Oh hey - I almost didn't see you there.

I'm perfectly aware that no one reads this blog anymore. Why would they? I haven't updated it in 3 years...

I logged in today to try to narrow down some dates from the past to help Sean figure out when we last saw the neuro-surgeon. While doing that I re-read a few of my old posts.

As I looked through I was struck by how those thoughts and feelings came rushing back and I found myself living those moments again: Would Sean be okay, and what would we do if he wasn't? Was my Jordan really on the road to marriage and what would it be like to blend our family with Jessica's? How would Carter and Anna do? Would they survive the crucible of such an early thrust into marriage and family? What would life be like in 1 year, in 2, in 5?

There have been many joys and pains along the way, and life has shifted and changed so much more than I could have predicted, but at the same time, the deep foundations are still strong and weathering things quite well.

I love my life, and I love you.

repectfully,
- jake

Write or Die, or in other words, Time to write

My first dive into Write or Die. Trying to see if this can be the motivator that I need in order to write as much as I really would like to. Back in September I committed to try and blog every day. I think I was able to complete a full two blog entries during the entire month. (I double checked, and I wrote 0 blog entries in September or October - 0... crap.)

In fairness, e.g. the excuse du jour, this was largely due to the fact that we had some interesting family things come up. Here we are two months later, and I have another daughter in law, and another grandchild on the way. Very exciting stuff - but to get ready for that involved changing our living areas to physically enclose an additional bedroom in our house.

This included building a wall, electrical work, hanging drywall, doing mud and tape - including learning how to mud and tape corners (both inside and outside - and who knew that corners can also mean where walls meet ceilings - not me that's who) and sanding, followed by painting with the associated taping, drop cloths, color selections and the like, together with all of the cleanup, and lastly the installation of all of the trim which required borrowing tools, ensuring proper cuts of the board and getting it all thrown together. This whole project running concurrently with getting everything else that we needed to get done for the wedding done. It was great fun, and we're all certainly glad that it's finally over. Phew.

Now we're looking Christmas time squarely in the face. More checklists and to - dos to get everything done and ready for that. Including getting things sent early enough to the missionary son in California that he can participate in some of the fun Christmas traditions that the Roseville mission has as part of it's history. Last night whilst keeping abreast of all of the trick or treaters that were visiting with great regularity, La Reine and I successfully selected a large number of family pictures, loaded them on a digital picture frame, wrapped it up in pretty Christmas paper, and got it ready to be shipped. We're going to be shipping that today with some hand written letters, and at the same time I'll be shipping a few other things that he's wanted, though they'll be going in a separate package so that he can get them sooner than Christmas.

I'm also doing this on Write or Die so that I can be challenged to actually write a set length entry in a ridiculously small amount of time - and lo and behold, I didn't make it. But I got close - 435 words in the 10 minutes I gave myself - but my goal was 500 words. Oh well.

Back to the interesting dialogue. I am excited about some of the other fun things we've got coming up in the next couple of months as we roll full steam into the holidays. Christmas music, family time, anniversary to plan, Christmas shopping and the like.

That's it for today I think - but I'm going to come back again tomorrow to see if I can get those 500 words in 10 minutes and we'll see what happens. Wish me luck.

Respectfully,

- jake