Well I have been away from both Facebook and my blog because of some sort of “security issue” that Facebook identified.  They froze my account for over 2 days and had me looking for issues on my computer that clearly did not exist.  It put me WAY BEHIND…..but I am not bitter, NO STUPID FACEBOOK NO!

But tonight it all appears to be back up, and good thing too.  There are a lot of people who follow this blog (poor souls) and it has been missing.  For now however, it is BACK UP.  (Just like Notre Dame in the polls!) And everything in the world seems right.

As most regular readers will know, my mom and my grandma (her mom) died just weeks apart last year.  And yesterday, my Aunt Barb and Uncle Dave (my mom’s brother) along with my cousin Steve, came down for a visit and brought a box of PICTURES for me….some to copy and some to keep.

And as Amanda and I went through the pictures, all the memories of my life began flooding back.  No pictures of me existed between the ages of 10-22 except at my grandma’s, and many were in this box.  It was pretty cool.

And then today, I went to Nashville with Amanda, Ben, and my Mother-in-law, who leaves tomorrow since coming in August.  We stayed in town after not only a wonderful Homecoming celebration with the people of St. Matthew’s, but also after probably one of the worst sermons I have heard in years.  I only wish it were not mine, but it was.  So tonight’s gratuitous picture is of Ben and I outside the Fudge Shop (ALWAYS capitalized in Indiana)  He and I were goofing off as I was trying to forget.  It clearly has not worked!!

But more than anything, I am glad to be back.  I will have a pretty great post for everyone tomorrow, so please check back in……but until then, I am off until tomorrow!

Thanks for your patience….Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, given the choice, our son Ben would rather go into the hot tub with his mom over me.  Now to show you the level of dedication this boy has to her, she doesn’t even like the hot tub, nor does she like the cold or all the splashing.  Yet tonight when I asked him who he had more fun with, he answered, “my mom, because she is pretty.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not disappointed that anyone might think I wasn’t pretty.  Some guys may get wrapped up in that, but in all honesty I could never be one of them.  Yet I cannot deny that my feelings didn’t get a little hurt.  Ben and I had a BLAST the other night in the hot tub, and he played rough and I played rough right back.  We were laughing and goofing off and probably dumping more water OUT than we ever should have.  Yet he bagged me for the girl, and what makes it even more humiliating is that it was for MY GIRL too.

But Amanda was a great sport.  He WAITED for her to get home from work to get in there with him.  He could have been in there after school with me, but no…..he wanted to do it with his mom.  And good for him…..AND FOR HER.  She was not enthused, but she did the right thing and made a memory for both of them.  She let me take six pictures, none of them revealing, and afterwards laughed the whole experience off.  And Ben was so very happy.  He loves us both, but most of his best times are the ones he spends with his mom.

That of course is all about to change……..you see, she throws a football like a girl.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today Amanda and I were able to take part in a program called “Kids Against Hunger.”  We gathered with a ton of other people at Lucas Oil Stadium (I understand it is where some sort of professional football team plays) and mixed these meals and boxed them for shipment.  Our shift packed over 180000 meals in just two hours…..and as I understand it, there were three shifts today.  Their website is http://www.kidsagainsthunger.org/  I encourage you to check them out!

But it also was a time to spend with my wife and some of her co-workers as they fulfilled some of their corporate service commitment today.  It is pretty impressive company in that it sees its global and community role as well.  Elanco is the Animal Health Division of Eli Lilly.

Now I want to be clear to all of you, I love my wife, but as I was there among all those women in hair nets, I was glad I didn’t have some type of “Lunch Lady desires.”  There were just too many of them.  And there were men there too from her group, and I would have included them in the prior joke if there were just something funny about men wearing hair nets…..but there isn’t.  I was just glad they were not Green Bay hats.

But the good news is that we had a great time and lots of people will be fed.  And if you didn’t take part today, please know you still can.  Get on their website and make a donation!  That’s right….they will actually take YOUR MONEY!  And I hope you give them some of it too.

And don’t complain…..after all, I am a MAN….and I spent the afternoon in a hairnet.  A bit of your cash is a much smaller sacrifice I assure you!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, he calls it the “hot tub pool,” and yes, we were in it tonight as he has been bugging me to get it up and running.  It always has water in it, but I often forget to keep up with the chemicals.  But with a 5 year old at you for a week, you learn to remember real quick.

So tonight we were in it.  It is a lot smaller than the hot tub I had at our old house which would seat 8.  This seats only two, and is very nice, but when a 5 year old is IN a hot tub he never counts as 1 of the 2……it is more like 9.  So in essence, 10 of us were in our 2 person hot tub tonight for about an hour.

But in all honesty, it was fun.  I am down 50 pounds and I was not embarrassed to be in my swim suit.  My mother-in-law took the picture and it did not phase me at all.  It actually was good to be in it.  And Ben and I had fun.

One thing I did discover, AFTER she had left to go inside, was that when I went to go get some eucalyptus out of the chemical bin I saw that my suit was almost transparent.  It would have made a hell of a story in Amanda’s family, so I am glad I didn’t goof up all that publicly.  Instead I got to enjoy myself with Ben in the hot tub pool.

And incidentally, since it is just a 2 person, I told him that mommy, and Stephy, and Scotty all may want to be in there too over the next two months.

He let me know I could watch……as he would ALWAYS be 1 of the 2!  Go figure!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Wow!  What a beautiful day!!  And it was so beautiful that I was a bit conflicted……do I go outside and enjoy it while working on my flagpole project (picture attached) or do I take a nap with my wife?  Don’t kid yourself, I didn’t think long……the nap was great too!

