Today has been a challenging day. I would like to say I have handled it well, but I am really not the one who needs to decide that. In fact, I realize my perceptions are filled with bias, and sometimes, okay frequently, not all that accurate.
But my dog, Abbey, is a pretty good barometer. Sure, she loves me, but then again she has been trained and continues to be trained as a support dog for me. She stays close when I am not doing well, and abandons me without regret for my wife or the boy if she knows I am doing okay.
I came home tonight and she seemed to have a need to read me. She stayed close, entertained me a bit, went through a bit of assessment, and then dismissed me. I will trust her. She does not NEED ME like my wife and youngest son, who clearly need my presence and direction just to make it through the day. (I can verify this by the acknowledgment that I am both a trophy husband and the #1 dad…because Ben gave me a shirt that says so). But more reliable than a wife and son who lies to you is a German Shepherd who is not capable of such collusion.
So I take not only solace in Abigail’s opinion, but I also stake my life upon it. As long as I appease her, I am doing okay.
Today has been a challenging day, but thanks to the steadfast honesty of a German Shepherd, and my trust in her assessments……I will take comfort in her opinion that I am, at least, okay.
You know there are times I like to feel a sense of surety, because I believe that often with surety comes security. Feeling insecure in life, really about anything, can really cause problems. It can raise fear and falsely justify feelings that arise from these same insecurities.
I like to believe that I am a confident guy, that I have everything I want to have under my control, but in reality, rarely in life do we enjoy the real fruits of such delusion. In truth, life is full of uncertainty. It is riddled with unanswered questions. Our pasts raise fear and our futures raise anxiety.
Yet in the midst of this reality, I find that I can let go of anxiety and fear, not because they are not there, but because of both who and whose I am. God does not promise the absence of struggle, but instead the comfort of His presence.
I spend most days not knowing what outcome I am heading towards, but do know that I need not fear the past or be anxious about tomorrow. I will be taken care of today, to the extent that I have faith, and trust, in a God who loves me and calls me to be His own.
Tom, you started writing your blog again because you completed those additional degrees you started, and they helped you have something to do with your mind instead of blogging. You started, because after your stoke you had trouble with your memory and putting thoughts together. (I would write “coherent” but why don’t we just stick with thoughts?)
Yes, you are still not doing anything other than being a priest. Your recent degrees qualify you to work as a therapist in Clinical Mental Health and Addictions, but if you want to work AT ALL in these fields, then you should apply for more than just TWO positions in 10 months.
Yes, you are remodeling your basement. And yes, your wife is the designer, which makes it naturally difficult, but most people can work with and for your wife. What makes you so brain dead on pulling the trigger? Yes, many years of marriage may be an excuse, however you show better work elsewhere.
So let’s get off this, and get into the race. Age has nothing to do with it as you are still 18 in your mind, far younger than two of your three kids. The time is now, and now is painful when you lie about your age, but I did not put that out there, you did.
So somedays you will keep writing, and other days, maybe good days, you won’t. But you are still at it, and I encourage you, as yourself, to keep making progress. No one other than some young buck who wants your life will finish it. It is clear, it is up to you!
AND, take a damn picture of YOURSELF sometime. YOU EXIST! People get really tired of you posting pictures of your good-looking kids and dogs.
My wife uses a very irritating phrase to make it clear to me that I am not pulling my share, and the phrase is. “I am only one horse.” This is no surprise from a girl who grew up on a cattle ranch, but certainly utter nonsense in that she looks nothing like a horse. And as old and desperate as I appear to anyone, I still believe I can swear under oath that I would not be in any kind of relationship with a horse.
But about 8 or 9 years ago we did move from a house we owned in Noblesville to where we live today in Edgewood, Indiana. The house we live in is actually the old Frisch home (yes, of the Big Boy fame), and it is quite a bit more work.
A lot of that last sentence has to do with that one horse. We have 3 kids, we have only one living here as the other two are adults. We have bedrooms for each of them, despite only needing one extra bedroom, but there is always the possibility they could reappear at any moment and leave us at full capacity.
