Wishing You a Happy New Year

As you know 2015 has almost come to an end. As I look back I am astounded by all the changes that occurred in this latest trip around the sun. None of us would have guessed Vicki and I would have new jobs and the boys would be in a different school. I don’t think Jenna feels left out because she knows she gets her turn in the upcoming year.

As I wind up my thoughts for 2015 I need to say a little about our Christmas activities. An early Christmas event for us was hosting a Sunday School class lunch after church the Sunday before last (the 20th). We’ll need to do this again as several had family events at that time (understandably) but we had a great time with those who were able to come.

We did our share of shopping and gift wrapping in the days leading up to Christmas. By Christmas Eve we were headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. Of note here was that Keaton Raglin sang Silent Night as a solo and really nailed it.

Christmas morning began for us with our traditional gifting. We kept it pretty small this year. The boys are into video games so they got several accessories there. Also in the mix of the gifts were books, clothes, and candy. By 10:00 we were over at Mrs. Connie’s for brunch. We decided this year our gift exchange would be limited to gift cards and a game of Dirty Santa.

Kenny deserves a little grief here. Lori had sent Kenny to Walmart to get their gift cards with the instructions to get several different cards. What she really meant was for him to get an assortment of gift cards for different businesses to make things interesting. Somewhere there was a breakdown in communication because Kenny came home with a stack of gift cards, all for Walmart, but each with a different picture on it.

Kenny, I’m with you. I think you just earned a selective listening power-up on your man card. Women, here’s a suggestion for a new year’s resolution: s-p-e-l-l i-t o-u-t f-o-r y-o-u-r m-e-n. We’d really appreciate that.

Later that day I went over the the Freeland’s house as Brent, Sabrina, and their family were in. We spent over an hour catching up which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then we took supper over to Mom’s and wound up our gift giving with her.

This past Sunday was another full day. We had a lunch to recognize Kelly Raglin’s departure as our Worship Leader and Administrator. He’s had a tough job to do in the last couple of years and performed it well. His leaving marks the last of a complete turnover in paid staff in the last 18 months.

That evening we gathered at Kenny and Lori’s house for their annual Christmas party (which had been rescheduled from Wednesday). Again, another great time to reconnect with friends, some of whom I had not seen in years.

I had driven to the party separately so I could pick Mom up and the rest of the family beat me home afterwards. When I got in I learned that a possum made the poor choice of waddling out into the road right at the last minute. Ben was driving and there simply was no way he could avoid hitting it.

After the initial shock of hitting the critter and all the screaming, Nate, who was cleaning his glasses, frantically asked, “What happened?!? I always miss out on all the fun!” At least it wasn’t a skunk.

Joe

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! It’s a wet Christmas for us and will be all day long.

We have had a wonderful Christmas today and I hope you have. I won’t spend much time on our Christmas activities at this writing but focus more on what’s happened all month with us.

STORMS
Is winter really here? It’s warm--short sleeve shirt weather, even shorts. Oh, we’ve had a few cold days, but for the most part warm weather prevails. This December is the second warmest on record for Nashville. Again I ask, is winter really here?

We had a storm packing high winds to hit the weekend before last (back on the 13th, I think), and Wednesday evening we had a band of storms move through Middle Tennessee. We were under the gun here at our house, but that storm cell lost strength before it got here. Other communities south of here were not so lucky. We had enough advance warning that Kenny and Lori decided to postpone their annual Christmas Eve Eve party to this coming Sunday night which was a good idea even though the weather didn’t turn out to be as rough as the forecasters feared.

WINDING UP THE SEMESTER
We all wound up the fall semester last week. I didn’t have to give exams for my classes which made the final week extra nice for me. Jenna was glad to get her dual enrollment English behind her as it has proven to be one of the most demanding courses she’s taken so far. It was two classes crammed into one semester which gave her six hours of credit.

It won’t be too long before we’re thinking about her graduation. East Robertson’s commencement is set for Friday, May 20 at 6:00 and that’ll be here before we know it.

HOOP ACTION
Ben’s team has enjoyed several victories since I last wrote. The boys junior varsity team is having a better season than the boys varsity team so it’s fun to watch them play. (I should note here that DA’s girls are undefeated so far.)

Ben has gotten some pretty good game time which is good because there are several sophomores on his squad. He doesn’t have a lot of points to his credit, but he is still proving to be an asset to the team. Watching him play at this point is like watching a knife get sharpened. He’s getting better all the time and his day is coming.

They were scheduled to play East Robertson a couple of weekends ago. Ben was looking forward to playing against his old teammates. Unfortunately the JV game fell through. We did get Mom to a home game at DA which she enjoyed.

NATORIOUS
I have found out that Nate has a new nickname among his friends at school--Natorious. It seems he’s become a little notorious among his friends for getting into their Minecraft worlds and pulling little pranks which amounted to minor vandalism. He says he didn’t do too much of this because he decided it wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people, but he’s earned the nickname for himself never the less.

