In Memory, Uncle Bob

I’ve come to realize that I truly miss blogging at work. When I was at work blogging, I’d have time to sit down in a quiet environment, type up a long blog, and think about what I was writing long before I’d hit the ‘publish’ button. When I blog from home, I generally only have a little bit of time – or there is so much going on in the house that I am distracted and I just try to give quick updates.

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Tomorrow morning at 5am we get up to take Jonathan to the airport. Originally Chris was going to bring him, but he’s been working nights changing out store signs at local malls – so I get to take him. Chris is MUCH more of a morning person than I am. Additionally he does better on only a little sleep than I do. If I don’t get at least 7 hours… I’m a walking zombie throughout the day. You can never tell how much sleep Chris has had… he’s just built different I suppose. Anyways, I’ll get home tonight – get him packed – go to bed early – then get up at the crack of dawn and see him off at the airport.

I have to admit I’m terrified of my son being in New York City. It’s SUCH a big place… and he has time nearly every day to go out and explore the city on his own (or rather in small groups with a chaperone). What if he gets lost? What if he loses his money? What if he doesn’t have enough money? What if he’s too cold? What if I forget to pack something?
ARGH!

I know… I shouldn’t worry about him – he’ll be fine. Yeah… I get that. But he’s still my baby, and I’m going to worry about him!

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Speaking of worries – Kayla got a letter in the mail last week. Apparently she applied for a phone with T-Mobile and denied her because of her credit. The reasons given were 1) too many recent inquiries 2) types of credit she had and 3) delinquent credit accounts. Well, she just turned 18 a couple weeks ago… she doesn’t HAVE any delinquent accounts, nor does she have any credit!

My mind immediately remembered when the kids first moved in. We filed their tax return (something Julie never did) and – low and behold – the IRS came back and said someone else was claiming them as dependents. I immediately called Julie who just told me that someone had stolen their social security cards some time ago. Great.

Can I just tell you how HARD it is to get credit information on minors? I tried to get Kayte and Justin’s credit reports for ‘free’ – that once a year thing – but you can’t do that for minors. Then I tried to put them on the fraud notification system, but for some reason they won’t go through and I have to mail all the info into them. So… we’ll see what happens with the two of them. For Kayla, we just requested a copy of her credit report from the free hole-in-the-wall place that denied her. I suppose she will have to pull it from Equifax and the other big-name places… but I haven’t done that yet… I mean – I haven’t helped her with that yet. LOL

I am quite certain that some skuz-bucket that Julie used to hang out with took those social security cards and is using them illegally. Without question. Hell, I know at the very least this person was illegally claiming them as dependents on their tax return.
It just makes me so mad that here these kids are… turned around… doing well… about to enter the adult stage of their life… and their credit is now messed up ALREADY.

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I’m so torn as to what to do with Kayla right now. I want to treat her as a mature young adult. I want to start teaching her the things she’s going to need to know to make it out in the world – such as cooking, balancing her checkbook, etc. But – she is never home.

Every day after school, she hangs out with friends. On Friday she goes to a friend’s house for the entire weekend. I rarely see her, unless it’s on the stairs as she is making her way up to her room. Which… if she was doing great might be one thing. But she’s not.

She’s skipping classes in school. A lot of classes. Get this… I looked at the handbook and you would need to have 5 absences recorded for your parents to be sent a letter. 10 absences and they have a meeting with your parents and the principal to discuss what’s going on. 15 absences and it’s considered “truancy” where legal action can be taken. However… if you show up LATE to class 3 times – you are on in school suspension. After that, it’s out of school suspension for 5 days.

Does that many ANY sense to you? It doesn’t to me either.

Then she got suspended from work for giving away free food. She’s darn lucky she wasn’t fired given the times and how many people would be lined up for her job! Kayla said she cried a lot and told them she’d never do it again, so they just suspended her until this next Monday.

Course, I still need to see her to help teach her to drive as well. Which – the car thing is another problem. Last time she talked to me about it, she said she was getting a car over spring break. But Gwen said she needed $2,000 to get a car. Additionally Kayla isn’t saving enough right now to even pay for gas for a car, never mind insurance or anything else. She now has $100 less in the bank than she had last month at this time. Sigh…

Her not having a car is “not my monkey” as Chris always says. However, her mood swings because she’s miserable for not having one really does become my monkey.

