It's not that there hasn't been news lately. It's just that there hasn't been time to put it all together for you (unless I want to cut and paste from my letters; uhhh, no).
Too much stuff, so I won't go into a lot of detail, but the last month (the month of August, more or less) has been quite eventful. None of the other months of 2011 can compare! So let me elaborate.
#1. We had expected this for some time, but now it is official: My older son and his girlfriend are getting married. They live in the Detroit metro area, and that's where the wedding will take place next April. They recently rented a hall (a suburban golf course clubhouse; remember, it's in April) that will be used for the ceremony and reception, and she got her dress already. Other details are being worked out ...
Happy news for us, since we will finally be getting a daughter (many years after I had my vasectomy). We like the girl, and they phone us from time to time--it has usually been every Sunday or Monday night. They live over 500 miles away, but the long, long journey won't be so intimidating any longer. That is because of #2.
#2: We have gotten a new car. We just picked it up just recently. The car has been in the works for two or three years, but the purchase went on the front burner this summer, and I did a lot of research on what I wanted to get--where and how I would get the best bang for the buck, so to speak.
First I was leaning heavily toward a Prius. Face it--I drive a lot, and gas mileage is important. Then, after I finally decided Priuses cost too much, even with the gas savings, I looked at a Honda Fit. I waited over a year for the brains at Honda to motivate themselves to build a hybrid version of the Fit. And they finally did--but they are selling it in Asia and Europe only. The Honda people running the company here in the States didn't think there would be a market for a hybrid Fit--or so I had read. So that prospect dried up, too.
I looked at the Chevy Cruze and the Ford Fusion and Fiesta. Then I started hearing about the restyled Hyundai Elantra and what an amazingly sharp car it is. I read and read, looked at YouTube videos, read reviews and finally decided that is the way I want to go. I'm not alone: Elantras are in such demand now that I had to pre-order it from a dealer about 130 miles away. That's what I did about a month ago, and it arrived last week. We picked it up on Friday. My wife and I agree: It's a nice car.
It's light blue. I originally wanted a dark/medium blue car, but then I thought it over again. The winters up here are pretty long and snowy, and I often drive at night or in low light conditions. The roads up here are usually poorly lighted or not lighted at all. In the end, I concluded that a lighter color would be a better way to go.So I went for light blue--blue is my favorite color, if you don't know.
And here it is ...
For the record, my 2001 Mazda Protege was retired with 203,000+ miles on the odometer. I bought it 8+ years earlier, when it had 44,000 miles on it.
The money? It came from funds we inherited several years ago from my mom and her parents. We had spent very little of it until now, aside from home repairs. Most of it is still invested. Besides, we wanted to do something special for ourselves because of #3.
#3. Early in August, my wife and I marked our 40th anniversary. Yay, us! We celebrated it very quietly and didn't make a big deal of it: We went out for a steak dinner that night at a favorite restaurant, then returned home and finally went upstairs to celebrate our special milestone in the usual way. Nothing we haven't done before, you know! ...
Earlier this year, we talked about the two of us going on a bus tour in Chicago in late July, but the tour was canceled--too few people signed up for it. Instead, we went to a quilt show near my wife's three sisters and visited them at the same time. Some of them, anyway. Two of the sisters aren't on speaking terms with each other. That's their party. We just try to stay out of the way.
As for being married 40 years, we don't think it's a big deal. Not really. All it means is that we are healthy enough to have spent 40 years together and that we were smart enough to select partners we enjoy being with and got to be best friends with. We aren't carbon copies of each other by any means and we have very different tastes, but we still like each other. We still hold hands whenever we can and enjoy watching TV or going for rides together. That's one reason why we thought about the new car--the old one was getting less and less reliable.
Of course, my wife and I made some major changes in our relationship over the years. Mid-course corrections. Nothing is ever perfect, but the changes we made removed a lot of tension between us. Neither of us is perfect or could ever be everything for each other. We worked out a solution that works for everyone. I'm still home, sleeping next to her 28 or 29 days a month. And on those other two or three days, she knows where and with whom I'm spending the night. No secrets. No mysteries.
#4. Most of those two or three days/nights this summer were with K. We had some fun times. Should I tell you about the day we went hiking around a local lake deep in the forest, when we both were barefoot down to our waist ... and later down to our ankles? ...
Should I tell you about the sudden shower or the mosquitoes tracking us down? Should I write about watching some dumb movies (about sexy hillbillies) with her and her guy at their place recently? Or the tailgate party (pizza!) we had while watching a Packers playoff game recorded last winter?
No, there's not enough space. But we had a good summer. I'm hoping to get together with N and S before long, too. But K lives a lot closer, and when you get as busy with work as I get, even a short escape is precious.
Coming up: K is having an operation in mid-September--she has had a thyroid-related lump in her throat, and they are going to operate on it. She will be recovering for two weeks before returning to work. That may lower her stress--she works at ***-mart, which is, she says, a very stressful workplace.
But our time together is happy time for K. And for me--adding K to my life is the best thing that happened to me this year ... regardless of that new car behind the house. We're only through August now, but I don't see that changing in the final third of 2011. We will meet again this week. First time since our hillbilly night, and I'm sure we will have fun.
But my wife and I still have fun, too, and I spend much more time with her. She made a quilt for the county fair, and it won a red (second place) ribbon ...
On Saturday night, we went out for a pizza, then watched that very same movie about the hillbillies. On Monday, we're talking about going out for a drive to a small northern Wisconsin zoo, where they have tiger cubs and other critters. She loves to see critters. Then, two weeks later, we're going to another quilt show.
Onwards and upwards. See? There's a lot to write about. Too much, at times.
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