Friday, July 29, 2005

We lost a friend this week

I found out 2 days ago that we lost a friend in a motorcycle accident. He was 24 years old, one of the more funny people I knew. Underneath his jokes, his tough guy attitude, there was a soft heart. I met JJ at the job I had before working for the school district. His carefree attitude and love of jokes and laughter drew many people to him. His life was cut way too short. He had a lot left to do in this world. He was very good at computers, very smart underneath, such a loss.

Dion and I found ourselves talking about things that we remembered about JJ that were so typical of him. Although we hadn't seen him in a while, he has left a hole in our hearts. Here are some of the things we remembered about this guy.

The boss at work had asked to have a flower bed planted at the end of the drive at Gemini, and one was planted. It was beautiful, lots of bright colors, pretty landscape bricks and bark chips. It grew, and as it grew and grew, slowly corn stalks popped up and began to hide the beautiful flowers. You couldn't help but laugh at the sight, but what made me laugh more was the thought of JJ sneaking in and planting the corn. The boss really had a love/hate relationship with JJ. He saw his potential, but cringed at the things JJ did, such as planting corn in the flowerbed.

It was New Years, the start of the year 2001. We had a little party at our house. JJ found Dion's weights and took two of the bigger barbells in both hands and picked them up and held them straight out. As time passed his whole body started to shake from trying to hold them up. His facial expression were enough to make a person pee their pants. Later that night he found our popesan chair and crawled into it and slept. We had a fun night.

JJ lived his life having fun, laughing, making friends, and just being a good guy. I told Dion the day we found out that I had just been thinking about JJ, wondering how he was doing. I wish I would have reacted to that thought. As I said before, it had been a while since we had seen him. We will see him tonight physically for the last time at the wake, we will see him often in the little things, like corn stalks. I have a fortune cookie fortune taped to our computer. It says, "Life is a gift, don't waste it." JJ never wasted it. May he rest in peace.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Not to make excuses, but....

Below you will see a few of the things that have kept me so busy this summer, not including the garage sale we had, working, daycare issues, going to Mayo each week, laundry, cleaning, cooking, cutting the grass, and even a little time to actually get a babysitter and go to a movie or two.....

Nadia's "surprise" look.

Best buds!

Look at them play so nice together...lucky it's caught on film.

I like big butts and I cannot lie.....

This is Tater. He's our new kitty, and he rocks! He sits on my shoulders, puts up with the girls, and scares the dog. What more could you want?

New siding on the house! Poor Claire, we promised our first-born....

Obviously, watering plants has not kept me busy. We don't talk much about the hanging plants. I have no clue as to why I kill them each year, but I do.

Here's our bedroom, or at least a corner of it. It's amazing what a little color will do to a room.

Here's the stump. See it's evil twin behind it? It's on my hit list.

This is part of a dead tree I cut down. I don't suggest doing that in 90 degree weather.

I painted our bathroom in a mere 3 hours.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

That's what I wanted to chant at the Twin's baseball game we went to last weekend. I seriously made Dion stop so I could watch these two guys because it was way too funny. Ok, here's the senerio...picture two guys, one is kind of hefty, maybe in his 30's, he's got on the muscle shirt for all to see how powerful he is, and I am pretty sure he's had a few drinks. Then there's the guy in his 40's with the white polo, sandblasted jean shorts, and of course the loafers made the outfit complete. Pretty. SO they are in each other's face, yelling things I could not quite understand, but it was apparent they were a little angry at each other. SO the big guy yells, "Do you wanna fight?" I almost fell over! Were we on the playground or at a baseball game? I had to laugh out loud when the other guy says the same thing back to muscle man. Holy crap! They were going to duke it out right there! So, of course being the gentlemen that they were, they were going to head outside. The problem at hand as far as I was concerened was, how does one look tough and intimidating going through a revolving door? I was hoping they would share a stall, but muscle man went so fast there was no time for sharing. It you can hardly believe it, loafer guy quickly walks away and into the nearest bathroom, leaving muscle man outside to fight no one. Darn. I really wanted to chant "Fight! Fight! Fight!"