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Julie finally sold her house. The closing is on Friday. The funny thing about this is that – when I asked her how much it sold for, she had NO idea. How do you sell your home, the home that you and your deceased husband had built for your family, and not have any clue how much it sold for? I totally get it that she is happy to be out from under that obligation (they are not going to ask her for any more money), but seriously… how can you not have any idea how much money they are selling the house for?

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Tomorrow morning, after I take Jonathan to the airport at the crack of dawn, I have my first dental appointment in YEARS. I’m talking… a lot of years. I take very good care of my teeth, so I’m not worried about cavities. Maybe I’ll have one, especially since I haven’t been in 10 years or so… but I’m much more concerned about my gums. I brush twice a day. I floss. And yet my gums seem to be receding. I think they are… I know my mom has that same problem, and I’m pretty sure mine are as well. I’ve looked it up online and there are only a couple of options for this… one is surgery. I can’t afford gum surgery. I mean… I don’t WANT it either – but I can’t imagine dumping money into my stupid gums. ARGH. Wish me luck… and I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Remember when I used to tell you that we kept losing all the cordless phones? Well, they are all gone now. The only phones left in the house are the four that have cords. Kitchen, living room, office and our bedroom. The kids use our bedroom phone all the time… it’s easy to lay in our bed and chat all night long. I get that… really I do.

The other night I go to bed. I pulled up the covers and *smack* something hits my knee. Followed by a sprinkle of what felt like little plastic sprinkles all over my legs. I get up to see what on earth it was… toenail clippers. Oh. My. Goodness. That means that the sprinkle was… yeah… toenails. All over my legs and now inside my sheets. YUCK YUCK YUCK.

I remember thinking to myself at the time “Does this kind of thing really happen to other people?” Yeah… I suppose it does.

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It’s now Thursday morning. The plan was to get up at 5am and get ready. At 5:30 I was to drive Jonathan to the airport and hang out with him until his whole group arrived; We were supposed to be there at 6am. I have a dentist appointment at 9… so depending on how long I was at the airport was whether I was going to come home or go straight to the dentist from there.

Well… I had a HORRIBLE night sleep. I was up packing Jon last night, and he was clearly excited. We discussed wake-up time. Usually Jonathan needs a whole hour to get ready but since we were leaving at 5:30, he thought 30 min would do just fine. I went to bed – without Chris who is working at night for the next week or so – about 11:30pm. As I said… I didn’t sleep well. It was one of those nights when you just keep waking up and looking at the clock. 1:30am. 4:00am. 4:20am. 4:35am. The next time I saw the time it read: 5:23am.

WHATTTTTT????? Oversleep today? Forgot to set the alarm – for TODAY?

I run to Jon’s room and he too is asleep. To say he FREAKED out would be a massive understatement. He was very upset. I tried to tell him just to get dressed and we could just leave, but he was still VERY freaked out. He barked at me over and over again, and finally I told him – at 5:35am – that I was not leaving until he calmed his ass down. This just made him more freaked out. Finally Chris woke up and came down and calmed Jonathan down… giving him a hug and telling him that it would be okay. He explained to Jonathan that the plane didn’t actually leave until 7:35am… so he really did have time. And with that we left.

When we got in the car and Jonathan saw the time of 5:38am he said “It’s not after 6:30??” --- The poor kid thought when I woke him up it was actually 6:30 not 5:30.

I dropped him off at the airport and had time to come home. I get home and thought to check the kid’s rooms for some reason. It’s now 6:45am – their bus comes at 6:35 and school starts at 7:10 or so. Laying in the bed sound asleep is Kayla. I ask her if she’s planning on going to school today. (I dunno…maybe she was going to decide to skip the whole day.) She said yes… but ‘nobody woke her up’. Apparently her sister and brother usually wake her up. I told her that she is 18 years old and perfectly capable of setting an alarm and getting up on her own – and that now she needed to find a ride to school. (I assumed one of the many people she’s always out with could take her to school on their way.)
My plan was to lie down for 20 minutes or so… then get up and take a shower… then go to the dentist.

Gosh I hate the dentist.

Sure enough… a knock on the door and Kayla tells me that she needs a ride to school. I guess resting was out of the question for this morning.

I got Kayla off to school, came home, took a shower, and went to the Dentist.

