Say What?

I took off from work early Tuesday afternoon to go with Brad and Lee over to Mike's house to spend some time with him and say our goodbyes. Mike is in the final stages of bone and lung cancer. It was nice to see him one last time but also as one would expect, very sad. He's lost so much weight and has become so small. Even his voice is tiny. The 3 chemotherapy treatments he received did nothing but hasten his failing health.  We spent 25 minutes with him and he did well to stay alert but I could see that he was at times struggling to focus on our conversation. I wanted to get a photo of us all but I didn't sense that it would be right. I think I'd prefer to remember the vibrant Mike Koch I've known for 30 years and not the one left beaten by cancer. He managed to get up out of his recliner as we were leaving and see us to the back door. It was a struggle for him but I wouldn't expect anything less from Mike. The cancer was such a blindside to Mike and Lyn. H...

We spent most of the weekend driving around to too many furniture stores to recall as we looked for possible furniture ideas for the 3-season porch we're planning to have built this spring. In all reality, it's probably more accurate to refer to it as a 4-season porch as we'll have both heat and air-conditioning out there. We're working with our neighbor, Karen, who is an interior designer and someone that Tammy and I both have a lot of admiration for.  She's done so many cool and fun things with her home. She's loaded us down with a ton of home interior design magazines from which to get ideas. And speaking of ideas, I've signed up for a Pinterest account and have created a page called Sun Porch Ideas where I can pin anything that catches my eye. There's not much there yet. Karen is working with us to help develop our style which is something that could best be described as a hodgepodge of sorts. We've got some traditional pieces that we purchase...

It was 21 years ago that our home was being built and I can say without any doubt that I never imagined then that it would take this long to put a deck on the back of our house. It was never a priority. I always wanted one but I also had plans in the back of my mind to do more than a simple deck and unless and until I could realize those plans, I would wait and leave well enough alone. I suppose after a while I even stopped seeing it as unfinished. Anyway, that's all about to change. The dream I've had all these years is to have some kind of screen or 3-season porch extending out from where you see the sliding door in the photo with a deck working its way to the right along the back of the house. My most recent ideas have all been leaning toward a screen-porch, wanting the feel of being outside but without the nuisance of bugs. But now that we're getting much more serious about moving forward with this project and have taken some time to weigh our options, we've dec...

Tammy got a text message the other day from an unknown number. U: "hey whats up its jerrid you got a dub?" T: "no dub here" ...and again the next day... U: "hey its me again wondering if you had a dub or no" T: "i only have a few shihtzus" U: "who is this?" T: "and an ant farm...but they're not for sale" U: "again who is this i think i got the wrong number" T: "i think so bro" It turns out that "dub" is slang for narcotics. And now you know. Our weather has been bitterly cold this week but not so much that it stopped us from getting together with Mom and taking her out to Red Lobster a few nights ago. She was so pretty. I sometimes don't think that most of us realize how much discomfort from arthritis and other pains she endures much of the time—seldom complaining. She just goes about her day, taking in stride whatever obstacles present themselves. I will do well to rememb...