Ralph and Eddie are birthday buddies- Ralph is September 21 and Eddie is September 23. This is a big birthday for Eddie, he's 16 now and can get his driver's permit. Here in jersey you have to be 17 to get a license, but at 16 after passing the written test you can get on the road training, and drive with a licensed driver.
Ralph was planning to get a new truck anyway, and it was the perfect time! The blue truck is an 07 with only 65K miles on it, in terrific shape. It's a safe vehicle for a beginning driver.
It wasn't a surprise, Eddie guessed. But it was still so much fun! He was so excited that he was vibrating!
They were in it, under it, and under the hood!
And of course there was cakes! It was a super day. Whenever Eddie would disappear, we'd look out the window, and he was in his truck. As family and friends arrived, he'd give them a tour of his truck.
It was a fun party. Mike and Donna were there, and Frank and Charlotte, Sharon and Jim and most of their kids, Ed and Jeanne, Christ and Pam, and other friends of Heather and Ed's. Plenty of food, as always. All in all, a lovely way to spend a Saturday.
It's another week since Joseph died.
Are any of us doing well? Absolutely not.
Is it getting any easier? Absolutely not.
Has it changed the way we're living our lives? Absolutely.
We all say "I love you" more often. We hug more often. We're keeping in touch more often.
Someone told me that my brother is not taking this well. Duh. How do you take it well? If you take it well, something is really wrong.
I don't cry every day. I have periods of time where I don't think of Joseph, but I think of him more often now than when he was alive. We just take it for granted that people are there, til they're not.
And next week is another fun anniversary. On the 25th, it will be two years since mom died.
But in the meantime, we have two birthdays! Ralph will be 71 on Saturday the 21st. And Eddie will be 16 on the 23rd. So Heather has invited us all down on the 21st to celebrate. Birthday kid gets to pick the meal, so we're having pizza and pineapple stuffing. I'll pick up a couple of cakes at Sweet Eats. And we'll hang out and enjoy everyone's company. Bonus, Ralph got a new truck, and his old one, a 2007 Ford F150 with low mileage, is being Eddie's birthday gift. He guessed that he's getting it, but doesn't know when. It's a big heavy truck with 4 wheel drive, a terrific first vehicle!
So we will have some fun this week.
Actually most of our weeks are quiet, which is a good thing. We lived thru a lot of noisy years to get to these quiet times.
Joey started first grade, and the family was there to send him off on the bus. Jake and Michael had just gotten home from work, but stayed up to support Joey. I love them all so much!
The kids are all back in school now. Joey and Amary are in first grade, Garrett is in preschool at daycare, Julianna is in grade 7 and our Eddie is a junior!
I had a dental appointment, no good news. I'm losing bone in my jaw, and some teeth are getting loose. It's a watch and see situation.
One month til our Quebec to Boston cruise with Steph and Dan!
I'm deep into the genealogy. It's so fascinating! And so frustrating at the same time. I'm learning so much.
AC is off for the moment, after being on for 3 days.
And so it goes.
Quiet is good! For 26 years I spent Labor Day weekend stressing about the beginning of the new school year. Meetings and more useless meetings! I've been retired 3 years, so this is the 4th first day of school that I don't have to be involved with.
A little light reading! I'm totally hooked on genealogy now. I work on my tree, and on Ralph's tree- I'm better at the fiddly stuff than he is, and he's happy for me to do his tree.
I've hit a couple of roadblocks. My mom's bio dad, I can only go back to his great grandfather, and the trail stops in Ireland. And Ralph's paternal side, I'm having a hard time with, also. I'm not quite at the point of asking for help online, yet.
I've found relatives on Mom's bio dad's side that I was vaguely aware of the existence of some of them. I've made email friends with one in particular, who has hit the same roadblock with Thomas Hackett that I have, and she's been working on her tree for years.
I don't know how people didn't lose their sanity working on genealogy before Ancestry existed. I love following the leaf clues. I've been in contact with distant cousins from Canada, SC, and Ireland! They've helped me out with pix of other generations, and some pix of documents.
A whole bunch of family came from Renfrewshire, Scotland! How cool is that! And we have a branch in central/western PA who were coal miners!
Some of it is heartbreaking. Babies died in large numbers, often of things that are now not as much of an issue. Croup, pertussis, cardiac defects. Adults died in mining accidents, and of TB, then called consumption.
John is fascinated, and always asks what new things I've found. Mike's attitude is "We don't need more damn relatives!" Manda is pretty fascinated, Steph is mildly interested, and Heather is too busy to even look at the tree.
It's a good obsession for me, for now. It keeps me from obsessing about Joe all the time, and I feel like I'm honoring him by putting him in the tree with all the in-laws and outlaws, as my dad would say.
