A pleasant day

Dear Family and Friends,
Yes I did make it through the night last night with my precious little kidos but not without incident. Keanna finally fell asleep quite late and and Kallie woke just before 5. When I picked her up she was burning up hot. The room was not that warm and I had put her in a medium warm sleeper. Her little body radiated heat so I changed her into a cooler outfit, fed her a bottle which she drank about 1/2 of and then put her down in her little bed. Sometime after 6 she woke and was still warm. I was very worried and Keanna thought she felt too warm too. I took her downstairs and rocked her in the recliner where we stayed for nearly an hour. She would cuddle in and then reach for her bottle and have some more. Finally she cried a tiny bit and up came the bottle, right into her precious little pink blanket which is her special oasis in the world. Shortly after Nikki called to check in and after hearing about Kallie came right over and took her home. kallie went back to bed for a nap but has been running some fever all day. Poor little precious girl, you can see in her eyes they does not feel right. I've not heard how she is doing this evening. Keanna was a great help and has a wisdom taught her by Nikki and STeve that is far beyond her years. She is a great helper.
I dropped Keanna off later in the morning and then drove to church where I once again got to enjoy worship with Jessica, our new pastor. She does an excellent job of communicating and a good sign is a full parking lot. Loren and Emily took pity on me and invited me for lunch. Wow what a feast, just seems like everything they touch tastes great. Then I got to spend a few minutes catching up with a friend and headed home. I napped a bit and then pulled out the old $75 lawn mower I purchased a year ago from a neighbor and after a bit of coaxing it started. I mowed my tiny yard which is mostly weeds right now, then I fed it some miracle stuff that is supposed to produce a flowing green lawn by morning and turned on the sprinklers. I realized that they were not coming on each morning as the front lawn was as hard as a rock. So I began to tweak and work on the timer. Before long I noticed a thin stream of smoke coming from the timer and it grew more intense. It did not make me reassured that my tweaking was being successful and now in spite of wiring new connections to each value it will not work. Perhaps the smoke meant something! So literally $25 went up in smoke. Tomorrow morning I'm going to wake into the weeds, plant the tomatoes and get a new timer somewhere. Perhaps this time I can find one that I can understand. This one has always been a mystery to me. Why I need to have three time zones for each value I'll never know and it never did what I thought I had ask it to do. Shouldn't a masters degree mean one can set sprinklers? Evidently not.
Today was another of those days where carrying the mail in does not require any heavy lifting, no checks, no bills and no fun in the box.
I am reminded once again how special the Tracy SDA Church is, well actually not the church, the building is nice and freshly painted but its the people who show up. Hugs, kind words, genuine attention, thoughtful comments, boy does that all feel really really good. I live in world right now where mixing with people is somewhat of an effort, often one that is just not worth it. Someone tried to tell me years ago that once you are a single again you move to a different place in a social setting, when you walk in you are on your own, no one to watch your back, make sure your fly is up, your hair is down and that you don't have toilet paper on your shoe, you are alone and sometimes it is just more costly in effort and emotions than it is worth to mix it up. I can see why some people become reclusive and withdraw from life. While I'm not there it is pretty easy to let things slide that are not crying out for attention and only when the thought of someone you care about might come to visit do you pause to look about and decide some attention to detail is in order.
At times I'm tempted to think, how did things go so wrong? Our family was on a normal path, kids were maturing, doing well, doing great things with their lives, we had a comfortable house, went on nice vacations, had a good job which seemed to contribute to our community, loved being apart of a great church family who we loved to be with, to camp with, to worship with. How different it is now. Nan was snatched away by an enemy we did not know even existed and with her passing everything changed. She was the key to so many things, the light at the end of each week, the friend waiting at home to come to, the holiday and birthday specialist, the anniversary planner. Gone.
I will always be deeply indebted to my precious Nikki and Jason and their spouses for their continual care and support and to the little ones who are like precious gifts of silver and gold.
And so it goes, I've not yet found a way to love life again on a hourly consistent basis. Will I ever? I'm told yes, at this point I don't believe or disbelieve.
So days like this which started with the kidos, had friends and worship, luscious lunch with friends and now afterglow from the day, its been good. I hope and pray that its been good for you too. Please pray for Suzie and Irene and for Kallie too.

love to all,

Tim