Well after more than 15 hours on the road, I am home and in my bed.  Steph is now back at school so it is just Amanda, the boys, the dog, and the cat……but the only one I have been able to talk to is the cat, and only because I gave her some treats.  1AM is not exactly my original plan, but I was able to drift a little east and have lunch with my Uncle Al.  I however am a MORON because I should have had the waitress take a picture of us.  Sadly, I have no evidence of this story other than my word!!

But I did learn a few things on this trip.  One, all the states look pretty much the same when you are driving in the dark.  Two, no one in the south knows what “unsweetened” tea is.  Three, when you want a Chick-fil-A it will always be Sunday.  And finally, my bed, although I will not be in it long, is far more comfortable than my car!  THANK GOD!

But for now I am off to bed!  Thanks Uncle Al for the great lunch and visit!!  And thanks SC for the quick, but productive visit!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today has been a spectacular day!  I was able to attend the Consecration of a seminary friend, Steve Wood, who was consecrated the FIRST Bishop of the NEW Diocese of the Carolinas!  It was a wonderful service full of wonderful people and a real blessing to be able to be a part of.  I am so very thankful for the opportunity.

Steve was actually a year behind me in seminary.  He has had an impressive ministry over the years and is really, besides God Himself calling him, a great choice to be the Bishop.  Steve has a heart for his people, and I am very encouraged to see him raised up.

Of course he is the third friend of mine raised up to Bishop.  My current Bishop, Roger Ames (pictured above), and my former Bishop, Doc Loomis, are the other two.  It is very surreal.  Bishops were always someone else…..Steve mentioned it this morning in the service how odd it was to put on a purple shirt.  I am sure it is, as it is to see your friends in them……I am just glad it is not me!! It is a heavy weight and an important calling.  I am encouraged to see Steve raised up to this call.  He has a lot to speak into our ministry as a Bishop!  God Bless him!

But for now I am in my bed and thinking about the long drive tomorrow.  It has been worth the trip!  Thank God that He raises up good souls to do His Work!  Blessings to you Bishop Steve, my brother!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I have spent the ENTIRE DAY (except for the last couple of hours) on the road.  But after close to 12 hours I arrived in Mount Pleasant SC where I will attend the Consecration of a seminary friend of mine, Steve Wood, who will become the FIRST Bishop of the Carolinas!  And I am here to support my brother as well as to talk to people about the Order.

But after all that driving, I felt I deserved a bit of relaxation, so I drove the couple of miles to the beach and walked a couple of miles.  I called Ben on my walk and let him listen to the waves.  I asked him if he wanted me to bring him home some shells, which he did.  He also then ordered a hermit crab, a seagull, no sharks, but a BUNCH of fish.  I told him I would see what I could do.  In all honesty I was surprised that he didn’t have Aquaman meet me there to help collect all his stuff.

But this will be a quick, and hopefully productive trip.  Steph has headed back to college, and I saw her this morning at 4am.  It was hard to know she was leaving, and it made the drive harder, and I wondered whether it was harder for her to leave the nest or for me to let her go.  I do remember 20 though, and my heart was not as much on my family as it was on my life.  Looking back, I wish I had done better.  But hindsight is n ever 20/20…..it is ALWAYS more clear than that!  It is a bittersweet trip, but I will make the most of it.

Of course seeing the ocean is pretty cool.  I did however grow up around a port……MICHIGAN CITY INDIANA!!!  I am just not used to salt water.  My walk was however, pretty relaxing.  And I am thankful for it…I am totally worn out!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Although my day has been productive, it has also been a disaster in terms of my getting through it.  I am now at home IN BED, and that would be marvelous if I didn’t have to get up and leave at 4am for a work trip!!  Oh but burglars beware!!  We are well-prepared when I or anyone else travels.  And that is partially why I feel comfortable in sharing it here!

But my day began with having to miss bootcamp.  It honked me off, but there was no way I would be able to do what I needed to do if I attended.  In addition to that, I entered a meeting time wrong on my calendar and missed the meeting.  Fortunately he was VERY GRACIOUS and met me an hour and a half later.  But the whole day was like that, and to be honest, it has wore me out!!

I was able to both drop off and pick up Ben today though.  As we arrived at school he shared how nervous he was.  When the doors opened I walked in with him and when he looked at me I said, “Don’t look at me, I don’t know where your room is!”  And suddenly he got smart!  He led me right to the door.  My attempt to talk to him as we arrived there was ineffective.  He was there and he wanted to go!!  He was working me the whole time.

After school he was his usual self.  He could not remember a thing of what went on and wanted to play with the stash of toys he had in the car.  As the reality of bedtime hit later on however, Amanda said he suddenly remembered everything IN DETAIL as sharing would keep him up longer.  As I have shared as recently as yesterday, he is a pro.  I bow to his greatness.

But I am saddened in the fact that I will be just kissing him goodbye on my way out the door in a few hours…..at least I can wake the others up!!  (Not that they are looking forward to it)  But tomorrow I will get “the report.”  Hopefully the word “principal” will not come up…..but if it does I will admit, genetics is a hard thing to escape.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yep, it is official, today Ben started his regular school career, which in my family we defined as more of a “sentence.”  And to my great surprise, I received not one call from the principal, nor the police.  All in all, it was a pretty great day.

Amanda dropped him off, as she wanted to walk him to his room.  She was worried he would not be able to get there, and I was against it as it was probably his first and only chance to escape.  I mean, speaking from experience, once a teacher and all those administrative types know your name the leash gets quite a bit tighter.  PLUS….he milks the doting for all it is worth.  He swears he cannot remember his home room number, yet he remembers every single solitary detail about Spiderman and every other superhero.  And, in addition to that, all I need to do is offer a small bribe of some type and he suddenly remembers.  He is a pro……

So I picked him up.  He was wearing his backpack on the FRONT, and looked sort of like a paratrooper….if paratroopers were that short and wore Transformer backpacks that is.  He was in a group of other kindergartners and he of course was the second one to get corralled back into the herd as he, sure enough, started to wander on his own.   (It is not unexpected as he often has to leave to fight crime.)

