10 Day Bachelor: 5/6/7 Days Down

The past couple of days have been full of activity. Last night we had our church picnic. It poured for about 10 minutes as we were setting up for the evening. But it cooled down a good bit after that and it was a really nice evening. Lots of chicken for us to eat over the next week at the church!! I was there until about 9:15 getting things put away and relatively clean... standard work for the picnics. Did some stuff when I got home and went to bed at 1:00am.

Today was a pretty good day, too... at first. I finished a project that I have been working on for over a month and it looks great!! If you want to see it, all you have to do is watch the screens when you go into church before the srevice begins. I'm very happy with the turnout. So after work I went to some friends' house for pot pie--actually in PIE form, to all you native Pennsylvanians.
** Rabbit Trail: Why is "Pot Pie," (to Pennsylvanians) just in a big pot, full of broth,
and topped with some dough called "Pie?" Riddle me that!
Anyway, it was really good PIE and the laughs were plentiful. I was really enjoying my visit when I got a phone call from work. One of our video projectors blew another lamp...the second one in 2 weeks! Well we don't normally keep $800 lamps in stock, so if you wish to see the awesome work that I did this weekend, you'll have to look to the left when you go in. Well, I was looking forward to taking tomorrow off so that I can clean the house and make everything comfortable and calm for the return of my beautiful ladies on Sunday. But it may be inevitable that I go in to do some legwork in getting new lamps or projectors. Arrgh!!

Tonight also provided a pretty heavy storm to our section of the Commonwealth...enough to cause some pretty major flooding of creeks and rivers. While I was at work tonight, I heard that one family had water up to their porch, and their basement full of water. And as I came home, I got a call from a woman (whose husband is on the same covert operation as My Beloved and Scarlett) asking if I could email Classic Mama, to relay to her husband that their basement was underwater as well. And when walked to our basement, there was some water there, too, although only a small section was damp. This was a pretty big storm, so please pray for the families whose homes are damaged that nothing would be lost and that restoration and repairs would be quick and inexpensive.

So, it is now 12:32am and I am going to bed so that I can awaken tomorrow early enough to get the house clean, get some other continuing stuff done, and possibly go up to get Bubba from the Original Classics. I miss my little guy. I miss my girls. Three more days... three days until the resurrection, er, uh, reunion!

Stay dry!

10 Day Bachelor: 3 & 4 Days Down

I have to say that I am not really diggin' this whole bachelor thing. Sure, I have great opportunity to do some stuff around the house and I am doing that. Yesterday I cut some low-hanging branches from the big maple in the back yard so that my neighbor wouldn't whack his head as he rode his lawn mower past the tree. He didn't ask me to do it, I don't even know if it bothered him. But it would bug me so I did it...and felt good for it. Then later in the day/night I installed three-way switches in our basement so that Scarlett could turn the lights off when she sleeps down there with her friends (or when she has been bad and we lock her down there...KIDDING!!!) It took some work, but I got it done.

So why do I not like the bachelor thing? Well, today (rabbit trail: I was glad to go to work today because the weekend was SOOOO LOOOONG!!!!) I had lunch with a friend who understands the new bachelor thing all too well. At the beginning of this year he lost his wife to a long battle with cancer. But when I talk with him and listen to all that he is going through, I don't hear anything negative about how he's doing. Sure there is grief. There is definitely loneliness. But he has a Father who loves him dearly, and such a supportive group of friends and family, that the grief he feels is not heavy.

Again...why do I not like (temporary) bachelorhood? Well, at the end of lunch, he brought me back to work and before he left I gave him a hug and told him how well he was doing with this. And he told me (after chatting for a few more minutes) that these women that we've been given...our wives...deserve to be loved. They DESERVE IT!!!

My wife DESERVES to be loved. I tell her that I love her everyday because she deserves it. She isn't perfect. There have been times when I thought about giving up. But my friend told me at the end of our time together, "What good would we do them if we threw up our hands and said, 'I'm not going to deal with her and her stuff.' They deserve to have someone love them."

At present there is nothing that is making me think about giving up. Oh No!! In fact, my thoughts are about how I can make the very most of my time alone so that when she and Scarlett come home, she feels the love that she absolutely deserves from me. And how that will leave an impression on Scarlett that will make her realize that she also deserves it. I just can't wait to see them and love on them in the way that was granted me to do four-and-a-half years ago.



PS: Please forgive me if this post seems "flighty." It's almost 1am and my thoughts are all a-jumble.

10 Day Bachelor: 2 Days Down

Yesterday was uneventful...really. I woke up at 5am to the sound of a stopwatch alarm that was somehow set by Bubba. I guess it was his way of sticking it to me for leaving him with the in-laws. But don't worry, I went back to bed until about 9am.

It's amazing that with all of the projects that I would like to do around the house, I somehow lose the motivation when it comes to actually doing them. I spent the morning watching for Classic Mama online while ripping CDs for my "non-16-gig-iPod touch" media device. But I did not see her during the morning. So I was doing things online (like seeing how to properly harvest black walnuts for their apparently wonderful flavor...a harvest which may be some retribution for the annoyance of them being in our lawn).