Well, the dentist appointment went MUCH better than I thought it would. Having not been for 10 years or so… I thought for SURE I would have cavities. I know I have gum problems (a receding gum line), and I’ve researched what to do about it – which can entail surgery. I went in expecting them to hit me with a bagillion dollar price-tag for what I needed done… but he told me that my teeth were in excellent shape. No cavities or anything like that. He told me I brush too much/too hard and I needed to stop that (I am a little OCD at times, ya know?) He did not recommend the gum surgery at this time – he recommended I brush less since I’m actually removing enamel when I do it. I’ll need two cleanings – and all 4 of my very, very old fillings have cracks in the teeth – but he recommended we just watch them for now to see what they do down the road. I’m liking that! So I had one of my cleanings today and will go back for the deep cleaning in April sometime.

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I got a very sad phone call today from Julie. She was actually crying, which broke my heart. Julie has not been ‘smart’ about money with things like her house and her car. When her car was stolen recently, we tried to tell her that she should pay off that car and go to a better dealership for a replacement car. Drivetime is charging her a fortune, financing it themselves at a high interest rate, and now they want her to sign something saying that she will only go to Drivetime next time she needs a car. I thought this was ridiculous – she could have a car offered to her from a friend for what she can afford in cash – but she’d be locked in by contract to purchase her next vehicle from Drivetime. Julie’s reasoning is that she will “always have car payments” so why not. In other words… she’s always going to be throwing money into a car… so she might as well pay way too much in the cost of the car and in interest to Drivetime. That just… makes no sense to me.

Well, now Drivetime is telling her that they want her $500 deductible paid as well as $900 for ‘prior damage’. Julie sure as heck DID have prior damage to her car… but I think she hoped it would be covered by the insurance when her car was stolen. Apparently she spent so much money on the rental car, she no longer has $1,400 to give to them to cover the car.

I feel bad for her… but she’s making her choices and has to live with them. It was her choice to be irresponsible by letting a guy that she barely knew into her apartment. Her choice of where to go to get a car – and not caring if she pays too much for it.

Ya know, I was talking to Chris about something. The other day Julie called me about needing a ride to Drivetime. It was Sunday, the day of Jonathan’s birthday. First she wanted to know if I could drive her to Brandon on Monday night, after she finished work. After thinking about it, I knew I couldn’t get from North Tampa at 5pm, to Brandon, and back to Tampa to make it to bible study. I told her I could not bring her there and that she needed to find another ride. This conversation went back and forth for a while – and then she said that she would look into riding the bus.

What you should know about Julie is that – years ago, she would ride the bus EVERYWHERE. Need to go to St. Pete? Julie could tell you how to get there, or figure it out. Brandon – there’s a bus for that too. Julie asked if I would look up the information for the bus and tell her how to get there. My mind went back to all the times she’s asked for this kind of thing recently. If she needed to get to the kid’s school – she would ask me for step-by-step directions on exactly how to get there. Telling her that it’s North on Dale Mabry, North of Ehrlich and just past Northdale on the left – isn’t good enough. Then I remembered what she was like years ago… would go anywhere on the drop of a dime and not need step-by-step instructions.

I asked her if she could look it up, and she said she tried but couldn’t find it. I typed “hart line bus Tampa” into Google and it came up right away. You can just plug in your address, and then the address where you are going, and it tells you what bus to take, times, and what the walking distance is from where the last bus drops you off. But she couldn’t find it when she looked it up? It just didn’t make sense. I realized that… and I don’t mean this to sound mean… she used to be a lot smarter than this. I wondered if the huffing and overdosing all that time really did kill some brain cells. It’s sad to think about that, but – maybe.

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I just got word that my Uncle Bob died. He wasn’t really an uncle, but he was more like and uncle than some of our actual uncles. Mom and dad had best friends up in Massachusetts – Carol and Bob. They had kids around the same time, and when they decided to move away from Mass, they moved together. Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob moved in two doors down from mom and dad. I think if they could have gotten houses next to each other, they certainly would have.

We grew up with love, discipline and friendship from mom and dad, and from Aunt Carol and Uncle Bob. They were my sister Katie’s Godparents. They are good people. Their Daughter Lisa is my age, and their daughter Charmaine is Katie’s age. Although I don’t see them much – Katie and mom still see them all the time. And… I know I can always count of them for anything. They are family.

