Talk about feast or famine

Hi everyone:

It seems like I'm always either shortchanging those who read the blog, by missing a day or by offering only a few words, or I'm prolific in sharing the minutiae of our daily existence. So, if we think of this in terms of feast and famine, it's feast day, folks. I wanted to share a small story with you that I'm sure the kids would refer to as "emo" (overly emotional.) I hope you don't mind when I do this; I've come to think of the blog as a diary of sorts, so I want to preserve as many of these discussions and activities as possible.

After our family night tonight, Patty seemed blue. On the two previous occasions, she seemed very upbeat after we wrapped things up. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that she was feeling emotional; however, she was having trouble identifying specific thoughts that were upsetting her, other than to say that the happiness associated with family night had a bittersweet quality.

Two hours later, through spontaneous tears, she said, "I know what's wrong. It's that I don't want to miss everything. I want to see all the kids grow up. I don't want just what other people tell me I can have. I don't want to have just two years with you, or four, or ten...I want forty." I never know what to say at such times, because I want exactly the same things, and yet we both feel powerless to do more than we're doing to make that possible.

We left our car today with Guy Tiberio, the auto shop teacher at Oswego East. He and his students have been fixing some problems with our truck that we had neglected for one reason or another -- mostly the fear of a major repair that would set us back a small fortune. Guy came back today with an assessment of our vehicle, and things weren't nearly as bad as we thought. Our truck has proven to be a pretty good purchase; it won't last forever, but it is still running pretty well for a vehicle with 110,000 miles. Of course, the generosity of Guy and his students is making things much more affordable than had we taken the truck to a commercial shop. We are grateful to Guy, to the kids, and to everyone at Oswego East. They continue to make Patty feel protected in so many ways.

Tomorrow, Patty and I are going downtown for a concert and an overnight. The tickets were given to us by the Goo Goo Dolls' tour manager (with some help from a contact at their record label), and our accommodations were provided for next-to-nothing by the W Chicago City Center. We're looking forward to a nice date night. So, if we go into "famine" mode in terms of updates, that's why.

Love,
Brian