A Year of Change

Yesterday once agin we saw an unspeakable tragedy in Connecticut. It’s still too early to tell exactly what happened but one thing is for sure, this is all we’ll see on tv for some time to come. Here at our house we talked about it as they did at school before the kids even made it home. We tried our best to put it into perspective and explain that these things do happen in the World but that while you need to be aware of your surroundings, you can’t live in fear.

They say the shooter had a personality disorder, duh, and first shot his Mom and then went to the school where she was a substitute teacher where he then cut down innocent lives before killing himself. Of course the anti-gun people will blame the guns, that were bought and registered legally by his mother, others will blame society for creating a culture of violence we can’t get away from (movies, tv, video games and how we glorify violence in general) and others will blame mental illness. Personally I believe the main issue is one of mental illness.

Let’s first look at guns and mark my words, the government and others will be coming for them in one form or another. They will try to outlaw certain types of guns or magazines or something but they will try to exploit this to their advantage. How do we know guns are not the problem? Well let’s look at Switzerland or Israel where gun ownership is much much higher yet violent crimes are much lower. If someone wants to injure or kill people, not having a gun won’t stop them.  You see they, as a country and a culture do not glorify violence or ignore mental illness like we do. A 36 year old guy in China attacked 22 kids and 1 adult at a school there yesterday with a knife. No word yet on how many died but you get the point. Should we outlaw alcohol as it causes thousands of drunk driving deaths each year or how about the cars themselves? Now as a responsible gun owner, I’m not against things like required training or a longer waiting period to buy a gun, or a law requiring them to be locked up in a safe when not in use but I’m not sure anything would have helped here. This guy was clearly deranged and sick as we’re now finding out.

Second is society, why do we sell and push violence here in our country. Has anyone seen a movie lately? Most of the top sellers are action packed violent shoot em up features that have good guys and bad guys like Mission Impossible and Batman. Even the shows on tv these days are way out of line. How about the news? We’re so connected as a society that everything bad is instantly in our face. We can’t get away from it. Hollywood makes these things and will continue to as long as it sells. We’ll continue to see it non stop until we turn off the tv and stop patronizing these violent shows.

Last is mental illness. We’re now so politically correct and self absorbed that we won’t say anything or try to help someone who any of us can see, clearly needs help if it’s not in our close little circle. We drive down the street and ignore homeless people, the vast majority of who have emotional or personality disorders and who need help. As long as it doesn’t touch us personally, we just drive on by or ignore it, you do, I do, we all do. On top of this our society is falling apart and many feel hopeless and helpless and when they get to the point where they have nothing to lose, the sick and deranged people can and will do these kind of things. We need to reach out and help these people, there had to be some warning signs that were just ignored. One of his classmates said “I’m not surprised” and knew some of these warning signs, yet didn’t speak up. His neighbors said “he was not well” and he was autistic. The shooter was also supposed to be taking certain medication that he apparently stopped taking.

So, my point is that a new gun law or eliminating violent movies isn’t going to stop these type of things from happening. Will it help, sure, but all three things need to be addressed. So as a society we need to all begin to care for everyone and stop throwing people away who have some sort of problem. We also need to speak up when we see something. You can bet your life it’ll come out in the next few days that someone saw something and will say “I wish I said something”. Many of ours and the kids friends parents called yesterday wanting to know who I could direct them to to get a concealed weapons permit. The gun stores were packed with record sales as people are scared. This always happens when these things happen.

Now to our home, the youngest was scared and had a hard time going to sleep. A classmate of the oldest guys left school crying and between us, he seems like he has a little personality issue himself. After we talked about it, we put on Christmas shows and tried not to have any news channel on.

I was in Boulder twice yesterday finally arriving home at 7:30 after a tasting at Whole Foods. Today we’re having a family birthday party for the oldest after doing some shopping in the morning. We’ll try as best we can to block out the tragedy and move on but will address it again as a family in the coming days. As I told the youngest, you need to be prepared but you can’t live in fear. Now we just need the news to let it go and let everyone heal. Then after things settle down, we can address things that’ll help. I fear that politics will win out though and little will be done as like I said before, passing a new law on guns or limiting violent movies isn’t going to fix it. There is no panacea.

In times like these, we need to lean on God. That’s all you can do, pray for understanding, pray for the victims and their family’s and pray for all of us as a people. God Bless.

We’re heading into the home stretch. After today we have 1 week of school left until the winter break. Before that though, is a busy busy week. On Monday it’s the oldest guys 11th birthday, Wednesday is Uncle T’s bday and Tasha, Derek and Avi arrive from Hawaii, Saturday (the 22nd) we have a party in Vail plus Aunt Robi (I think) arrives and Sunday the 23rd we have a Bronco game and then Monday will be Christmas eve. On top of that, we need to shop, wrap, cook, clean, work and rest. Sounds fun, huh.

Yesterday we attended the youngest guys dress rehearsal at 2 in the afternoon at school. The entire school was present to watch the 3rd and 4th grade program. Mom and the boys went back for the 2nd performance at 7pm while I tried to go shopping. The problem was I couldn’t find what the kids wanted. He was great and this year they actually included some, sort of, Christmas songs. You might remember the year before some Jehovah’s Witness or someone complained that there were Christmas songs in the Christmas program, so no Christmas songs, go figure. This year we had the draddle song again (the Jewish one) and a Hawaiian Christmas song ( Mele Kalilimaka) and Jolly Old Saint Nicolas. It’s a start.