Mrs. Frisch apparently had a room for her furs made of cedar. I have not only seen it, but I have converted it into a craft room. I also, with the help of out daughter Stephanie, built a half bath outside of the craft room, just in case crafting became so important that one could not make it upstairs. But that has only a little to do with crafting and a lot to do with marriage. Yes, my wife thought we out to gut everything and put a full bath and bedroom down there, as well as gut and renovate the downstairs fireplace room. All we left alone was the bar in between, and I do not even drink anymore.. I do have to walk through it between these projects.
But I should be done at the end of the month with everyone other than drywall and flooring. It has taken a lot of time, but I am not a horse, in my old age, I am far more akin to a lizard (who does home improvement) than a majestic animal on which warriors ride. And in all honesty, I am close to an ex reptile.
I said the last time we moved that this was it, and I am still committed to only the coroner or the undertaker removing my body from this place. I just want to finish this project, or death wish, and enjoy it, and I intend to invite you all.
But for now I will just keep at it, and hope I do not run into any additional, or potential mortal wounds.
Pray for me. I thought she was looking for a husband, but I think it was a general contractor. Either way for me, I am going out with a finished product!
Yes, this is my youngest son in the featured image. Ben is 10, and although he is not the youngest Tirman, not only from my dad’s line, he is the youngest we will post pictures of. Scotty and Kenzie have a son Issac who just turned 1, and the next young man is due within the next month, but there is a lot of similarities in Tirman males.
Mike and Ben
I signed onto Facebook tonight as I was tired of not posting due to the illness making its way through our house and saw a picture of Ben that I was sure was my brother Mike. Here however is a picture of Mike and Ben, they do not look alike at all (currently) Ben is under 5 feet and Mike is above 6. I would like to say I am taller than the both, but “we are men of honor, and lying does not become us.” Yes, that is from a movie.
Scotty and Ben
But Ben and Scotty also look alike, and it confuses even the technology that identifies faces in pictures, and if we go to young pictures, most of us all look the same. We are a similar lot, but more than that, we also seem to marry exceptional women who help keep this insanity of reproducing these amazing your men, except for my dad, who I believe is close to 130 and pictures of him which DO show the similarities are found mostly painted on the sides of caves, and as I have confessed, most of mine are in black and white. The point I need to make is that Tirman genetics seems to produce a certain type of male. They are handsome and successful, and their senses of humor are constantly growing on steroids. The Lord only knows where that will take us.
But to this point, we are enjoying the ride. I am proud to be close to all of them. We are like a fraternity we never asked to join nor should be allowed to join. Yet we also have a sweet deal in that you cannot kick out family.
And be forewarned……we continue to breed. Whether that is good or bad we have all agreed to let history decide.
Although most anyone, except anyone with any type of romantic relationship with me over the course of my lifetime, would tell you I am the ideal man for them, my wife would without a doubt or hesitation, trade me for a goat. If there were indeed any type of treatment protocol for such insanity, believe me I would be more than happy to use the money she makes to pay for it. But for now I will just settle for my rightful place behind goats, our children, Napoleon Dynamite, and Christmas Vacation…..and without even needing to mention it, Pinterest.
The pictures I am sharing are from a visit over the summer to Grant’s Farm in St. Louis. It is where Budweiser keeps many of their Clydesdales, and where they also have many exotic and interesting animals, all of which are less important to my wife than baby goats.
In fact, my daughter Stephanie spent her entire college career at Lindenwood, which is close to these goats. And now she is a scientist, like my wife, and getting her PhD in something I could never quite comprehend, but at St. Louis University, even closer to these goats. I know they had plenty discussions about school choice without me, which surprises me as I have a ton of degrees, but perhaps it is because of my concerns about this unhealthy love for goats.
I mean really, how many videos are there of goats in pajamas. Sure, my dog has had a pair of pajamas on before, but at least if a bad guy came into the house she would do something. What can a goat do?
Apparently to my wife, wonders unimaginable to the human mind. And given the crowd around the goats at Grant’s Farm and Goat Milk Stuff (where I paid for her to spend an hour in a goat area with Ben and Stephanie), let alone all the other goat places we have been, goats appear to be trending #goataddiction2018.
But as for me, the cuteness gets old. I am certain however, as long as I am alive, and by that I mean breathing with a beating heart, and even to the extent that I can be wheeled into some pen, I will be watching her with goats. And replying faithfully to the question, “Aren’t they cute?” It was a part I totally must have missed in our vows.