Speaking of the lawn, I did mow it yesterday. That was good.

In the evening I went to church where I received a voicemail from My Beloved. So, instead of sitting in the service, I went into my office, turned on the service through my phone and went online to find Classic... again to no avail. The message was good, though (what I heard of it). The speaker talked of William Penn and the Message of freedom that he was called to bring to this great nation (and it IS a great nation!!). William Penn was on fire for the work of the Lord, and we need to bring that fire back to the BLAZE that Penn (and the Lord) intended.

Well, when I got home, I saw that there was an email from Classic that was sent only a minute before I read it, so I immediately went on to find her. There she was!!!! We chatted for a while and she and Scarlett are doing great. I love technology and how it allows people who are a world away to talk like they are in the next room. However, text will never replace the close intimacy that we have when we are together. "Absence make the heart grow fonder."

It's true. I miss you, Beloved.

10 Day Bachelor: 1 Day Down

It would not be at all surprising if you were to ask, "Where is your family?" Since I haven't posted since Christmas, you wouldn't know that my girls (Classic Mama and Scarlett) are out of the country on a covert mission...really! And they will be gone for 10 days. Since I don't want to use all of my vacation time to stay home with Bubba, we decided that he would be happy and in good hands if left at the home of the Original Classic Mama. Therefore, I am a temporary bachelor for the next 10 days.

While there are a lot of things that I want to accomplish with the house in a state of near emptiness (like scrape and paint the front parts of the house, cut down a pine tree, add a light switch in the basement...to name just a few) I really miss my family. Classic told me to keep busy and remember to eat, which is actually good advice, and I'll be fine. But when I go to bed tonight, I will not have that companionship that I have grown to love and need. I won't have the kisses from my wonderful children when I go off to work. This is OUR house and it's too big for one person, so I pray that they come back to me safely and that the rest of the days go by quickly.

My Beautiful Children

This is usually the sort of thing that you would see on My Beloved's blog. But so people don't think that I am without pride for our wonderful children Scarlett & Bubba, here are some recent photos that we had taken of them. They're so darned cute!!!

Christmas in the Classic Home

I figure that it's been too long since I have posted and this is a perfect time to do so. It's Christmastime and the air is cold, but filled with the Spirit of Giving. Stores are flooded with people doing their last-minute shopping, and probably spending way too much for gifts that, had they thought about it a few months ago, they could have purchased for much less.

But that is not the case here in the Classic/Not-So-Classic home

My Classic wife, my Beloved, truly makes Christmas a bargain. Always on the lookout for the best deals, looking for coupons (then doubling and even TRIPLING their values at times), making cookies, and thinking about what those people in our lives and on our hearts would really enjoy, Classic Mama does Christmas right!

She understands that Christmas is about giving. And not for the sake of spending money on people, but to make someone that means so much to her feel loved, to let them know how special they are to her. And that she does it all while doing her usual bargain-hunting means a lot to me.

I am blessed to have such a thoughtful, loving, giving wife who really understands and (all-too-often) puts up with my "stuff." And I want the world to know that next to the Original CHRISTmas Gift, she is the best gift that Father could ever give to me.

I love you, Sweetheart. Thank you for your generosity and for all you do for me, our family, and so many others in this world. You are a gift!!

The Classic Gym Teacher

So, I went home for lunch today as I always do (I love living 3 minutes from work!), ate a wonderful baked mac and cheese with broccoli, and enjoyed the hour with my Classic Family. Then Scarlett asked My Beloved if we could play the game that they played yesterday.

Background:

In our backyard, we have a 50-foot black walnut tree that is in full fruit right now. If you have ever had a black walnut tree, you know these three things:
1) You have an abundance of squirrels;
2) You have an abundance of black stains on anything flat that is near your tree; both because
3) You have a yard full of ankle-twisting, mower projectile, green tennis-ball sized NUTS!

Because of the abundance of these nuts, keeping them under control is not possible...but it can be fun. Classic Mama decided to help me out by collecting the nuts and putting them into our yard waste barrel while at the same time, giving Scarlett credit for Phys-Ed.

The Game:

Start as close as you want to the barrel and throw a nut into it. Easy. Then take a step away from the barrel and throw another in. Keep doing these two steps until you miss the barrel, at which point you have to run a lap around the back yard and back to the beginning position. Keep doing this until all of the nuts are gone or until Classic Mama says it's time to stop.

It was a fun and energy-boosting game. I am so proud of My Beloved for not just going out and playing with our daughter, but for inventing a game that should be taught in all Phys-Ed classes in every school (at least those that have black walnut trees near them). And I love her all the more because she is getting those darn nuts off the ground! Thank you, My Love!! And thank you, Scarlett and Bubba!

I wonder if the next level of the game includes climbing the tree, fighting off the legion of evil squirrels in order to get the nuts before they hit the ground...