The Glass is Half-Full

Sometimes the most enjoyable evenings are those that are unplanned. John and I had one of those evenings with our good friends Kris and Mike VanLoon on Saturday. Mike came over to help John with his lumberjack duties - cutting up the felled tree in our backyard.{see below for the details of that  incident} When he arrived John and Matthew had completed the task. Mike said he arrived 'just in time'!! The boys sat down and watched football and we planned to go to Douglas' Octoberfest after dinner.  We arrived just as it was finishing (I think Mike might have radar for this sort of just in time thing!!!). We did manage to have one or two beverages and had some interesting conversations. Or in many cases, snatches of conversations. As when I walked up to a table to hear Paula exclaim "I don't want the butt I want the meat." Immediately upon seeing the expressions of those that hadn't heard the beginning of the conversation, she turned a bright shade of pin...

Year one My son Matthew loved the story of and character Peter Pan so much as a creative 3 year old that he decided to be Peter Pan for Halloween and then became Peter for about 18 months. Seriously, 18 months. It all started when a catalog with some really cool costumes came in the mail and we saw a nice Peter Pan costume. It was early October when it arrived in the mail and Matthew could not wait for Halloween so he could wear his costume since I told him he couldn't wear it until then. Halloween came and he wanted to put it on first thing - but this mean mom made him wait until the afternoon.  When he put on the costume, he 'became' Peter Pan. He stood like Peter, with his hands on his hips, feet about shoulder width apart and a defiant look came upon his sweet cherubic face. Magic. The one thing he didn't like was that he didn't have a dagger that he could tuck in his belt. I cannot imagine what he'd have done if armed with a dagger!! That night,...

I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing young woman yesterday. I had to share her story. After my Mom boarded the train to Chicago, I waved goodbye and went back through the station lobby. A young woman in a FedEx fleece was sitting in the station. I thought I'd seen her come off the train - it departs Grand Rapids on it's way to Holland and Chicago. I asked if she needed a ride a somewhere and she said - "Sure" and seemed a little surprised at the offer.  Shandra works for the FedEx Kinkos store in Holland about 5 miles from the station. On our short journey, I learned that she has worked there for about a year and loves the company. She lives in Grand Rapids and takes the train from there to Holland every weekday. Be prepared to be awed - each morning she takes the bus from her north side Grand Rapids apartment to the station on the southeast side for a 7:50 am departure to Holland. It arrives about 8:30 am. She then waits for a bus (if the train isn't late...

Time for a funny not-so-little Piggins' story. It's about Delaney, the Divine Miss D, as she was dubbed at the time by a dear friend. It was a cold and blustery Sunday. (No this isn't a Winnie the Pooh tale!). The boys were content to hang out at home watching football. I, on the other hand, needed to go the mall to return something and to get a new bathing suit for my aqua aerobics class. I had pre-shopped but needed to try on the three suits at the Speedo store. Since John was watching football and Delaney heard the word 'shopping' she went with me. I made, what at the time seemed to be a reasonable deal with my three-year-old. I guess my first mistake was assuming (yes, eventually making and ass of me!) that I could reason with a three-year-old. You'd think I would have known better. The deal was that we would do my errands - to Hudson's to return and then to the Speedo store. I assured her that all told, it would only take an hour and then when ti...

We, as a country, were at our best in the months following 9-11. And never was it more evident than in the dichotomy that was shown this past weekend as we acknowledged the tenth anniversary of that horrendous day that is forever etched in our collective memories. (How's that for a slew of cliches?). On the actual anniversary there were a plethora of television programs and newspaper articles - bringing to life the horror and tension that was September 11, 2001. At church, our Pastor, like many others across the country, tried to put the day into perspective. It was a solemn, though rich, day. On Monday, there was a direct contrast - a GOP presidential debate. Politics and the creation and celebration of differences. And it brought back memories of those days and months after 9-11 - when as a country we rallied together. We seemed to understand that there was a lot more at stake than political differences. While there were divergent opinions there seemed to be an acceptance o...

My aunt recently commented about my blog that I do a  "great job of sharing things very personal without them being morbid, too dramatic, TOO personal". I am about to let her down . . . It's been a tough week.  We learned that a man we knew from treatment at UofM, with a similar cancer, passed away on Tuesday. We knew that just after the treatment at UofM concluded, that his cancer had meta-sized to his lungs and other treatments (including one at John's Hopkins) did not help. John Cleasby was only 57. In my mind, I can see his face in the chemo infusion room at UofM - coping as all the patients were. He was a quiet and gentle man - who happened to be married to a former co-worker of mine. While sitting next to each other in the infusion area, it seemed a blessing that I found a long-lost friend in the chaos that was the UofM Cancer Center and hospital. Bonnie Cleasby and I shared so much and had such similar outlooks. "We are going to beat this thing", ...

I don't know if you know this but I often think in terms of essays or blogs. An example might be that I am out at an event and something funny (it's almost always something funny that triggers this writing response) happens. In my mind, while I'm supposed to be 'in the moment', I am instead often putting together an essay or blog. Good thing that these don't often make it to print or the 'cloud'. Yet I cannot suppress the humor and joy of a morning spent with my dear friend Aimee who has had very little humor or joy in her life since last December. And it was all because of my keeps-me-on-my-toes puppy, Wally. Aimee has a Chiara Malformation which is a growth on the brain that for may patients goes either undiagnosed their entire lives or causes little problem. Not so for Aimee. Hers was discovered last November and while dealing with what she thought were migraines. The pain became so severe that she went to emergency room where a CT Scan revealed...