I remember my dad always drinking. Not Uncle Bob... I don't know why he didn't follow my dad down that dark road... but he didn't - thank God. I remember how we could just walk into their house and it was like being home. I remember Aunt Carol and my mom working together at Maas Brothers. Funny... I don't recall what line of work Uncle Bob was in... I just remember him always being at home.

Sigh......

He’s been very sick lately. Both he and Aunt Carol have not been well. This morning Uncle Bob passed away. I don’t know how he passed… I’m hoping it was in his sleep. I know he was home.

I need to run. I need to gather myself. I’m at work, and I really need to pull myself together. I hoped that blogging would help, but… not yet…….

2 Corinthians 4:16-18
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Gargantuan Update

Let me start off by talking about my last blog. I didn't intend to get anyone upset... the reason I love living in the USA is because we are ALL allowed to have our own views and opinions and still be friends. With regard to the reader who commented about my quote, citing that I didn't know enough about Rush and his views on women before quoting him... I'm just going to say this: I don't know much of anything about anyone whom I quote. I use the quote because I feel that it pertains to what I am saying or thinking at the moment. Just that simple. He talked about housing... I was (and am still) extremely frustrated about my housing concerns - so I used the quote. Nuff said about that!

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Things at home are going pretty well. Justin and Kayla both got their schedules for their Senior year, and both of them - although completely different - suit what they want to do their senior year.

Justin has mostly honors and AP classes. Kayla has pottery and other fun classes, two 'core classes' that she needs to graduate, and her last two periods of the day are OJT (credit for leaving school and going to work). Both kids are extremely happy.

Justin and Kayte are doing VERY well in school right now. Both are getting mostly A's and B's. Kayla needs to be reminded often to keep her grades up. Jonathan's report card was horrid, and he currently has a D and several C's.

The kids are THRILLED, however, because a friend of ours bought the kids a new computer. The last computer they had completely died earlier this week. It already had a ton of viruses and trojans on it... and Chris and I had decided to just leave it because we couldn't get them all off. But this time the hard drive actually failed.

The new computer they have now has a TON of parental controls. We LOVE it... if they can't get on the internet, we can just block that. Certain websites can be blocked. They can't install ANY programs without our approval. Hopefully these limitations will help them NOT infect this new computer.

Jonathan has been told that if he can keep his grades up, he will be allowed to, once again, play World of Warcraft -- with the understanding that he is NOT allowed to go overboard. We'll see how that works. I'm HOPING that it will motivate him.

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Kayla has been having a bit of a rough time. Julie told me the other day that Kayla got mad at her because Julie wouldn't take her out to dinner. This just SOUNDED odd. Julie called me upset because Kayla was "mad at her", and Julie didn't want her to be mad. Julie only had $20 to last the rest of the month (which, I might add, she got from us) and so Julie couldn't take her out to eat. I thought it was odd that Kayla would be upset with her over this, but Julie didn't want me to talk to Kayla about this.

I left it alone for a couple days, but at one point (when the time seemed right) I asked her why she got upset with her mom. She said that she was upset because when Julie talked to her, she was slurring. I told her that her mom thought it was about dinner, which Kayla said was completely wrong because she can eat anytime at McDonalds for free. We talked about it some more, and I realized that Kayla was very upset with Julie for some reason. According to Kayla, "she was never like this when daddy was alive". I told her that was not true. She wasn't like she was the first year after Ron died... but the way she is right now - doing pretty well, holding a job between hospital visits that are many months apart, although still taking a lot of meds - is exactly like she was when Ron was alive. I reminded her of when Julie shipped them up to Grandma's in Maryland to escape DCF possibly taking them away when they were young. Then how many times we would call up to Maryland and they would all lie about where Julie was - saying she was at the store or something when she was, in fact, in the hospital. Kayla remembers none of it. I remember Julie smoking weed at that time - throughout their young years as a matter of fact. I remember that Julie could never be 100% faithful to Ron when he was away so much. But Kayla doesn't remember any of that... and so she's angry with Julie.

I found a note in which she wrote "Dear Daddy" followed by how upset she was that he died and that her mom 'went crazy' afterwards. Overdosing and sleeping with multiple men. I didn't talk to her about the letter... nor did I read the whole thing completely enough to tell you any more than just that. I think it's good that she's putting her feelings into words. That's what I do here!

