I will be absent from the blog until sometime next week due to our graduating college student.
It was only 4 short years ago that I posted THIS.
Where did the time go?
That said, Pamela and I are so damn proud of her we can’t tell you.
I wrote a very personal note to her that won’t make it here, sorry to say.
I wanted to post it but decided it was best left in the hands of the person I originally wrote it for.
I shall return soon but wanted to, at the very least,
explain my sudden disappearance.
Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day filled with hot dogs, cheeseburgers and much beer.
(and Cigars!)
Please remember to say a prayer for all those that gave of their lives so we could enjoy our freedom.
See all of you soon.
Congratulations, Sarah!

• Crappy ringtones are unacceptable. Upload a favorite song for free at Mobile17.com
  My current ringtone is the first 40 seconds of ‘We won’t get fooled again’ by The Who.
  ‘Panama’ by Van Halen let’s me know when Pamela is calling.
  Cool.
• Even a 50 year-old guy can learn to use Word (T9) to text on a cell phone.
  Drives them crazy that I can text almost as fast as them now.
• What life used to be like when I was 20 and how much fun I had.
• To never give up. Ever.
  (who’s teaching who here?)
• What phrases like ‘cover flow’ and ‘shake to shuffle’ mean. (Ipod terms)
• How to upload a Wordle to my cell phone. (Pam and I have Zero for Zooz on our cells) (Zooz Wordle)
• My day off is not for me to rest. It’s the day I cook one of them a favorite meal, ultimately receiving a load of laundry that needs to be done . . .  ahem, Sarah . . .
• Silence is a legitimate answer (as is yup, nope, uh-huh and dunno)
• Time is like a river . . .  to the sea
• Life is not always fair.
• College girlfriends can be incredibly vicious. And really nice. (all in the same day)
• That I am truly blessed to have 3 (and 4) such incredible women in my life.
• watch out guys, these girls are tigers.

She is the light of my life, my best friend in the whole, wide world and the mother
of 3 incredible daughters.
She is the heart of our home and the glue that makes everything stick.
I can’t imagine my life without her (the same goes for our daughters, for that matter)
She forever goes above and beyond the call of duty regarding our girls and that’s just one of the
thousands of reasons she’s so damn incredible.
When she reads this she will deny it 100%.
Yes, folks, she is humble as well.
I am fortunate enough in this life to be married to my best friend.
Happy Mother’s Day, Pamela.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for every single thing you do for me and the girls.
I love you like crazy, green eyes.
As do our girls . . .

A Happy Mother’s Day to all!

ps.
Mom, I miss you as I do every year since you’ve been gone.
Last Wednesday afternoon’s visit was my present.
Hope you liked the flowers . . .

love,
Michael

pps. Pamela is Mother of the Year!

We don’t need no steenking, Swine Flu!
Get out those face masks, people.
And decorate the house with ‘em . . .
Pooh was definitely a conservative.

We have our bad times, those days filled with
gray and bruised thunderheads ready to burst with raindrops of frustration.
It’s in getting through the inevitable storms; riding the dark waves of our lives
to the safety of some waiting harbour that we realize the sun can still shine, just for us.
It takes a real strength to weather it all.
And we are that strong.
The stuff we’re made of is ultimately all that’s really needed to see us through to the other side.
And we will get there.
Although we can’t control the winds, we can carefully move the sails that will someday guide us home.
We have to hold on, just the 2 of us, if only for the three tender and beautiful hearts
we’ve been so blessed to receive in this life.
Everything will be alright.
So for now, just hold my hand
and don’t be afraid
to feel that at the end of the longest day, that the moon and stars are shining, just for us.

Happy Belated Birthday, Sas
love you,
Dad

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas to all.
Know that in the grand scheme of things, no matter what happens, love IS the answer.
It’s all that the ‘babe’ ever wanted all of us to agree on anyway.
It’s a shame that we’re still fighting it . . .
Be safe, be warm, be loved.
I wish this for each and everyone that visits here over the next few days.
Merry Christmas.
Love is the answer.

~Michael

Pamela and I were outside raking the endless falling leaves the other day,
actually it was on our anniversary.
I know, romantic, huh?
It’s a mundane chore such as this that allows the grey matter to play around a bit,
reminisce about autumns past, maybe even give the constantly buzzing hemispheres in my cranium a bit of a vacation from the vagaries of the daily rat race.
I began thinking about my life as being partitioned into ‘seasons’,
and that from where I stand I am currently in the midst of my own personal autumn.
It’s a time of great change, a biological necessity and ever so slight rewinding of the clockwork that makes me tick.
I accept the fact that my life has experienced changes from as far back as my days of ‘spring’.
I do find it sad though that my endless summer has come and gone taking with it certain elements of youth, the embers of the burning innocence that once defined my life reshaping my thoughts on a daily basis.
This is my autumn, I think,
when my eyes focus on an enormous pile of leaves that need to be raked onto the tarp and dragged behind the shed (where all the bad leaves go).
I stare at the pile of vibrant colours,
the burnt yellows and searing reds, like a fire in front of me.
Things change and life continues to change me.
Caught inside the moment, in my mind I see three little girls going down the slide headfirst into a pile of leaves that I’ve left just for them, Pamela running into the house for the camera, never one to miss an opportunity for a silly photo.
I see myself raking, smiling, listening to those echoes of laughter and the beautiful sounds of a fall
that was so damn very long ago.
It’s no surprise that I miss it, almost as much as I miss the old me that was raking those very leaves.
I shake myself out of this melancholy daydream and notice
that the sky above me is a putty grey replacing the daydream skies of an innocent blue from a thousand moments ago.
As I drag another tarp full leaves to the opposite end of the yard,
I smile, because off in the distance I can hear the sound of a rusty swing
going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth . . .
And as the leaves continue to fall, I continue to rake

It was August of 2005 when I wrote this post.
Since then my life has flown by me at a rate faster than a hummingbird’s wings in flight.
Labor Day weekend I’ll be moving in not one, but two daughters into college.
This will be Sarah’s senior year while Jenna will be a freshman.
Both of them are excited for a variety of reasons, though there’s a slight bit of trepidation on Jenna’s part, with butterflies of the unknown creating havoc on her nerves.

Sarah has been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt (and the socks, and the sweatpants, and the coffee mugs, and the baseball hats).
It’s a year she’s worked incredibly hard to get to and it’s one that will undoubtedly be emotional when it comes to an end. Pamela and I consider most of her friends extended family.
For Jenna, this is new territory. I can tell she’s excited though as she watches her pile of stuff growing in the living room next to Bob.
My life is once again undergoing a significant change as the “soundtrack” of our house changes.
There’s nothing I’m trying to figure out here and no tears to wipe (yet) but I wanted to put a timestamp on this time in my life.
Even if I could slow it down, I probably wouldn’t.
That would be like locking the door on two precious lives thirsting for self-discovery, knowledge and ultimately their independent happiness.
I could never do that.
Maybe I just wanted to write how much I already miss the both of them.
The kitchen door just won’t be opening and closing as much.
Laundry will be lighter.
Dirty water bottles in the sink will be virtually non-existent.
The two thousand pairs of sneakers and sandals that now litter the first floor will be rendered invisible.
I want to think that life will get simpler but it won’t.
And that’s okay because I know in my heart that they’ll be okay.
And I’ll use the bathroom whenever I want to.
Maybe.
Anyway you look at it, I’m going to miss them.
As I always do.
I figure it won’t be long until I write a post that starts,
“It was August of 2008 when I wrote this . . . ”
In the meantime, life will go on,
and our old backdoor will remain forever open . . .