A Little Bit Sad

Yesterday morning I got some bad news. My uncle, who has been battling cancer for a while, took his last breath. Like I said, a little bit sad; but maybe, just maybe, it isn't all bad.

All in all it's no terrible thing. We all have to die some day, and he had a very long life, a successful and happy family, and an extraordinary career. I guess we could all hope for so much.

If you really sit down and think about it, we should all wish for so much. I mean, for a guy that came into life without a whole lot, he made a life that could make anyone proud. Basically a self-taught guy, he worked his way up through the ranks and retired in great esteem from Gulf Power. After that he took a consulting gig in Michigan and did really well with that. A son with a doctorate in physics, who is a retired corporate VP and now teaches and is a successful general contractor, three grandchildren all grown up with families of their own, all leave him a pretty firm legacy.

When it comes right down to it, he taught me a lot. Right now, in the midst of my reflection, it seems he is teaching me a lot. I learned a lot about electronics and how stuff works, a great deal about carefully controlled ambition, and most importantly how to treat people well. It is sure there were times when Unc had a temper, but it always seemed history would prove him on the right side of his arguments, a righteous indignation of sorts. He was a big man, with a big heart, who cared for his family and protected them the best way he knew how. I could only ask that be said of me one day.

It stands to reason I will be reflecting a lot for the days, weeks, and years to come. It's often you look to an uncle as a close family member, a friend, a caregiver; but not everyday can you truly call him a mentor. R.V. Calhoun was my uncle, but will forever be my mentor in career, in life, and in loving well.

With love,
-Andy

Prayer of the Broken (from my ongoing work 'Prayer for the Common Man')

I feel pretty miserable.

I feel like a broken piece of a car that never worked right to begin with. Somehow, some way, so many people rely on me but I am unreliable. I fail again and again to be what You need of me.

I need to be fixed. I can't keep doing this. I can't keep being who I am. I can't go on being so self-centered as to forsake everyone that loves and relies on me.

Please God, please, in Your mercy, put me together. I have somehow made a mess of every blessing you ever gave me. I am not worthy of love of anyone, and am most certainly not worthy of You.

You, the God of Creation, the God of Abraham, David, and Peter, who makes all things new; You who give redemption through Your Son; You who restores the pieces and makes the broken things whole; You who made me, please make me whole again.

Amen.

-Andy

Tracy is wearing Underware!!!

Aren't you supposed to wear underwear on your head?

Just another trip to The ED

This has been a crazy few days in my house. Gray has been a stinker and thinks because he has a cast he can do anything and get away with it. Well as you know we have been dealing with pushing in our house. Tracy seems to have learned his lesson when he pushed Gray off the Couch.

Well tonight as I was walking to the back door to call the boys in for dinner Gray wanted to be the first one in the door but Tracy was there first. So Gray pushed Tracy off the steps and down the aggregate steps. Tracy got a nice deep facial lac over his right eye. Oh Joy !!

Andy had just left for work too. So I got the bleeding stopped, and my lovely ED Nurse neighbor confirmed what I didn't want to do, he needed to be Stitched up. Andy came back home and we all went off to Southern Hills Hospital, Oh Yeah Fun Times!!

He did not get stitches, The Doc used Dermabond. I Love that stuff. It is like sterile super glue!!
We checked in at 1917 and were back in the car at 2010. WOW less than and hour!!


And now the boys are sleeping.


-Shelly

School, tigers, and work, Oh My

I need to write something other than a silly case study or chapter for my Project thesis. So I am writing to all of you lovely people who may read this blog.

If you do please comment, just click on comments at the bottom of the post, and let me know. Thanks.

Okay back to my rambling.

I realized something on Friday. I am in a place in my life where I am comfortable to be myself around others. Now I know some of you think "Oh my She's going to be even more like herself! Watch out!!" That is not what I mean. I mean I am happy to be me, and not what others want me to be. God has and is so good to me. He has helped me be comfortable in my skin. I still want to be healthy and attractive but I also love my stretch marks :)!!!They remind me I am a mom and I have given birth to two wonderful boys.

I went to friends house to drop off toys my boys have outgrown and I should have been ashamed of how I looked. But I did not care. I was on a mission to give an eight month old some new toys.