I PASSED!
I took my CDL driving test Tuesday and passed! I will begin driving my bus route when school resumes next month. I’m a little bummed because both of the big buses that I should have tested in were down for maintenance so I had to test in a small bus. This means I’ll need to go back next month and retest in a big bus to get the license and endorsement I’m supposed to have. However, this won’t prevent me from running my route in a small bus. Now, at least, I’ll get paid for my commute and have my vehicle and fuel to and from work provided. That’s a good deal!

(If you’re searching your head here, I’m going for a Class B license but could only earn the Class C at this point because I had to test in a bus that was less than 26,000 lbs. I’ll need to retest in a larger bus with air brakes to get the Class B.)

ENJOYING THE MOVIES
We decided we’d treat ourselves to some movie outings for Christmas and to that end our Christmas has come a bit early. Friday we went to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens which was very good. It was a lot of fun to go on opening night as several folks had come in costume. Vicki took a groupie picture of us and posted on Facebook that she was glad to be out with her geeky family to see Star Wars. We were amazed to learn of a couple of our friends who had never seen a Star Wars film.

Tuesday we went to see Mockingjay, Part 2 which is the last installment of the Hunger Games series. Again, another fun flick and a fitting end to that story line.

HARRY POTTER IS DEAD?
Sometimes Vicki hears me get up in the morning and will wake up enough to fill me in on some bit of news or community happening before drifting back off to sleep. One recent morning Vicki woke up to tell me that Harry Potter had died.

We got a good laugh later when Vicki was fully awake. We’ve been in a bit of a show hole in that we are watching the entire series of M*A*S*H on Netflix. I think we’re in season 8 right now. Harry Morgan, who played Col. Sherman T. Potter on the show, passed away on December 7, 2011. Vicki had seen something online about Morgan’s death and in her groggy state gotten more than one wire crossed when she passed along the news to me.

FULLY FUNDED
My daughter is one industrious girl. As you know, she is signed up to return to Haiti in February. She knew she wanted to go back when she got home from the last trip so she’s been working hard to save her money. I mentioned last month that she would be selling pies and other treats as a fund raiser. Now some 20 pies and 1500 (yes, fifteen hundred) peanut butter balls later (in addition to all the prepackaged items she resold) she is fully funded and ready to go! I am very proud of her.

Joe

Ready for the Holidays

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere I turn;
In the corner of the room I see our beautiful Christmas tree
With ornaments and pretty lights all aglow...

THANKSGIVING
We enjoyed a nice, quiet Thanksgiving here, which is exactly what was needed before diving into the Christmas season. Vicki and Jenna did most of the cooking last Wednesday. They still had some prep work to do Thursday morning but could afford to sleep in. We took everything over to Mom’s for a late lunch. We ate, napped, ate dessert that evening, and then played Spades. It was a most enjoyable day. Such a simple day. It’s one of my favorites.

Another pleasant part of our Thanksgiving happened Saturday when we met Ann Beth and Daryle for brunch at Cracker Barrel on Saturday. They stopped on their way home from their own family Thanksgiving activities.

LEAVES
I’m glad to say that we got all the leaf chopping done before winter this year. Well, I should say that given oaks don’t drop all their leaves at once we got Mom’s yard in as good of shape as possible.

The boys finished up our yard Wednesday. I need to brag on them a bit. It was a pleasure to be able to give them a job like that before going to town with Jenna to run errands and find that they were almost done when I came home. What’s more, they were working together nicely and doing it to my standard. I grabbed a rake to help finish up when I got back. At that point Ben came over and told me what he was planning to do next with the mower as if to ask my approval. I started to give my opinion but quickly said, “Ben, you’ve got this. I’m just out here to run a rake.”

All three of us worked on Mom’s yard Thursday and Friday. We could have pushed to get it all done Thursday but we got tired of eating dust. Nate and I came home sneezing and with red eyes. At least the deep leaves are out of the way and what’s left to fall won’t carpet the yard too badly.

BASKETBALL
The JV basketball season has gotten off to a good start with a 3-1 record. They’ve looked really good on the court except for the game the lost where they looked like they had forgotten everything they knew.

Ben has gotten a decent amount of playing time in. He’s not one of the high scorers, but he does make his presence felt on the court.

A SAD ANNIVERSARY
My father passed away 48 years ago today. I bring this up because a few weeks ago Mom ran across a short paper she wrote on the 22nd anniversary this day in 1989. In that paper she recalls my father’s passing and then coming home to find the 15 month old me blissfully asleep in bed. Her paper concludes with the following statements.

This Christmas thank God that Jesus left his father in heaven and came as a baby sleeping in a manger. Came to help us all. Enjoy your Christmas! Enjoy your family and friends! Thank God for them, for your health, homes, good food, clothes, and your many, many blessings. Thank God especially that when our opportunities on earth are over we will be reunited in heaven.

Given how the world has changed since then these words are a wonderful reminder to me of how to approach this Christmas season.

Joe