Yesterday the boys and I were all alone as Mom worked from 11 to 7. We cleaned, did some laundry, played, ran some errands, briefly visited grandma, and had a pretty much uneventful day. I tried my hand at making a red lentil brown rice soup which turned out ok, you just need to make sure you add some spices and salt before you eat it. Mom works again today from 10 to 6 so we’ll be bachelors again. It’s going to be about 48 degrees today and we’ll have to get outside as the high tomorrow will be in the 20’s and they say it’ll be only 1 degree on Tuesday! Here comes the cold again.
I found out a couple of days ago that a good friend of mine has liver cancer. A former Recon marine, who was shot up in Iraq, has already had to face that challenge as well as lung cancer 6 years ago, even though he had never smoked in his life. Now to top it off, he has been diagnosed with advanced liver cancer (never drank either) and has 8 and 13 year old kids. Makes you wonder if he picked something up overseas. We’re praying that he somehow comes through this ok. Point is one day everything is breezing along in normal fashion and the next day you can be hit with something so life changing. We must all appreciate each day we have as it’s a gift not to be wasted.
So even though the day was uneventful, there were a lot of little things that made it special. The youngest was once again skating around the house with his Ipod on, (you have to see him!), his older brother helped out a lot cleaning up after the dogs and helping me clean the house, they both played hard and giggled and laughed endlessly at things only kids understand. There was a lot of horse trading going on with the neighbor kids of old toys from our house being exchanged for old toys from their house which made everyone feel excited as they all ended up with new toys! Someone should start a kid toy exchange.
I worked a little bit yesterday and need to squeeze some into today to be prepared for the coming week. Uncle J arrives tomorrow for a quick 30 hour work session and Zio (uncle in Italian) Lolo is still here until Tuesday as well. Hard to believe it’ll be February in a couple days. I think the boys and I are going to play some football today and also need to try to walk the dogs. Not much else going on, I’m kind of tired as I had a headache all night and didn’t sleep much. So, enjoy and appreciate the day and god bless.
p.s.,
Here’s a quote I ran across the other day from the man who brought us the Star Spangled Banner. I think in this day and time, with everything going on in the World, we could all use a reminder to be more patriotic, remember to strive to be people of great character, and be kinder to our fellow man. Funny how even 200 years later, words still apply.
“The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.’ He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation….” – Francis Scott Key, February 22, 1812