Ready to Begin, Again

We meet with a new realtor tonight. She came highly recommended and has more than 25 years' of experience. Let's see what she can do.

Aasland, Minister Of Norway

Okay, this is not really a post about the Minister of Norway (who I actually met when arranging a visit to a U of M research site) but I just wanted to knock 'abortion' off the top of the list on the side of the page!

Giving Thanks

Lulu and I drove to the storage space in NE Mpls yesterday to try to find the boxes with our Christmas gear. We were able to reach two of the three, the third being (of course) on the bottom in the corner under impassable stacks of boxes. Back in February of this year in preparation for house showings and sales, both C2 and I packed up our extras and stripped our houses to the bare bones. The kids helped us transport a U-Haul full of our belongings to a storage space. I remember seeing the Christmas boxes get loaded into the space, and wrestled with the idea that if I mentioned we may need access to it if we don't sell this year, I would jinx our home-selling venture. Well-I shouldn't have worried about jinxing the process. Larger forces are at work jinxing everyone this year.
Which brings me to the things I am both thankful for, and the things that I have yet to understand why I should be thankful.
Thankful-of course, C2. He is my best friend and he makes me laugh and keeps me sane. The other day I used a bit too much olive oil on a piece of chicken I was broiling and black smoke started pouring out of the back of the oven. Flames filled the oven itself-and all I could think about was how hard he worked putting that goddamned white tiled ceiling up (twice) and it would be blackened forever. I called him in a panic-he started telling me how I could fix the chicken so that I could still eat it. Not a word about himself and how the kitchen looked-he was concerned about how I was going to have dinner. That's why I'm thankful and so happy to know C2.
Thankful-my awesome kids. 18 years ago this morning I was dragging Corey along the upper West Side to try to get a glimpse of the parade. He was 7 and I think more amazed and impressed by the thousands of people as opposed to the parade itself. Now he's a wonderful young man-happy and loving with good friends and a kind heart. He is a non-traditional college student-going back after years of being out of school with the intention and drive to accomplish his goals. I am so lucky to know this kid-so lucky to be his mom. Lulu is home with me full time now (Veronica continues on the split custody schedule) and living with her %50 more of the time has made my life so much happier. She's confident and smart, with an extremely dry sense of humor. It hurts, of course, to have to be the only enforcer of rules and dole out the punishment when needed-but it doesn't take much for her to understand the reasoning and to then choose to do the right thing. I love being her mom. Veronica is a dreamer and an artist and is more apt to function on emotional levels than intellectual ones. I see so much of her father reflected in her personality and actions. All I can do is help her to learn to direct some of that energy to productive ends-she needs lots of backrubs and tight hugs to get centered. The full-out tantrums have lessoned over time, but it still feels like she needs more solid grounding if she is to navigate her preteen and teen years successfully. Unfortunately, with her best friends in his neighborhood and a new cat at her dad's house, the chance of her wanting to live with me full-time are slim. So, I do what I can from this end. She is a beautiful girl with lots of talents.
The rest of my family-mom, dad-the brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews-I cherish all of them. It feels good to finally be the stable one after all these years and be able to help or give some emotional support. I'm really lucky to be welcomed into the Avery camp, also-this past summer's trip to Iowa with the kids has prompted C2 and I to include them in the Christmas trip in December. I believe you just can't have enough family around to share your life with and to love your kids. Which leads me to a situation that hurts, still. C2's kids, through a number of unfortunate circumstances, are not part of my life. When C2 and I first started dating, there were attempts to combine the family in outings or movie nights at home, and the results were fair to awkward. And then, on a fateful Father's day in 2007, I laid into Christopher for disrespecting his father. And that, for all practical purposes, was the last time I saw him. A few Saturdays ago C2 planned a huge dinner for me, the girls, his son Jordan, girlfriend Cheri, and the new baby. I have been wanting to see the baby and the girls were very excited, also. We waited for a few hours for Jordan and Cheri but they never showed and never called, and subsequently, never apologized. It makes me really sad, but it's not my place to define C2's relationship with his kids, and I certainly have no right to expect to play a part in his kids' lives. So-we'll see what 2009 brings.
I'm definitely grateful for our new president. The 2008 election actually inspired me to take on a different educational path than what I had originally planned. My emphasis will be on politics, rhetoric, history and popular culture with some media and women's studies thrown in. I am intrigued by the path that an idea takes-from fact to belief or from belief to what some would take for fact, then how it is presented in the media, reflected in popular culture and then becomes a platform upon which whole political or religious campaigns are driven. I am especially fascinated with Thomas Jefferson and his idea of the separation of church and state-especially since he himself was a very spiritual person-he could see the dangers of governing according to religious beliefs. I just finished Martin Luther King's autobiography and I am equally fascinated with how his civil rights movement has paved the way for today's climate of both racial tolerance and intolerance. MLK was not a political leader at all, he was a spiritual leader, but-he based his spirituality and his civil rights movements on intellectual study-not fundamentalism. I believe critical thinking needs to be the basis of any movement. Anyway, can you tell I'm nearing the end of my 12 page proposal that's due Monday? I thought I'd do some writing on here to warm up.
I don't know yet how to be thankful that C2 and I are not where I thought we would be in this whole complicated process of selling both houses and buying a new one together and getting married. I just can't understand why this is happening. I thought we would be in a different place now. I hate the long-distance relationship.
But, compared to the struggles others are facing right now, we have it good. We are both still employed, can still pay our mortgages, are healthy and we have each other. So, the basics are there-we are blessed in so many ways and we are so lucky to have such wonderful families and friends. Life is good, and I'm truly thankful for that.