There are many phases of a construction project, and as anyone who has talked to me in the last year knows, our basement encompasses all of them. It is an old, well-built home, but that in itself makes things difficult at times. It took us many months just to gut the places we were going to upgrade, and then the “Tom needs surgery” phase, followed by the “Tom is not allowed to lift more than a gallon of milk for two months” phase, followed by the “Tom waited the two months and then lifted stuff and was hurting, and probably needs to heal again and slowly step into it” phase, followed by the “Tom really doesn’t care about the pain any longer because he will die of old age before this project is finished” phase.
So I am back and forth the the Menards, and Lowes, and Home Depot……daily. This leads to the picture of Lou watching me return to the car (and yes the other two are in their somewhere) from one of our “yea! Let’s go for a ride to the store” phases. I know I hate needing to go back and forth all the time, but they love it.
And this has led to the “Ben it is about time you learn to do some of this stuff like Stephanie and Scotty did from me” phase. This phase has been far more challenging as Ben loves to have his own tool belt and gear, but he seems to have an allergy to working, at least with me as his foreman. Amanda is involved too, but more as a consultant. She decides what she wants, and we try to create it. On my FIFTH trip to Menards today, we all went. She has to decide on tile, a bathroom fan, and light fixtures. When she said “this tile we can just do the hallway in too,” which I had no intention of doing although I probably should have, I just shut up and added another phase onto my list. I did believe I got her back when as I was checking out, she walked over from the candy isle and put a bag of jelly beans among the stuff. I looked up at the girl ringing up all the stuff and said, “Ma’am, I do not even know this lady. I am certainly not paying for her jelly beans.” I suddenly was made of the “no woman listens or believe a middle-aged man” phase, particularly when jelly beans are on the line.
But we are now heading into the “Tom will either complete this project or die trying so we can use the life insurance to finish it up” phase.
Regardless, it will be finished one way or another!
I had to laugh when I saw Ben unlock his iPad. The puppy pictures are his wallpaper. And I laughed, not because it funny, but I laughed because these are pictures of MY DOG.
Yes, we are one of those families where ever member has their own dog. Ben has a min-Aussie named Maggie. She is an older sister (from the litter before) to Lou, my wife’s dog who I posted about days ago.
My dog however, is supposed to be MY DOG. She just turned two, and is a German Shepherd named Abigail. Her registered name is Engelback vom Gizewski, as Engelbach is German for AngelCreek, which was our, and is, our AKC kennel name as we bred Golden Retrievers for many years.
Abbey started her training in 2016 for protection work. We wanted to train her just like a police dog, or at least I did. Her trainer was tragically killed shortly after her first 6 weeks away in late 2016, and we had her fixed and gave up having her trained professionally. In fact, I began training her as a personal support dog, as I have enough personal issues to support my own fleet of dogs, and she has enough of the protection work to make us all feel more than safe. We would probably have to ask her to “let go” of a dangerous bad guy if we wanted to shoot them. So we probably do not need any more bite work.
The “family dog.” Right……..
But I still have problems with my family and how they deal with MY DOG. When Scotty has been home I found him laughing with a big German Shepherd on his chest wagging her tail and pinning him to the ground. When Steph is home, they run together, and are frequent nappers on the couch upon which the dog is not allowed. My wife, one whose feet Abbey sleeps every night when she does not abandon me for Ben, calls her “my baby,” meaning her baby, not mine. And when I complain to Ben, who is 10 going on 30, he just says, “well dad, she really is more of a family dog.”
But despite her pseudo-loyalty to all of them, I know in my heart she is MY DOG. When I need her, she is there. When I handle her she responds well to every command. (She is trained to me in a different language). When neighborhood kids or our friends are over, she instinctively knows who is who, who belongs and who does not. She is a bit confused by all the squirrels, but they know the fence and tease her mercilessly. Most of all however, I love her, and she helps me everyday.