But it amazes me at how I watch Ben, and all little kids for all that matters, fight taking naps.  It really seems ridiculous at how brain damaged we are at that age.  To me, there is nothing like putting on some shorts and letting my head hit the pillow.  It refreshes me and rejuvenates me, and of all the things that the good Lord invented, I believe naps to be one of the more important ones.

It reminded me of when I was in seminary.  A lot of people used to comment at how I would faithfully spend a lot of time in the library.  If they just would have paid attention they would have noticed that it was only in the afternoons and only in the warmer months.  The library was air conditioned, and my dorm room wasn’t.  And although I never had a pillow, I want to confess that I never read a book in that same study carrel either.  I did get a lot of snooze time though, and it was WELL worth it!

So now I am up and refreshed and able to get a lot done.  It WAS a great day, and I enjoyed it.  Our occasional nap time is important to me, and I was very blessed to have it today!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Desperate times call for desperate measures, for sometimes he is a great helper, but sometimes he is not.  And this morning, while working on the wiring for the flagpole, Viper was just in the way.  He followed me everywhere, whenever I turned around he was there.  Yes, he seemed lonely, yes he seemed needy, and yes, I still had a job to do.

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seems to go right?  Well I am having a string of those in a row……physical and emotional pain, too much stress, and not too many windows of opportunity to escape it all.  It has been killing me.  AND, as if that were not bad enough, tonight, as I was sharing a bit with Father PT on the phone (I use a hands-free) I looked up to see the flashing lights……yes, I was pulled over.

The Sargent was more than nice, especially since I was clocked doing 45 in a SCHOOL ZONE right in front of him.  What our conversation included was how the car in front of me slammed on its brakes and almost came to a stop…..I thought with the abrupt stop he had broken down.  SO I WENT AROUND HIM.  He was speeding and had obviously seen the Sargent, and his the brakes.  My going around him probably saved him a ticket.  It was also was 4:20 and there were not a lot happening around the school at that time as the zone was expiring in 10 minutes.  So I apologized and told him what had happened…..and he believed me.  And he should have….it was the truth.

So the Sargent pulled me through a good window with a warning.  It was really one of the only highlights of the day.  Tomorrow however is a new opportunity.  I am just hoping and praying for a good night’s sleep!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Tonight’s picture is of our family homework.  Ben brought home an assignment for all of us that was about “Tom Turkey” who needed to hide so he would not end up someone’s Thanksgiving dinner.  He needed a disguise and we were told to be creative.  SO……. Tom Turkey is pictured here in his DRESS BLUES as a UNITED STATES MARINE, just like Ben’s brother.  And it is Ben’s Thanksgiving tribute to Scotty for sure.  Scotty cannot see it, but we will show him in December when we see him.

And all this reminds me how very lucky I am to have a wife who is either desperate or severely challenged mentally.  I do not deserve a woman as talented or creative as she is, but holy crap, I am not complaining at all!  It was a great idea and I am glad she fought Ben away from his original idea, which was a ghost.  In all honesty, it is not just 5 year olds who are MORONS, it is pretty much ALL young Tirmans.  They all finish well, but the require A LOT of training.  (i.e. my brother Mike is now in law school).

But the whole thing reminds me of how very blessed I am…..because I am.  My life has made some MAJOR TURNS in these past few months and I am far the better for them.  I really see the Hand of God in them, because they all could be far more disastrous than the blessings I see them as for sure.  Sometimes the difference between winning and losing is just a hair, and this time I have won.  I am thankful for that.

And I will spend the rest of my life, every breath that I take, making sure I am doing all that I can…..to stay ahead.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+ 

Well like just about everyone else, I awaiting the results of the elections.  Amanda and I voted early and only ONCE….as it is the law here in Indiana.  After all, this is not Illinois!!  But it is just 7pm here and I will be up hopefully until the election is called.  I DO HOPE it is tonight.

Voting is very important to me, and somehow it seems even more important now that we have a son in the Marine Corps.  He is doing his part and we are doing ours.  And I am proud really of us all.

And today was a great day for me to get started on the flagpole too.  After I had done my work for the day I went out and disassembled all the lights that currently shine on our house.  The pole (a 30 footer) is to be set about 40 feet from there and I had to figure out the wiring.  Two lights will be on a timer on the house from dusk to about 11pm and another will illuminate the flags (a US and a USMC) from dusk to dawn.  The sad part is power runs to other parts of the yard, and it was going to be both a chore AND expensive to run it to the place Amanda said it should be placed.

BUT MY WIFE IS A GENIUS!!!  As I dug the 3’x3′ and 3′ deep square for the cement, guess what I ran into??  Yep, right in very MIDDLE of the dig was the underground conduit for the power.  It made my day….it really did!!

So now all we need it the pole and the sleeve to cement in (along with all the extras).  But doing it on election day was pretty cool.

I am proud to be an American.  I am proud to have a son who is ALMOST a US MARINE and I will even be more proud to hoist Old Glory and the USMC flag up in my yard, every soon, for all to see!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Amanda and I went out at 6:00am to vote this morning.  Living in a small town, it was our first opportunity to vote here as there was nothing to vote for in our town or district last election.  But as we came into our polling place, this is who we found……a real live POLL CAT.

I have to admit, he was impressive.  He just laid there in the middle of the room like a pylon.  People had to walk to the left and the right of him to get in and out.  He mostly just slept, but he did allow me to pet him.

He got up and walked over to the people who worked there and he had a major limp.  Apparently his leg had been injured quite some time as there was no evidence of any trauma other than the limp.  What was surprising however was to learn that he did not belong there at all.  He actually was just a neighborhood cat who decided to come in and get warm and get some attention.  Perhaps he was a feline “election observer,” but he had no badge.

The most important thing however was to VOTE.  We did and you should too.  This election is an important one, and I urge you to take part.

This is perhaps the most important election of our lifetime.

Tommy+