We're Not Empty Nesters, Yet...But We Will Have A Guest Room

 It was strange opening the door to my daughter's room and seeing it empty. It's like the front room in January...where's the Christmas Tree? The room is yet more proof that life continues to march forward, whether we like it or not.

I grew up in a home where each of my two siblings and I had our own rooms...eventually. My brother and I shared a room for several years, but when my cousin Kris graduated high school and moved out, my brother moved into her room leaving me with a room of my own. That's the way it stayed until my brother graduated and moved out, then me, then my sister. It was the first time we had a guest room.

Guest rooms are still foreign to me. After my father died, we did a lot of traveling visiting family. I think it helped my mother handle life without her husband. Fine with me--I loved (and still do...) my cousins. And because many of our cousins were the same age, they didn't have a lot of guest rooms, either. We slept on the floor in sleeping bags and I didn't care. Of course, I was a kid so my body was better equipped to sleep on the ground. We didn't need a guest room...the living room suited us just fine.

In a few months, we'll have a room that will not be used on a daily/nightly basis. I thought we could now properly house, albeit temporarily, guests. What's funny/interesting is we hardly ever have people over, mostly because we live far away from family and friends. My family is in-state, but several hours away. My wife's family is mostly out-of-state, so we can have a place for them if/when they come to visit.

As we get older, so do the kids. They move out, get married, begin to build their own lives. Yes, when I think about becoming empty nesters, having unused rooms doesn't come to mind...

Or, it didn't, but does now.

I'm happy my family is growing, expanding. It's more proof that the one constant in life, is change.

Destroyed TV...I Blame The Cat

We all heard the crash, of course, the only one in the room at the time...

Was the cat.

I was working. The boys were in their rooms. My wife was in the front room. In our house, it's not normal to hear things crashing to the ground, so I jumped up to make sure everyone was okay. When I opened the door from my office, I spotted the TV, not atop the dresser like it should have been. No...it was laying destroyed on the bedroom floor

Maybe it still works, so I returned it to the dresser and plugged it in.

I got an ode to St. Patrick's Day.

We had to toss it...too bad, it was a good, old--yet reliable set that served us well for almost a decade. It survived a move, and several cats. It did, however, not survive our huge rag doll cat.

There were times, when it was just the cat and I, when we were watching a program--most likely, a sports program--the cat would jump up on the dresser and scratch at the action on the screen. Then, he would stretch to his full length (which is very long...) and place his paws over the top of the TV. I had only ever seen him do it when there was something on the screen.

Looks like he didn't have to have something on the screen to be interested in the TV.

We love our cat...I mean, he's a cat and even though he caused the damage, his brain didn't understand what he did. Such is the life of a cat.

Oh...we're still looking for a home for him and if you're thinking he might be the perfect cat for you, we'll even throw in a wall TV mount...for free. 

Last Christmas...The Title Means Something Different Now

 Over the past couple of weeks I, like many of you, have listened to Christmas music. Listen to it long enough and you'll begin to hear repeats of songs, then three-peats of songs, and so on. For several decades a little number from Wham! entitled, Last Christmas has made its annual showing--there's even bands doing covers of the hit. A few years ago the made a movie with that title...never saw it--know nothing about it.

But the song...we can't seem to escape it.

The song is a parable of sorts...a song of regret and resolution to make changes so next year the singer won't make the same mistake as they did this year. There's not much to the song. High poetry it is not, but it's an upbeat ditty, the kind of tune that sticks with you, stays in your head. I'm sure that's one of the keys to its success.

I've thought a lot about the song this year, not so much the lyrics or the melody, but the title...

Last Christmas.

Since March 2020, so much has changed. I think the whole world thinks about life and mortality differently. People were with us one day, then gone the next. Of course, this happens all the time, sickness, accidents, age can take lives in an instant. But, we all know people who have left us since the day the world changed.

Last Christmas...this year my children and their only living grandparent came together. We played games and ate too much delicious food. We were blessed with safety from the storm that blew in and shared the warmth that only family affords. Though there were some small changes, this year's holiday reflected pretty much what we did last year.

If the past two years have taught us anything, it's that there's no guarantees, no way to know for sure if we'll be here next year to gather and enjoy those we love.

I have friends and family that--unbeknownst to them--last Christmas was their last Christmas. If asked, I'm sure they would have said they had a wonderful holiday, but if they had known it was the last time they'd have the opportunity to share the day with loved ones, would they have done anything differently? Would they have changed anything?

I hope this was not the last Christmas for any of us and that in exactly a year from today we can once again gather with our favorite people like many of us did today. I hope we've lived in such a way that we can honestly say, "I wouldn't change a thing." I hope when we think of last Christmas, it won't be a regrettable one...you know, like the song.