When our last Golden, Viper, passed late in 2015, I just could not get another Golden. I love them, and they still are my passion, but I would have just cried all the time. Often when we would show Goldens I would see German Shepherds. They, and their handlers, left a lasting impression upon me. I did not want a show dog, as the German Shepherd for show is a little different than the type you would train like a police dog. I also wanted to have her keep me active. I have gotten a whole lot more than I bargained for.
German Shepherds are used as police dogs and for protection, because they think. One book I read, written by the head trainer of military dogs in WWII, said with training these dogs can make correct decisions, even in the absence of a command. After all, a military dog’s handler may not be able to talk due to safety or injury. I love this about her, but it sometimes is hard having a dog that is smarter than you. I still do not want to trade.
And why? Because Abbey is MY DOG. She has everyone thinking she is theirs too, but I know different. She is MY DOG, ever on the prowl for squirrels and the sworn enemy of the yellow sprinkler.
I love her, and I am blessed to have her in my life.
Sure enough, I was in a meeting tonight when I saw the call coming in. I did not even need to check the voicemail. Despite it only being a little below zero tomorrow morning, and relatively little snow, Ben’s school is on yet another 2-hour delay.
Now Ben is 10, and he is my son, and I DO love him and am concerned about his well-being and his safety…..especially when I am watching him. But I grew up in the NORTH…..Mishawaka, Indiana to be exact, and other than the blizzard that dumped about 16 feet of snow in the late 1970’s, for which they gave us a 2-hour delay, I am not remembering any “snow days.”
But this is, I confess, thinking back with my 25-year-old mind, which I calculate by factoring in my chronological age minus my mind’s preservation through many years of prolific drinking. I do however recall multiple conversations with friends after digging out our cars and making the trek to school. Visions of the Superintendent looking out his front door, barricaded by 80 inches of snow, and making the call……”it’s just a dusting, I know they can all make it.” This is the same Superintendent we were certain was encamped on the top of Tower Hill at Warren Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan taking names whenever we were skipping class for the beach. (Yes, Indiana has a National Shoreline! Motto: Indiana, all the fun, but without the sharks). Of course for those reading this from home you will say, but Warren Dunes is in Michigan. What do you remember that far back? After all, I am still 25.
But the last laugh of course is with my son Ben. He has the 2-hour delay tomorrow, and he will not even have to dig his car out before heading to school. (This is not an age thing, being 10 would never have prevented any of us from driving in the 1970’s). But he will indeed get a little extra sleep before heading to the rigorous life of Lapel Elementary School. The poor guy!
As for me, I get to keep to schedule. I was informed I am not the driver for school in the morning, which means I will probably be scraping the ice off my car right after doing Amanda’s. After all, it is another cold one. These southerners know nothing about hardship. If only the Mishawaka Superintendent would intervene.
Blessings! It will be 20 here tomorrow. Call me if you wanna lay out.
No, Sweet Lou is not my dog, He is my wife’s dog, In fact his name is not as she is now a two-year old German
Shepherd named Abigail, or Abbey for short. But as Ben is sure to point out,Abbey acts more like a family dog, particularly Stephanie’s dog, and she doesn’t even live here. She is supposed to be a working support dog for me, and she is a total sell out for the attention. She protects every kid on our street, and I cannot fault her for that. I was far more worried about the kids until she came along.
But that brings me back to Sweet Lou. He never leaves me ever struggling or alone, in truth I am not. He is almost on top of me. Sure my dog will make an appearance……more like a supervisor making sure I am okay, and then back to the kids she goes. But not Lou. Lou wants to be where I am at. When Amanda comes to be, he sprawls across her and star
Sweet Lou, or Lou Bear, or Stalker Lou Bear, is always outside every door of any room I am in. He has taken being a support dog to a whole new level, and if I am looney he is right with me and he stares
at me. He sighs all night, But sleeps he on top of Amanda. He is loyal, and he helps.
He was to be Amanda’s dog from the start, and before he was born, she wanted the runt. The runt, who turned out to be Lou, was not good looking enough until about 6 weeks when she had to choose. He was not only the best looking dog by then, but had melted her heart.
Yeah, he never needed to use his legs much after her bonded with her, and he still only has interest in her side of the bed. It is an area I was prohibited from after having children, so Lou is happy there.
I love ya Lou. Let’s go to bed. It is time for Amanda to try to breathe!!