Now that I have written something that has nothing to with school I am going to bed. Night all!

Hopefully I will write something a bit more coherent in the morning.

-Shelly

In the words of Dave Matthews

Too much.

It seems the more I get ahead the further I get behind. I also must say how much I love a good cliche.

Really, though. Sometimes it gets so crazy, even when you are enjoying what you are doing, it doesn't seem there's enough time to get it all done. That's a terrible attitude, I suppose, given God in His perfect wisdom created time and numbers each of our days; but it seems to be where I am.

Today I took some time to do something I really enjoy. In the middle of enjoying time with the family I built myself a new PC. In fact the hard disks are formatting as I write this. Now of course there is a ton of drive space on this beast (about 1.5 TB) so that's taking a while. So I multi-task by eating supper and writing you lovely folk.

I spend a lot of time multi-tasking these days. You understand, the other day when Gray was in the ED i spent a lot of time emailing back and forth to make sure everything I needed to take care of at work for the next two days was covered. I spend almost every off day with my work PC up so I can stay in communication with folks in a timely manner; all the while with one kid in my lap, one tugging on me to come over here, and a dog biting my toes. Does it end?

I guess it doesn't, and that's okay. You know, come to think of it, if I wasn't busy I'd be bored, and if I was bored I'd be even more unbearable. Does this mean life's perfect? I think it does, or at least I wouldn't trade mine for anyone else's.

-Andy

That doesn't look right...

Yesterday was certainly an adventure. Let me say, this is some story, and it will be told from my perspective. To paint you into my story, know that I worked all night Friday night and had slept a little over 2 hours Saturday morning when this all started. Now here we go.

My parents were over seeing the boys. They had some shopping to do up here in the big city and stopped by to drop off some new curtains for the boy's room. I woke to my dad installing new curtain rods in the boy's room for the new curtains. We were talking, the boys were running in and out, and I was just about ready to turn back in for the rest of the afternoon, as I had to work again that evening.

As I was chatting and ready to go back into my bedroom, I heard the boys playing in the bonus room. They were both laughing and having a good time, so I said to let them be, they're just being boys. Famous last words... next thing I hear one of them fall and Gray crying, so obviously we have a man down. Since it's not like Gray to cry unless he hurts pretty bad, I trotted in pretty quick to see him. That's when things got crazy.

When I walked in I saw Gray standing still and bawling, his right arm hanging to his side. I thought that was odd, since he usually holds his face when he cries, but he was standing facing in a way that made me think he bumped his head. Pretty typical stuff for either one of the boys. I asked him what hurts and he just kept crying, so I turned him where I could look him in the eye, give him a once over, calm him down and send him on his way. That is when I saw it.

Anybody remember Joe Theisman's leg? What I saw might not have been that bad, but I promise it was close. Gray's right arm, hanging by his side, the lower half bent into an 'S' shape. I scooped him up to immobilize him, threw a blanket over him to prevent shock, and asked Shelly to call the ambulance. Still completely groggy and trying to sort all of this out, I headed downstairs thinking of all sort of strange things; "will they straighten it out ok, will he need surgery, how do I handle the hospital situation (HCA does not have a children's unit in Nashville), will he ever play ball, will he be able to play a musical instrument?" The main thing I thought of was getting this little baby of mine well, now.

Shelly and Gray boarded the ambulance and I followed close behind. Once at the hospital things really get fuzzy, the adrenaline wore off and I got even more fogged. All I know is we had to wait forever. Reason for the wait, they were going to have to put my little chief to sleep so they could set his arm. Gray ate just before the accident, so there was no way they were putting him out with food in his stomach. The wait was on.

Gray was a champ. He waited calmly, watching lots of cartoons and smiling a lot. He was such a big boy, I couldn't have been more proud of him. We waited and waited, and finally a little after 8 last night they put him out and set his arm. He did beautifully. On a side note, as the ED docs were getting him to go to sleep he told them all about Duffer and gave them all a big 'Go Gators' as his last words before he was asleep. That's Daddy's Boy!

The docs did a great job and got him set and in a had splint. Both bones in Gray's lower arm were displaced, but they got them back together nicely. We'll have to go visit the doctors later this week to see how he's healing and maybe move from a splint to a cast. Needless to say, yesterday was interesting.

-Andy