My 14th Birthday Post

Written on 6-28-25. 

        Today is my 14th birthday.  Once again, I have much to be thankful for, especially after receiving 14 gifts of extra years to live here on this magnificent earth.  I pray every night before I go to bed, and one of the prayers I say is, “Thank you, God, for bringing me to the end of another day.”  

        I think back on what happened that day, both bad and good, but mostly always good.  Then I nod off to sleep hoping God will grant me yet another day.  I started doing that after I had my stroke (six years ago this August), and it has continued since.  I can hear my dad saying, “You’re a mess, kid.”

Aren’t we all?  Everyone has some sort of health issue (or issues).  It’s a part of the human condition.  

As I reflect on this past year, as always, I have so much to be thankful for.  Mostly, my thoughts go to...

The Gift of Pain/Health

Written on 6-27-25.

     Rocky and Kelly just drove away from the cabin at Vallecito, and it’s quiet time now.  They stayed one night, and we all went out on the lake this morning.  It was beautiful.  The conditions were calm and sunny, a perfect summer morning on a mountain lake.  Eric let me drive his brand new, more powerful boat, and I got to bring it in to the dock, too.  Thankfully, the conditions were conducive, and I put it back in the slip with expertise.  I even amazed myself.   Soon, we will have our family here for the 4th of July.

On to golf…

I am working out with Matt (last name) again, and I have had two sessions already.  I asked for that as a gift for Father’s Day, and then I got two rounds of ten workouts accidentally.  Belinda had already gone down there to pay for the first ten sessions, and then I charged ten more.  The lady didn’t tell me B had already paid for the first ten, so I just kept them all.  She told me I had money left over from the previous time, too, so I am set for a long time.  It feels great to...

My Return to Casa Bonita

Written on 6-24-25.

      It’s a Tuesday, and I am lying on “our” bed here in the Edgerton’s house.  I was sleeping at our house until it became too unreasonable.  With our kitchen taken over and no doors in our bedroom area, I decided to move completely over here.  I have grabbed multiple items from our house to make our stay over here easier.  Things like my haircut kit, vitamins, and allergy medicine are things apparently I can’t live without.  

Shane and crew are working on the kitchen now, but they are still two/three weeks out from being done.  Sigh.  B and I are tired of living out of our bags.  Every night, we go over to see the progress, and somehow we end up grabbing even more items we need.

Speaking of living out of our bags, we just came home after my...

ShyShay and I Share a Par

Continued from 6-16-25.

        I played with Guy, ShyShay, and Garth Sr. when we went out to Virginia.  I see the date I wrote on the scorecard was June 3rd, the day of ShyShay’s graduation.  We played at Algonkian again.  Guy and I played there before, and I remember seeing the deer on hole #10 and comparing it to heaven in this journal a long time ago (I just looked and it was from 2003!).  We were greeted with a delay due to an outage, though, and we used the extra time to go to the range.  After an hour late start, we were off.  It was difficult.  Guy and I both started with pars, but it went south pretty quickly after that.  The grounds were sopping wet in many places, and the rough was long, so we lost a few balls that should have been easily found.                                     Shylah and I both earned a par on the first par three.  She was playing from the senior tees with Garth until that hole.  She rented her clubs, and she chose the driver for her tee shot from the whites where Guy and I were playing.  Her shot ended up past a bunker on the right side of the hole.  She made a great chip to a few feet for her par.  I made a fine swing with my 5-iron/wood, but it landed well short.  It looked like it would end up on the middle of the green, but it surprisingly dropped well before it.  My pitch put my ball past and above the hole.  The putt was a longer, downhill, breaking from left to right putt which I made for my par.  We had a little bonding moment for our pars together there.                          Shylah had to leave to get ready for graduation, so she and Garth left together.  Guy and I played on alone, but we only got in four more holes.  It was glorious, but it was short-lived.  I was just happy to have that short time alone with Guy.  I scored a bogey for every hole for those four, and I played a bit better than I did for the first nine holes.  I say it was better only because I never lost a ball.  We chose to leave when we were close to the pro shop to make it back to shower and get handsome for the photos.  I was happy I brought my clubs to be able to play and have fun with them for this graduation trip.

The First Summer that Feels Like Work

Written on 6-12-25.

     I am sitting on Amanda’s recliner in the Edgerton’s living room.  It’s 10:53 AM, and I just finished a workout.  It’s just Kody and me, but Lance is outside mowing and trimming their lawn.  The Edgertons are up at Vallecito.  Belinda just left to go have lunch with Kelly, and I will meet her afterwards to look at different paint color possibilities for the kitchen.

I am marketing Time to Teach consistently, and I just reached out to Phyllis (last name), former principal at McCoy.  They are looking at Title funds to pay for my training, so I reached out to Aaron to help answer her questions.  We will see what comes from all of this. 

We are spending our mornings and afternoons here, because they are still working on our walls by texturing and painting them at our home.  They are making their way into the living room, and then they will head to the kitchen and laundry room.  It’s looking fantastic, and I am so pleased with how it is turning out.

I have cooled off enough to go take a shower, so I will be right back.

Written on 6-16-25.

Okay, I did not just take a four day shower, but I did get distracted and not get back to writing on that day.  Typical. 

I am back at the Edgerton’s, though, and it’s a Monday morning.  I just worked on e-mails for...