Miss Me?

I suppose I should write something huh?

Blogging hasn't been on the top of my list lately. It's taken a back seat to fear and frustration as well as general fatigue.

However if I don't write something tonight I won't be able to until the weekend since - God willing - we're actually going to pack everyone up in the car and head for the Dallas area tomorrow morning. We haven't been able to make this trip the past two years because of Amy's health.

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if Amy wasn't sick...and that holiday tradition is going to continue. In a few minutes, I'm taking her to a nearby "Doc In The Box" because it appears she has come down with strep. In truth, that's such a minor thing compared to year's past we're not even going to worry about it - but I want her to get on some antibiotics pronto so she'll regain enough strength to go shopping Friday before dawn like an insane person. You don't want to be around Amy is she misses the post Thanksgiving sales...I could show you scars.

Ah...holiday traditions.

Thursday - besides being Thanksgiving - is also John's 14th birthday. I think I've mentioned before that 14 is the age which I've found to be the hardest in dealing with kids. My kids, your kids...anyone's kids...at 14 they start to want to assert their independence and become frustrated by reality: they're still kids and don't have any indepedence.

John is pumped up about the trip although he is doing his best to appear moody and disinterested. This is also a character trait that blooms at age 14. My plan is to keep the kids up late tonight...leave early tomorrow and hopefully they'll sleep most of the way to Dallas.

For several weeks, I have been trying to finagle a certain birthday gift for John calling in all my markers, begging, tossing about the phrase "poor 14 year old Katrina evacuee" with abandon and I've discovered one thing: I have no juice whatsoever.

However a young woman who is technically related to me in some obscure fashion and who has a son about John's age, came through today which I think is going to make John's birthday a little extra special and a lot more bearable than taking him 300 miles north to visit people he doesn't know.

I'd reveal more about the gift, but John is fooling around behind me as I type. Although the odds of him actually reading something without the threat of torture are highly remote, I don't want to take the chance of him finding out too soon. Suffice it to say it's a gift that can only be redeemed in the Dallas area on Thanksgiving day. That should be clue enough for any budding Sherlock Holmes out there.

We have much to be thankful for this year. Amy may be a little under the weather now, and there are still some medical tests lurking ahead which are frightening if we dwell on them, but in general Amy's health is better than its been for a long time and we're hopeful once the wheels of the medical bureaucracy start to creep along we'll receive some reassurance that all is well. Until then we pray...and distract each other.

This week was a little more chaotic than usual but we've enlisted the aid of several church members to help the Gomez family members develop and stick to a plan which will lead to their independence eventually. Amy and I and even our three dogs are fairly easy to get along with, but a place of their own is...well is still a place of their own.


Anyway, no profundity here...several folks have written me with concern because I haven't posted a lot lately. Thank you for that, I appreicate your prayers and concerns, but rest assured we're doing fine.

We hit a few potholes in recent days...but that's all they are...bumps in the road.

The road is still there and Amy and I are locked arm in arm as we walk forward.


Happy Thanksgiving!