Dick Cavett-New York Times

The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla
Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days.

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will get only Sarah Palin.

I can play a kind of Alaskan roulette. Any random channel clicked on by the remote brings up that eager face, with its continuing assaults on the English Lang.

There she is with Larry and Matt and just about everyone else but Dr. Phil (so far). If she is not yet on “Judge Judy,” I suspect it can’t be for lack of trying.

What have we done to deserve this, this media blitz that the astute Andrea Mitchell has labeled “The Victory Tour”?

I suppose it will be recorded as among political history’s ironies that Palin was brought in to help John McCain. I can’t blame feminists who might draw amusement from the fact that a woman managed to both cripple the male she was supposed to help while gleaning an almost Elvis-sized following for herself. Mac loses, Sarah wins big-time was the gist of headlines.

I feel a little sorry for John. He aimed low and missed.

What will ambitious politicos learn from this? That frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences that ramble on long after thought has given out completely are a candidate’s valuable traits?

And how much more of all that lies in our future if God points her to those open-a-crack doors she refers to? The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

(How many contradictory and lying answers about The Empress’s New Clothes have you collected? I’ve got, so far, only four. Your additional ones welcome.)

Matt Lauer asked her about her daughter’s pregnancy and what went into the decision about how to handle it. Her “answer” did not contain the words “daughter,” “pregnancy,” “what to do about it” or, in fact, any two consecutive words related to Lauer’s query.

I saw this as a brief clip, so I don’t know whether Lauer recovered sufficiently to follow up, or could only sit there, covered in disbelief. If it happens again, Matt, I bequeath you what I heard myself say once to an elusive guest who stiffed me that way: “Were you able to hear any part of my question?”

At the risk of offending, well, you, for example, I worry about just what it is her hollering fans see in her that makes her the ideal choice to deal with the world’s problems: collapsed economies, global warming, hostile enemies and our current and far-flung twin battlefronts, either of which may prove to be the world’s second “30 Years’ War.”

Has there been a poll to see if the Sarah-ites are numbered among that baffling 26 percent of our population who, despite everything, still maintain that President George has done a heckuva job?

A woman in one of Palin’s crowds praised her for being “a mom like me … who thinks the way I do” and added, for ill measure, “That’s what I want in the White House.” Fine, but in what capacity?

Do this lady’s like-minded folk wonder how, say, Jefferson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts, et al (add your own favorites) managed so well without being soccer moms? Without being whizzes in the kitchen, whipping up moose soufflés? Without executing and wounding wolves from the air and without promoting that sad, threadbare hoax — sexual abstinence — as the answer to the sizzling loins of the young?

(In passing, has anyone observed that hunting animals with high-powered guns could only be defined as sport if both sides were equally armed?)

I’d love to hear what you think has caused such an alarming number of our fellow Americans to fall into the Sarah Swoon.

Could the willingness to crown one who seems to have no first language have anything to do with the oft-lamented fact that we seem to be alone among nations in having made the word “intellectual” an insult? (And yet…and yet…we did elect Obama. Surely not despite his brains.)

Sorry about all of the foregoing, as if you didn’t get enough of the lady every day in every medium but smoke signals.

I do not wish her ill. But I also don’t wish us ill. I hope she continues to find happiness in Alaska.

May I confess that upon first seeing her, I liked her looks? With the sound off, she presents a not uncomely frontal appearance.

But now, as the Brits say, “I’ll be glad to see the back of her.”

