Yes, this afternoon Stephanie returned from college.  She left a Junior and now will enjoy the last vacation before her Senior year.  It is hard to believe that time has flown by so quickly.

But of course Stephanie returning home means the every familiar faces of all our other “extended children” appearing here as well.  Tonight it was Molly and Celeste.  And although it makes Amanda and I happy to have them all here, it is Ben that is in total heaven.  He just thinks they are all here to see him…….he always has, and he always will.

But Steph’s return has made this a great day.  Scotty comes home on Wednesday, and it will be one of those now rare times we have all of us together.  It won’t last too long, or long enough in my humble opinion, but it will at least happen.  And that’s a pretty big blessing to me.

So things are pretty great today and I am very thankful.  Today has been a wonderful day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, I know Mother’s Day was LAST SUNDAY, but I could not post then.  But I can post this picture of part of our Mother’s Day celebration that WAS taken on Mother’s Day.  This was taken by Ben Tirman (as you can see by the fine centering) and is at the very same location Amanda and I got engaged AND where we renewed our vows in September.  And no, that is not a dead lion under the table, it is Scotty’s dog Viper who actually did walk from the truck to the table to take a nap and also walked back to the truck as well….to nap again.

From there we took her out to one of her favorite restaurants……..SONIC.  It was a good twenty mile drive through scenic Brown (and Jackson) counties, and as she will tell you…….it was well worth it.  She orders at Sonic like a native, including the “Route 44 Diet Cherry Lime Aide,” which to me is similar to chemotherapy.  I did try to order it in French “le large chair-eee aide le lime,” but she was not impressed.  But in the end it was her day, and she was happy……a win win for us all.

And tonight is my 1700th post for this blog!  Yes, a few months back they were consecutive as I had not missed a day.  But getting here is pretty impressive to me.  No, I am not looking for accolades from others, I am just proud of myself.  This blog was my post-stroke therapy and it still is.  AND, I know it has and is helping me to this day.  I appreciate the opportunity it provides me more than you could know.

But for now I will sign off and get back to my sermon.  I preach and celebrate tomorrow in Noblesville and Anderson.  It is the Day of Pentecost too.  It should be a great day, and one that I will look forward to a little bit more if I can just wrap up what I am going to say!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, this is not Viper’s usual spot, but when Amanda is in my truck, she takes his seat and he is relegated to the backseat, which as you can see does not bother me in the least.

What I want to share with you this evening is that although my computer was gone and I was not posting entries, our life was still going on and I was still taking pictures.  I cannot say when this one was taken, (although Viper might remember) but we have been all over the place in the past few weeks dropping off computers, picking them up, helping Scotty to find a car (he bought one and will pick it up on leave), and of course the ever-popular work.  So I have plenty of pictures (no not the vacationing ones that are in that lab in California, but the local ones), I just don’t have all the content to go along with them…..yet.

But tonight’s picture is from my truck, somewhere here in the US.  And Ben is in his usual position, as he always has been, is now, and hopefully will not forever more be, on his booster seat, in the backseat, giving never ending advice and direction connected to how he knows far more than me.

After all, he is now a “white belt with TWO yellow tips”, a superhero, and now a SUPER microbiologist scientist, as his mom is just a microbiologist and his sister almost just a scientist.  And yes, he feels all that trumps being a US Marine as well.

And I do notice that he never says anything about what I do………..he probably passed me before preschool.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I don’t know why I am using a horse analogy as I have never had a horse in my life, although at one time I confess that I thought Sarah Jessica Parker was attractive.  BUT, I am using one anyway because I now have my computer back and I am in the slow and tedious process of loading all the stuff I need back onto it to make my life function to the smoothest extent it can.

It however has been a disaster.  My hard drive FAILED.  AND, it was not able to be restored locally.  YES…..I had back up, for MAC but what I have discovered is that although Mozy backs up everyday and you THINK you are safe, in fact the Iphoto program (where all your PICTURES of let’s say your kids, your family, your life are) apparently does not back up or restore correctly, let alone well…..and that is something that Mozy fails to share with you.
Mozy

Needless to say, I have a new hard drive and my computer back, where my old hard drive has taken a trip to CALIFORNIA (just weeks before Scotty gets stationed there) and is sitting in a “clean room” with some engineers (not the train kind) where the meter is ticking to recover the ONLY copies we have of very momentous moments in our lives.  It is pricey, but it is our only option.  And quite honestly I am mad as a snake at the supposed back up we have had for so long.  We hopefully will get our stuff recovered (we will know by the end of the month) and we have made other plans for securing our future.  Ironically, it did back up all my work files……that I CAN replace.

But tonight I post a picture that will never go to Mozy, a picture of Ben’s music program at school.  We had the pleasure of being there tonight.  Being there was far better than a picture, but pictures are important, because in time we forget the details.  I am happy to have both……and intend to do my best to make sure this disaster does not happen again.

And yes, I mean the loss of files, not Ben’s singing.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Forgive Father, for it has been 3 days (NO NOW 4 DAYS!) since my last blog post, and I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. I am just adjusting to the changes going on in my life and apparently not adjusting very well.

Yes, I rejoined BOOTCAMP on Monday, and I am in for an ENTIRE YEAR.  I also started Taekwondo with my family, and intend to go until they through me out or I injure myself irreparably.  Both things could happen at any time.  AND of course I have that whole I am a priest and the head of a Holy Order thing going on, which keeps me busy by itself.  It was a lot to do in one week.

