is a relaxing/stress relieving time for me, though for some reason, last night seemed different.  I came away from rehearsal very tense and high strung.  To me it felt like people in the band were merely arguing for arguing's sake.  Unfortunately I know that I did my part to contribute to these arguments.  Last evening found us doing song that we are not used to doing with the musicians that we had on and I was a bit snippy if we did a part of a song incorrectly, but that is beside the point.  As I went to work later that evening, I thought long and hard about the way rehearsal went as well as where my life has been going and what I am doing with it.  Repentance is the beginning of the road for me.  I know that I can't be perfect, but I know that I have to try.  I need to turn away from any sinful and/or lustful thoughts that I have; I need to work hard to control my anger over the little things in life, they're not worthy of causing that rift in the relationship that I have with Jesus.  One of the big ones that I have to work on is loving my enemies.  How does that work?  You mean Jesus, that I have to care for the people in my life that make me so angry and so livid that I just want to scream?  I think that is exactly what I need to do.  Again, I know that I can't be perfect, but I think that taking that first step is so important.  Last night while at work, the opportunity came out of nowhere for me to minister to a coworker who I otherwise would have called a mean name and walked away, instead I chose to speak God's word.  The timing was not right for him, so he turned and walked away.  However, hearing God's word come out of my mouth in the situation strengthened my heart and helped my floundering spirit turn around.  I pray that I have the will power to continue my repentance, though again, I know I'm not perfect, but God's love for me is.  Hopefully if you are reading this, it makes some sort of sense to you what I'm saying.  For me it is kinda just coming straight out of my head without any sort of filter or grammar check, just a veritable free flowing thought pattern.  Thank you for allowing me to vent my thoughts about where my spiritual journey is at in my life right now.

TIMBER!

Last night Melissa and I had a date night.  We left to go to karaoke like we normally do, but we made a stop out in DeForest first to hit up a restaurant that we heard about called Timber's.  We went there because we heard that they have an "All You Can Eat Chicken Wing" special on Wednesday night that was pretty affordable.  It actually turned out to be a really good deal!  It's true, "All you can eat chicken wings" for just $5.95!  Typically at that price one would think that they wouldn't be all that great, but I thought that they were awesome!  I ended up throwing my diet out the window into the middle of a hurricane telling it to go fend for itself!  I do think that I over-indulged on the deep-fried goodness, but I'll jump right back on my diet bandwagon today.  I definitely got my chicken wing fix for a little while!  Keep it in mind though for your next evening outing, Timber's in DeForest on Wednesday nights!  Awesome!