**********

PS: Lagniappe for English mavens: A friend of mine has made you laugh greatly over the years. David Lloyd is a comic genius (I can hear you wince, David) who wrote for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Cheers,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” Jack Paar, Johnny Carson and me, not necessarily in that order. As a language fan, he has preserved many gems for posterity in his prodigious memory bank. Here comes my favorite:

A Navy lecturer was talking about some directives on the blackboard that he said to do something about, “except for these here ones with the asteroids in back of.”

Even David couldn’t make that up.

Stuck inside of Plymouth With the Mpls. Blues Again

Sorry for the title, but it's a Dylan thing I gotta work out of my system.

We've been pretty quiet lately about our housing situations and for good reason.  We're right where we were months ago when we put our properties up for sale.  There've been a few nibble here and there, but there is always something to keep serious discussions at bay.  I've got a buyer who is very interested, but there's a little detail concerning some judgements against this person.  Cindy keeps getting comments about how great her place is, except for maybe the wood floors which need some refininshing and what a deal breaker that is.  Even if we say we'll do it when we have a purchase agreement.  But, honestly, could we have ever picked a better time in history to try to sell property in a totally depressed market?  We've made a lot of price adjustments and have kept working on improvements, but we're at the point where we'd be paying someone to take them off our hands.

So, we're going to take them off the market on Dec. 15 and wait a couple months.  Because we know that by the middle of February the market will be roaring.  And that's when we'll give it another go.  So keep an eye out in spring of 09 for those wedding invites!

A Night at the Opera

Where were you on 11/4/08?  That may be this generations' touchstone, much like 11/22/63 is for for geezers like me.  

Cindy and I left the house before the polls closed to run over to the U of M to see a concert which seemed karmically correct for the evening:  Bob Dylan.  Bob made a couple comments over the course of the concert about it's looking like things are gonna change now, but the only politics he engaged in were in the lyrics to a few of his old anthems.  Other than that, his voice was ragged, his band was one step away from collapse and the sound was sludge.  But we were there on this historic night!

After the show was over we headed to the car, turned on the radio and heard McPain give his concession speech.  PRICELESS.

A week late, but still funny

Today

Two houses on my block went into foreclosure today and one additional house has sat empty for two months and I'm thinking the family living there has left town, also. My IRA dropped $750.
I'm seriously scared about this. How is it that I'm working so hard and cutting everything out of my budget and still have no money for groceries or gas? Since the divorce, the only thing I've ever wanted is to be able to support my family by myself. I don't want handouts and I don't want help from C2 or my parents. I want to do this by myself and up until recently, was doing a fair job of it (not great, but better than before). Thankfully, my civil service job is secure and my health insurance only went up minimally. I'm luckier than most, but angry nonetheless. I apologize for ranting on this blog that is supposed to be all happy stuff about our wedding-and the wedding date is still undetermined.

I guess, with no wedding to plan, I'm throwing all my energy into this election...

Written by Eve Ensler:

> Drill, Drill, Drill
> I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
> was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
> claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
> a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
> or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
> have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
> that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
> polar bears.
>
> I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
> trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
> against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
> Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
> who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of
> Feminists.
>
> But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
> to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
> the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
> options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
> and war.
>
>
> I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
> choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
> candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
> so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
> disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
> world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
> seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
> presidency with regularity.
>
> Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
> In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
> better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
> melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the
> pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
> fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
> earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
> and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
> be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
> she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
> \
> Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
> who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
> have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
> not.
>
> She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
> imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
> babies that makes.
>
> Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
> has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
> with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
> environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could
> and might very well be the next president of the United States . She
> would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
>
> Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
> rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
> hundreds of wolves from the air.
>
> Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
> right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
> war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
> his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the
> undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
>
> I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
> election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
> future not just of the U.S. , but of the planet. It will determine
> whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
> uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
> dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
> through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
> we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
> alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
> will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
> whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
> whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
> fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
>
> If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
> power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
> hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, 'Drill Drill Drill.' I think of
> teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
> destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
> that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
> doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
>
> Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
> floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
> nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
> we call life?
>
> Eve Ensler
> September 5, 2008
> >

ADMIT IT-I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD HAVE A GIRL!

I told everyone from the start that the baby would be a girl. RIGHT, C2? I hate to say I told you so, but...

Against all odds

There she is, Layla Grace Avery!  Who woulda thunk that there'd be a girl born to be the first great-grandchild for mom and dad.  If there were Vegas odds, somebody would've broken the bank, and it wouldn't have been me.  Out of mom and dad's 19 kids and grand-kids, there were a total of 3 girls.  So congrats to Cheri and Jordan on getting a start on evening things up!  I love you's!