Then on Wednesday night, I had dinner almost done. Turkey, stuffing, corn... yummy. Literally 5 minutes before it was ready, Julie called. She asked if she could take Kayla to dinner. I told her I'd have to call her back (which I now remember I never did - oops). I called Kayla down and asked her if she wanted to go to dinner with her mom, or did she want to eat here - it was going to be ready in 5 minutes. She said she wanted to eat here... and so I asked why she told her mom to call me. Kayla said that she didn't tell her to call me - that her mom asked her if she wanted to go to eat, and that Kayla said "sure". According to Julie's story - Kayla said she wanted to go, but that I would never let her go out. (Funny... I so rarely tell her 'no'.) When Julie called I found the whole thing odd because of 1) the understanding that Julie didn't have any money before and 2) I knew Kayla was upset with Julie and I wondered if Kayla just can't talk to her about it.

I told Kayla - if you want to go with your mom, go with her. If you want to eat here, eat here. But just tell your mom one way or the other. She ended up eating with us.

I'm unsure of this whole thing.... I THINK what is happening is that Julie is sensing something is wrong with Kayla, and Julie is trying to do anything she can to make Kayla feel better. I'm not sure what's going on with Kayla on this... she's been VERY self-absorbed lately. But I fear that Julie is going to overdo it trying to make things better. I told Julie... if she's going to get mad at you because you can't take her out to dinner - LET her get mad at you! It's more important that you not overspend on something as silly as dinner when we have so much food at home - the girl is NOT going hungry... let me tell ya!

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Kayla hasn't put money in the bank in 4 weeks. She has actually taken out $250 and then cashed her next paycheck and spent it all. Since she turned 18, she's been quite the party animal... going to Ybor with the girls. She has a TON of new clothes. I looked in her room the other day and there were at LEAST 10 shirts with new tags on them, most cost over $20 each. I didn't even look at the pants that went with them. Some of the shirts were cheap little $6 shirts... but lots were more expensive. Then, of course, there are the new shoes. Just -- trust me when I tell ya that Kayla has spent her money shopping, for sure.

We keep trying to remind her - if she wants a car, she HAS to save. She had over $1,000 when Gwen was here... she has a little over $800 now, 3 weeks later. But -- we are NOT harping on her... I just told her that I wanted to see her meet her OWN goals, and she couldn't do that spending a lot of money.

Ooooooooo.... a big thing here! --- When I went into her room and saw all the new clothes... I thought I would GENTLY talk to her about it. Not chastise her for spending a ton of money, because it IS her money -- but rather -- just tell her that I know she wants a car... and all the pretty clothes in the world are not going to buy her that car. USUALLY what would happen (because we HAVE had this conversation before) is that Kayla would tell me that she didn't buy all the clothes or shoes or whatever. I've told you before that she has probably $1,000 worth of shoes in her closet -- she has told me before that she gets $100 pairs or shoes for $10 which I KNOW can't be right. ** However ** This time, she told me "I know Auntie Tina. I should stop shopping." It wasn't until later when I was just sitting down thinking about it that I realized that she didn't lie to me or hide the fact that she had made these purchases. Last night, I told her about this and let her know that I was proud of her. :o)

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Another problem we had with - and I hate to say her again, but here goes: Kayla - is her going to her bank.

Kayla has always been very flirtatious. When she was younger (16 and 17) I got very upset when she was Myspace friends and talking in the evening (after 10) with her banker. A young, attractive, yet older banker. I told my sister Katie how upset I was (it was another SunTrust bank, and since Katie manages a branch, I talked to her about it).

Now she is 18. Her first check after turning 18... she goes into the bank and passes out her phone number, telling him that she's 18 now and so he could call her.

Katie calls me and tells me that Kayla not only did that, but also her boyfriend usually goes with her and he has severely intimidated the other tellers. Intimidated to the point where he is no longer welcome in their bank. Additionally, this other manager tells Katie, it's inappropriate for her to come into a bank - regardless of her 'legal' age - and use it as a place for her to flirt with people and pick up men. A bank is a professional location, and they deserved better than that. If Kayla couldn't "control herself" they were going to be forced to close her account.