But I hope you enjoy the pictures and I have a video too, but it will not on this site.  It however is great!!  The video is when I took him for an ice cream……and if you listen carefully, he tells me that he has graduated.

Pretty darn good for day one!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

If you were expecting something from me today, I am very sorry……..I have barely made it through the day.  I have been working at things non-stop, and there were two very important things I had to do TODAY that as a dad were non-negotiable.  First was to attend Ben’s Kindergarten Open House tonight to meet his teacher and get acclimated to the new setting, and then two, I had promised Steph weeks ago to change her brakes on her car BEFORE she left for school again.  I was out of time for both things.

Ben’s school and teacher were great!  Tomorrow will be such a big day for him (and for us).  We enjoyed the whole affair, and it is hard to believe that he is really going to the big house!!

And…… as you can see from the picture (photo courtesy of Kara Cashen Awesome Photos of her Friends Unlimited ©2012 all rights reserved), we did manage to fit in our brake job, albeit partially in the dark.  What I can say however is that I ONLY HELPED……Steph changed the brakes!  I told her I would teach her, and she did great!  She then test drove her car around the neighborhood and was quite pleased!!  Her brake pads had worn all the way down and it was quite an accomplishment for her!  It was awesome!

But tomorrow is Ben’s first day, and I will be then scrambling to make up all that I promised I would do today!  I never enjoy falling behind, but I thank God for a memorable day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

A few months ago, my doctor gave me some news that I really was not expecting…….he felt my stroke had damaged an area of my brain connected to my metabolism as we have tried about every option short of cutting off my legs to get this weight off…..nothing was really doing it.  It was both comforting and discouraging at the same time.  It was comforting in the sense that I had an answer that made some sense, and discouraging in the sense that I really would have liked an easier answer.

So, with that news, I was very to look at viable options for me short of pre-planning my nursing home care and funeral in anticipation for an early demise.  I am 70 pounds over my pre-stroke regular weight, and you just cannot make that work for decades.  Ideally, stimulants would be the best option, yet they are not an option for someone with a stroke in their history.  So needless to say, it has been a real physical and emotional beating trying to figure this out.

Ironically, that also seems to be the answer too.  If I am to recover fully I need a beating, and I am pleased to say that I have found such a beating at Indy Boot Camps.

Yes, although I am just one week in and quite often the first to die in these sessions, I am at it, it is working, and I am sore.  But more than that, it is jarring my memory to times of busting my tail like this for sports and enjoying the results.  I am in for a month, but if this works like I am seeing and feeling, it may need to be with for a long time.  As a young man, I remember wanting to be a “monster” and working towards that.  Now I am still a monster but just in personality!!  I want to get back and stay back!

So keep me in your prayers!  I would if I could…..but I can no longer put my hands together….I am so sore!!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I have considered using this picture many times.  It is Ben, and he is pretty little, which is not the case any longer.  He will be heading to KINDERGARTEN this week!! And a lot of that preparation has made us long for, and remember him as this little guy.

Kids however, grow, and he has been no exception. He still has the giraffe, which was a gift from his brother and sister before he was born.  He keeps it in his room though, as most superheroes are not in need of stuffed giraffes too often.

He still of course is 5, and when he is not fighting crime we do see bursts of age appropriate behavior…. particularly at bedtime.  He will start with not wanting to sleep alone, to he is afraid of the dark, to he hears stuff, to the scary pumpkin (it is packed away in a box in the basement…a Halloween toy) scares him, to he is worried about us, to (generally and finally) he has leg cramps.  And nightly he just goes through the list hoping that something works or that he wears someone out.

Tonight however, I went to check on him as he hasn’t been in our room in quite some time, and I ran into Scott coming out of Ben’s room where he went in to say goodnight.  I asked him if he was asleep and he said no, and that Steph was in there.  Ben is a snake.  Steph was in there with him because Ben went to HER room and said he was scared….and he sucked her right into his sneaky world.   He is a pro for sure.

But the picture is of him when he was a newborn…cute and sweet.

Who would have thought that such a cute little baby would have everyone hopping some 5 years later to meet all his made up fearful needs?

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well, I spent the day in Muncie at St. George’s training one of our Deacons, Kim Akers, about the Eucharist…..in all honesty, I think he gets it!  But if there is ONE THING I HAVE LEARNED, it’s that Open Houses are not very effective.  This Open House had ZERO attenders.

But in a ministry that has always been and remains ever-fluid, I am not really concerned.  In Greenfield as we planted we held “Informational Meetings” and offered “dessert and coffee,” and they WERE well-attended.  We just do things differently each time to see what happens and what we like.  BUT, the bottom line is this….we already have a CHURCH AND CAMPUS MINISTRY IN MUNCIE, and it will open whether people are there or not!!!

But the hard part, and the most DEFEATING PART of all was COOKIES!!!!  (AND LOTS OF THEM)……yes, despite not announcing desserts, we had them and half went home with me.  Now this would not normally be a problem, but I AM ON A DIET AND WANT THEM BADLY!!!!  But I am not complaining.  They are all still in my house and if I cannot take it, I will indeed gain 6000 pounds….but I believe I am going to be fine.  and that’s because I really do want to be thin.

So I will just set my sights on tomorrow and see what it will bring.  My hope is ANYTHING BUT COOKIES.  But in truth, I am on a diet, and I tend to be diluted!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+