Well, my first instinct, as it always is, was to make an excuse about why I missed at least a day of my daily blog, so this is the best I could come up with…….I forgot.  Old habits sometimes die hard, and as I have taken such a long break from writing, my habit has been not to. I promise I was wondering what I was forgetting, as I knew it was something, but tonight in an unrelated conversation with my most intelligent child, Ben (just ask him), I mentioned the blog.

Of course right then it surprised me that I suddenly remembered it, but far less than my 9.5+ year-old son saying, “You have a BLOG?” (Followed by, “Can I have one too?”)  It led to an interesting conversation on the blog history and how it started and continued.  I remembered that I was in the living room of our home (then in Noblesville) talking to my wife on the phone with a then 10-month-old Ben in his highchair right in front of me when I had my stroke,  He was the only visual witness, and in our conversation tonight it astounded me that I had written entries most of the days of his life, with a great deal of them mentioning him, and I had never told him about them at all.

He is currently grounded from his iPad, but our conversation had me handing it to him and allowing him to get online.  He was so amazed that it was on its own site, and as he scrolled he saw tons of pictures, which incidentally I did not decide to add until a year or two in.

I told him he was too young to have his own blog, but as I remember, I think either Amanda or the kids occasionally blogged for me when I just could not.  So I offered him a non-stipendiary position on my staff, as it is actually the same pay I make.  And I also gave him my accompaniment hymnals that I have had from all the years I served as a parish priest.  ***They are expensive, but pretty worthless to me as I do not read music.  It made me wonder why I had them at all.

My interaction with Ben about the blog reminded me that I believe I one or two times either allowed my wife or one of my other kids to be a “guest blogger” at one point, but I really felt it was best to just be okay with this memory rather than trying to look for those entries.  I am sure that Ben will find them if they exist, and if he reads all of them.

I put a ***  just a little bit ago into this post as it was also a surprise.  No, it does not surprise me that my books are sometimes overpriced, but this is the marker of how far I had typed last evening before falling asleep with my head on my computer keyboard.  I use a MacBook Pro, so yes, I thought I would be fine typing in bed.  As a doctor, albeit the wrong kind to make any kind of medical diagnosis, I was NOT surprised to find that I had fallen asleep.  As we say where I come from, “”this was not my first rodeo.”  But what I can say surprised me was that I believed this was a okay idea, and even more so, that THIS TIME IT WOULD BE DIFFERENT.  I may disappoint myself, but I am pretty consistent.

So I will close this out, now this morning, in order to get Ben to school and get moving with my day.  My pictures today are of my soon to be “guest blogger,” which yes, I have agreed to.  One is as a newborn in the summer of 2007, you know, just like the Bryan Adams’s song, except like 50 years later.  The other is with my grandmother a few years before her passing.  The day with Ben, certainly not her passing, was one of the greatest days of my life.  (And yes, she would think that joke was funny too).  And the last is from Sunday night at Applebees in Noblesville, in order to show you he no longer would fit in either one of those outfits anymore.

But life changes and is full of surprises…..mine especially.  And there is nothing like a bit of stupidity on my part to make sure my life is surprising all the time!

Blessings!

Tommy+