WOW

So... Chris and I talked to Kayla. She said she would do better, but -- she didn't believe that she had done anything wrong. She said her boyfriend was only there once, and that she didn't just give him her phone number... that HE asked her for it. Regretfully, if she doesn't see anything she did as wrong, it'll be hard to change her behavior. I'm just going to let it go and if they close her account, she has to move her money and hopefully then learn a lesson. We'll see.

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Speaking of learning lessons... Justin lost more money. This time, our friend Michelle gave him $50 cash for making honor roll. Justin brings it to the bowling alley where he took it out of his pocket to pay, but a friend told him not to pay, that he would get it. Justin THOUGHT he put it in his pants... but missed - apparently. $50 gone - that fast.

Sigh........... Justin!!!! :o)

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Chris is going away for the weekend. He is driving the bus full of high school kids to a retreat center. Usually our kids don't go on retreats ($100+ per kid = expensive!) - but this time... since Chris is going anyways.... we thought we'd try to sign at least Jonathan up. I almost had him completely signed up, THEN told him about it, and he freaked out!

Valentine's day is Saturday and he wanted to spend it with his girlfriend. Justin wanted to be with his girlfriend as well. Kayte works at Church and I assumed Kayla would never want to go... so -- none of our kids are going with him.

Yeah........... he'll be gone for Valentine's day. But... I think Valentines day is overrated. First of all... most of our marriage we were singing on Valentines day - he in a quartet with guys singing for girls... and me in a quartet with women singing for guys. All day... out making OTHER couples happy. Sometimes we'd meet up... I'd sing for him ~ then he'd sing for me.... it was cute. But we never got into Valentines day ourselves. For us... every day is Valentine's day: you shouldn't wait for that one day a year to show the person you love how much they mean to you.

We've had some good memories doing that. My most memorable was with my mom. We were driving around South Tampa and came to a neighborhood with TONS of cars, vans, catering trucks, TV crews, etc. Mom said "Hmmm... I wonder what all this is about? Let's go see." So - she parked her van and went to see what all the excitement was about.

There we were... four women dressed alike (in red and white) on Valentines Day. We came across a VERY nice yard with cameras and stuff on it. Mom asked someone what was going on and the guy told us that they were shooting a commercial with Joe Namath! Well, mom - being bold - asked if we could sing for him. They said "YES"!

We went on the set, and there he was... the most beautiful blue eyes I've seen (2nd only to my husband of course) and extremely tan. They had these BIG cameras on us... and microphones on these really long poles. Joe smiled the WHOLE time, then thanked us for coming. We had a picture taken with him, and off we went.

I'm sure Chris has his own memorable experiences. I remember him once telling me about the woman who opened the door to her house in a see-through nightie - then invited them IN to sing for her... and she didn't get changed. He said it was a wee bit hard to focus.... I can only imagine. :o)

Anyways, I'm booked tomorrow to do Singing Valentines with a quartet, if we get any orders. We are the last quartet signed up... so we'll see if they get lots of orders. I figured - Chris is out of town... I might as well go out and make some other people happy this Valentine's Day, right?

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Two weeks from now, Jonathan will be on a class trip to New York! Holy moly! How exciting for him!! His school chorus is going, and I'm so happy he is able to go with them. If he's anything like me... he is going to LOVE New York. I went to visit and didn't want to come home.

We just need to come up with a little more cash for his trip and go out and buy him some real winter clothes. I'm going to try Plato's closet first, and if they don't have anything - go to JC Pennys. Hopefully they'll have what he needs. One of the forecasts I saw had now flurries that week. Woooooooooooooooooow!!!!!

We are so blessed that he was able to do this. Some family members chipped in money for his trip... heck, even my boss threw in a little money! I'm sure it's something that he'll remember for a very long time.

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Well, I really should run. I have ANOTHER headache which I need to get rid of quickly. I've been sick for 2 weeks now with a cold and sinus headaches. I'm going to a Robinson High School Happy Hour down in South Tampa tonight. Apparently, tons of friends who went to RHS and are on Facebook have put together a monthly happy hour where anyone who went to RHS is welcome to come. This will be my first one attending (without Chris! BOO HISS!) and I'm really excited to see some old friends.

Sorry for the long time between blogs. I'll really try to be better!

The thought manifests as the word.
The word manifests as the deed.
The deed develops as habit.
And the habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love,
Born out of concern for all beings.

Buddah