Here's the best blog I've seen in a while...

State Fair

The end of summer in Minnesota is heralded by the arrival of the State Fair.  For artists, it's an honor to be included in the Fine Arts exhibit.  I've been fortunate to be a part of that for the past 3 years.  My entry for this year reflects the political climate that we are in.  A not so subtle jab at our current fearful leader.....

Inaccuracies At Work

Charles mentioned the truck with the pictures of 'aborted fetuses' - actually the truth is much different.

This was from a post on lifeandlibertyforwomen.com:
Misrepresentation
A considerable number of anti-abortion visuals feature an almost fully developed fetus. Abortions preformed at this stage via hysterotomy or D&X abortions are rare. Only about 1.5% of abortions are performed at 21-weeks or older, according to according to a 2000 study conducted by the Nation Center for Chronic Disease (CDC). A July 1992 LIFE magazine article, The Great Divide, reported that Reverend Robert Schenk, member of anti-choice coalition Operation rescue, attended a demonstration outside an abortion clinic in Buffalo, NY, with "Baby Tia", a 7-inch, gray-tinted and formaldehyde-soaked dead fetus. In the escalating madness of the crowd, the fetus was dropped onto the sneaker-trodden street. Authorities arrested Schenk and confiscated the fetus, which was taken to a coroner, only to be identified as an approximately 20-week-old stillborn. The article reads, "Many pro-choice supporters in Buffalo are angry about the distance between their reality-what they see in the clinics-and the images the anti-abortionists present as fact. 'What they are showing to the public is a lie,' says Joni Ladowski, a nurse at a nearby clinic, as she unfolds a length of gauze. In the center lies what appears to be a clot the size of a peanut. It is a fetus, nine weeks old. 'This is an abortion,' she says."

These anti-choice people will use lies and language ("infanticide") to get their point across. Republicans seem to enjoy scaring people into action as opposed to informing them. IMHO.

A day

Well, we are done posting those excruciating posts about remodeling frustration.  Now it's time to enjoy life and deal with the nagging anxiety of finding The Buyers.   So Cindy and I have been taking the time to enjoy life's little pleasures:  washing the cars on a Saturday afternoon, working our way through the Beatles anthology DVD's (again), taking a bike ride and enjoying the NY Times on the weekends.  

We had another treat today, as we (Cindy, her friend Amy and I) drove to St. Paul to witness some of the craziness that is the Republican National Convention and to see a Live! taping of the Daily Show with your host, John Stewart.  The show is taped in the heart of St. Paul, just about a mile away from the convention.  The deal with getting into the show is that you have to wait in line for 2 - 3 hours before they start letting people in.  So while we waited in line we listened to a few bands playing on the lawn behind us and watched the parade of Police vehicles of all types, big shiny cars with mysterious occupants and upright citizen republicans mixing with the outside edges of society.  The most unfortunate part, though, was watching a couple trucks making the circles around downtown plastered with their dogma.  One was a large delivery van that had one giant picture on each side and the back of aborted fetuses.  The pictures had to be 4 feet by 6 feet.  The other was much more creative in a folk art kind of way.  It appeared to be an old Datsun pickup retrofitted with a camper like back end that was hand lettered with biblical verse, something about Truth, Not Tolerance, two large flags on top (one of which seemed to be either a christian or a KKK flag) and of course, the requisite abortion photo on the back.  The crowd was having fun with it, tho.  Every time they would drive by, they would receive a mocking applause.  Quite the scene.

Seeing the trucks going round and round with their in your face messages got me to thinking about some messaging that wasn't allowed to happen in this town while the convention is in progress.  A photographer named Suzanne Opton has been taking a series of portraits of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who have returned from war.  She has been displaying them on billboards in cities like Syracuse and Buffalo.  She had a contract to put some up in St. Paul but the powers that be decided at the last minute that they would be "too disturbing". A picture of one of them is at the top of this post.  So I'm just thinking about who decides what information and imagery is proper for us fools to be privy to and what free speech actually means.  Thank you Republicans!

But, then we got into the Daily Show (locked into it, actually) and all was in balance again.  I gotta say, John Stewart is not only smart and hilarious, but he is sharp as a tack.  As a double bonus, we were sitting next to his honor, the Mayor of St. Paul and his wife and her giddy girlfriend.  We had the row all to ourselves!  I didn't have the heart to ask Mayor Coleman how the Security Zone was doing in the face of the unrelenting assault by the Anarkists.  Next time.