Oh yes, but there is MORE.  Our waterproofing company, that took A LOT of moola from us and tore the hell out of our basement and left it a MESS (AND we now get a LOT of H2O down there which is what we in the old days called WATER) came back after firing the foreman on our job and told me that they could not fix what had been done that day (Friday) as the ENTIRE JOB was done WRONG and they would need to come BACK OUT (NEXT Thursday and Friday).  They are starting over!!!!

But it is all good, seeing as I am clearly just sitting on my butt and not doing anything these days!! (Yes, there is just a slight bit of SARCASM is that!!!)

But I am working hard and so will they be.  I am cleaning up my life, they will be (fixing first) then cleaning up my basement, and Viper (in the picture) is cleaning up the scraps of the steak I grilled my bride.

Life is good, but I clearly do not understand it.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+


AND A BIG PS……..after writing this my computer (a MAC) DIED……no luck fixing it and I will be taking it in to be repaired tomorrow.

Well I was doing fine tonight at my second class of Taekwondo when the bus pulled in.  They said they heard that I was there.  Yes, suddenly we were overtaken by a sea of little old ladies in the building running up to me, pushing me in the tummy and saying things like “I just love your crescent rolls.”  Obviously the white belt and whit TKD uniform looks funny and my diet still has a way to go.

But on the upside, I survived yet another class.  It can be rough, as you get kicked and you fall, but I always get back up.  In fact, I LOVE the contact!  And for the most part my body seems to remember it and is not screaming back at me.

So my post tonight is finished….and it was shorter than a toddler at a NBA game, but it is in the books as we say…….okay, I never say that, but really, for tonight I am done.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Ben and his school were on “early release” today, which I always feel is more of a prison term than a school term.  I suppose it helps that I hated school and that it felt like prison to me, therefore making the concept rather palatable.  What I can say however is that in the Dark Ages we had no such thing as early release.  In fact, anything under 10 feet of snow required us to go to school…..and we were there the entire time, unless of course we were skipping.

But I picked him up at 2:00pm, at the same place I dropped him off.  I was surprised to learn that he had made it through the day without getting into trouble.  When Father PT and I dropped him off at 8:00am he would not stop talking.  And talking just happens to be the reason for him getting in trouble about 90% of the time.  So when I picked him up and his teacher said he did great, my response was “really?”  I was surprised…..pleasantly surprised.  And tonight’s picture is of Ben dropping his mom off at the airport with the very best of intentions in March of last year.  He is, generally, a good boy…..although it is often hard to find hard evidence of it.  Tonight’s picture however is of him rolling his mom’s bags into the airport as she was off to a business trip to Texas in March of last year.  He LOVED taking her, and he was even more excited to pick her up!

But because he was on early release, and not for good behavior although he had it….they let everyone out, I did not put him onto some type of work crew when we got home.  I went out and mowed, and he just hung out with the dog.  I suppose all that skoolin wore him out and made it necessary for him to relax.   Good thing too…….he has a full day back at the joint tomorrow.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well today is finished, and I am now at home and happy with the results.  Bootcamp went very well.  It was GLORIOUS to be back getting the crap kicked out of me, and I was the only man among 4 other very in shape women.  But I survived, and although I am sore, I am very blessed to start my year of recovery.

One thing I did not mention to you was that tonight Amanda and I also started Taekwondo together with Ben.  We cannot help him with that we do not know, and it was a blessing for us both to be able to try and punch each other legally, and without the police.  The picture tonight however, is of VIPER at Taekwondo, as the pictures of me in my “outfit” don’t quite look like the Pillsbury Doughboy, as he is A BOY and I am as old as PHARAOH.  But they are NOT flattering.  Amanda looks pretty hot in hers, but I could not get a good shot as she is always punching me.  SO you will have to take the consolation picture of my belt, post-Taekwondo, on my bookcase.  It will have to do.

But the bottom line is that I am on my way back…hell or high water, I am on my way back.  No more excuses, no more nonsense….no more no more.

Keep me in your prayers.  I am on my way and I am not looking back!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I have finally made it to today…….the LAST DAY of the first part of my life.  I now intend to enter into the second and make it all worthwhile.

Tomorrow morning I will enter the first day of ONE YEAR of BOOTCAMP.  I have earnestly thought and prayed about this, and am committed to beating the effects of the stupid stroke and damage once and for all.  I just need to be myself and I haven’t been able to be that for quite some time.

It is also well fitting to me to be starting all this tomorrow……it is my grandma’s birthday and her and my grandpa’s anniversary……..God bless both their souls.  It is always a meaningful day to me, and I want to give thanks to God for my crazy Easter breakdown and CT scan that delayed my start of boot camp till tomorrow….otherwise I would have started just after Easter.

But I am asking for your support……in thought and in prayer, and really if you want just plain old cash….but no restaurant gift cards!  Yes, THAT is an OLD JOKE OF MINE and one that has not EVER produced ANY cash, but one that I always think is funny…..and apparently that means only I think it is funny.

I have had a miserable 5 years since my stroke, with a lot of setbacks, a lot of struggle and a LOT of pain……but in the end, I believe it is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  I am not delusional, and I am a winner…..I always have been and I always will be.  I will hold my head high and I will beat the hell out of all of this.  I even ordered my boot camp t-shirt one size smaller than I currently wear.

Bad stuff happens.  Life isn’t fair…..in fact, some times it totally SUCKS……as mine has at times.  But I want to encourage you.  As Darius Rucker sings in the great Hootie and the Blowfish song Hold My Hand,  “I said get up, and let me see you smile.  Well take a walk together, walk the road awhile, because I’ve gotta hand for you.”

Let’s make this a time of encouragement and victory.  I ask you to join me.

Goodnight and God Bless!

Tommy+