No bites, just nibbles

So far, mediocre response to, in my opinion, two of the most lovely residences ever! Oh well. It's frustrating to have outside forces dictate our wedding schedule.

Summah vacation!

Hi folks,
A few scattered pics from the vacation. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of Mike and Donna together, and no pics of C2, both kids and me together. I should have been more aware of these oversights, but my brain, along with the rest of me, was on vacation.

ON SALE! BUY THE CUTE HOUSE!

That's it. It's on the market.
Phew. Now I just have to keep the house clean.

Back on Track!

Hello All-
We're about 2-3 weeks from being ready to put the houses up on the market. I've taken a couple days off work to hit the painting and packing hard. I'm so excited!
New News-I just found out why I've been so ill the last few months. It seems my thyroid decided to quit working. Now I'm starting medication and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to handle all this excitement without feeling like I'm falling apart.
Yippee.

More progress

I will try to remember to bring in my photos to show the kitchen progress. New ceiling, walls, countertop. No floor right now, but there is a new ceiling in the foyer. And, the basement bathroom is painted!
Progress.

That's what he said

I never thought of c2 as an 'over the hill bachelor'-that's pretty funny! But I do understand the idea of each of us changing from single beings to part of a couple.
Whatever lies ahead seems more like an adventure than something to be worried or stressed or scared about. I feel calm and happy and know that all things will happen in their time. I refuse to get stressed out about this because it will be what it will be. I get the feeling that what I like about the realtor we're using, will also be what I won't like about her. She's aggressive and tenacious-which is fine if you're selling our house or bargaining for the new one. But we'll get the house ready as soon as we can and that just can't be done in a week!
Anyway, like c2 said, this couldn't happen soon enough for either of us. We belong together.

Labor pains

  We're in full court press getting our properties ready to sell.  All the plaster is off of the walls and ceiling in Cindy's kitchen.  Next we'll be putting up sheetrock and zipping it all up.  

We secured a storage facility on Saturday to move all of our excess furniture and clutter to in order to make our places more presentable for prospective buyers.  With that, of course, has been a lot of packing and furniture moving.  This is when the reality of our journey has hit home for me.

  Packing up my dinosaur stereo and piles of LP's got me to ruminating about the changes that are underway.  My current existence as an over the hill bachelor in a cheesy condo is fading away right before my brain as my environment is changed to make way for the new.  I know that the next time I see this stuff, we will be married  and in our new home, together at last.  Our upcoming union is no longer a concept but a very real goal that we are putting a lot of physical labor into making happen.  And it can't happen too soon for either of us.   

construction zone

The fun has begun, and we can't turn back!  Demolition has commenced in Cindy's kitchen, and it's a sorry sight, folks.  There's lots of plaster  (ceiling, stove wall) and soffits to be violently evicted from the premises.  It's looking like it's gonna be an after work and weekend schedule for a while now.  I'm accepting any and all volunteers...

Technologically Disadvantaged

I wanted to post some pics of the de-struction of the kitchen we did this weekend but I couldn't quite get the camera to co-operate. Maybe C2 will post some. We took down the false ceiling and found the original plaster ceiling which, actually, looks kind of cool. Very french farm-house shabby chic. Anyway, it begins...

Xmas

Here's some, not all, of the folks in my family-L to R, starting at the bottom:
Janelle, Mandy, Jake, Paul
Lois, Patty, Mom, Dad
Dick, Cindy, Patty, C2 and me!

Moving forward

It seemed like the minute I woke up on Tuesday, January 1st-everything was different. 2008 is the year-the year it all comes together for us. The year that we'll be able to be together, completely, for the rest of our lives.

new year, new resolve

There's nothing like spending Christmas with your honey at home with the family to feel like family, if ya get my drift. Being together with Cindy at home seems so seemless, like we've been together forever. 2008 is shaping up to be a very big year for us, as we move ahead and start on the hard work to get us moved and married. Here's to a most happy New Year to everybody. May it bring us all everything that we wish and hope for!

Here's a new post for today.

Let's think about warm, summer weather.

And

And I'm really hoping that C2 can post some lovely Xmas pics of our families celebrating the season.
Hint...hint...

A very Avery Christmas

We just got back from Dubuque yesterday afternoon after spending a few days with Bud, Mary and the rest of the Averys. It was nice and relaxing. With each Avery family event in 2007 (including the wedding in May and the art gallery trip to New York) I feel more and more just like one of their own.
Life is good.