This morning we all slept in and are all in a rush so time to go. Hope everyone is well and oh yea, according to the Mayan’s, the World is supposed to end or change or something on the 21st. Sorry but that’s going to have to wait as we have much too busy of a week.

Take care and God Bless.

Here’s two comments from yesterday,

1. Robi says:

   December 12, 2012 at 6:09 pm

   Very mature for the oldest one to behave the way he did with Jordan the bully, cause I too would have gotten into a knock down, drag out fight! Good thing grandma wasn’t there cause she always told Billy “Punch em as hard as you can in the nose” It’s true!!!!

   Reply
2. Annette says:

   December 12, 2012 at 7:04 pm

   Jagger’s aunt Serena would have gotten in a knock down drag out fight too. She was out of school for 10 days once. I never figured out how kicking someone out for 10 days was punishment.

   It’s good to know the oldest guy can control his temper, because just like his mother, he does have a temper!

   Hard to believe it’s December 13th. Twelve days to Christmas and still, we haven’t even thought about any gifts. My Mom said she just wants everyone to be happy and get along. I said that’s easy, I’m happy and get along with everyone and then she said, “well there you go, Merry Christmas”. Now of course we still need to find that special gift for each of you. We enjoy that and want to, we just haven’t had the time yet. You see, it was long ago that the misses and I reached the point where we’d rather give than receive. Sure there’s always things we want but we feel better when we can actually find something that you enjoy. Some of you are easy, like Aunt Robi (she likes anything) and for the most part, the boys, although they are spoiled. Others of you, like my Mother and Grandma Dixie, and Grandma Annette are a bit more difficult. Family pictures are always nice but this year we’d like to find that one thing you’ll actually use like the year we found a small little hand painted pill box for my Mom that she uses every single day.

   Now the misses and I won’t really buy each other anything. You see we already spent some money buying some decorations for the party (that’s the misses gift) and I traded 6oo rounds of rifle ammo to my friend to do some custom work on one of my pistols, and that’s my present. Of course we’ll exchange the obligatory socks and underwear but that’s about it.

   Uncle T and Aunt B are in the middle. I’m always striving to find Uncle T that one of a kind heirloom type gift that he’ll use or something he can’t or wouldn’t buy for himself. I’ve got some ideas this year but nothing yet. Aunt B usually gets something from Brighton as she likes that store but this year, we’re on the hunt for something different!

   This is the fun part of Christmas for me. Trying to find gifts that no one else will find or give and I actually enjoy being part of all the crowds and madness to a certain extent. The stores I frequent usually aren’t that crowded as I avoid the malls and shop at smaller independent businesses. So starting this weekend, the mad rush will begin for me trying to get everything ready for the big day.

   Now to business, these politicians are all full of shit. Excuse my language but they all need to be kicked out from the President on down. At least the GOP is now willing to raise taxes, but now you have the dems, after getting what they want, saying they won’t make any cuts until after a deal. What? Are you kidding me? A New York Times survey just found 60 plus percent of Americans want spending cuts, more than they want taxes raised. Isn’t it funny how regular Americans are smarter than these old men and women who are there to supposedly govern us. Something needs to give and I’m afraid that nothing will happen until they take us over the brink and everything goes to hell and then they’ll have no choice, unbelievable.

   Tonight is the youngest guys Christmas concert at school. This morning at a little after 7, I’ll take off for Vail and hopefully be home before noon. I need to run to the gym first so time to wrap it up. Hope all’s well and everyone is happy and enjoying the season. Take care, stay safe and God Bless.

Good morning.  I’m a bit late on the post.  The Mr. woke at 3:15 to ready himself for the flight to San Francisco and back.  The oldest and I also woke up, but it was much too cold to get out of our beds.  Instead we wished him verbal well wishes and air hugs and kisses.  The Mr. has to get in the extra 1,000 or so miles before the end of the year in order to not drop below Premier status on United.  With his long legs he needs the extra leg room that is reserved for those passengers that fly a lot of miles. He should be home by noon and then it will be back on the phone for him getting the last of the year’s orders in.

Good news for the youngest. The Ophthalmologist says his occipital nerve is healthy…and his vision is actually 20/20 not 20/30 as we were told the day before.  No need for glasses, but he can’t explain the headache.  The blurry vision can be an age thing.  His eyes are still adjusting to near and far sight.  The doc told us to just watch him and listen to his complaints for the next few weeks and hopefully the pain will dissipate.  He could be following my lead on having a stinking headache or he may also have the same wheat allergy that I do, so tomorrow I’ll cut wheat out of his diet for a few days and see if that helps.

The youngest made it back to school just in time for Student Council…he was very happy to not miss the meeting.  His school musical performance is tomorrow night with a dress rehearsal at 2:00p.m. for any family members that would like to go and miss the evening crowd.

The oldest has two more songs in his advanced recorder flute to pass before he gets to the final recorder….Baritone.  Most kids don’t make it to the last recorder until sometime in 6th grade. Our guy is very determined to be one of four kids out of ninety to achieve the Baritone this year.

So….we started stringing popcorn for our freshly cut tree and made it past the first three before Lacey ate them off of the thread.  We got two more feet done and the Mr. cautioned against decorating the tree completely with popcorn since Lacey will probably knock down the tree to eat the popcorn.  We’ll see…I sincerely hope not.

I still have dishes to put away from the party and a lot of laundry to put way that the Mr. washed and folded for me yesterday. XOXO Love a man that does laundry.

The boys have swimming today and neither of them want to go.  The youngest because he bonked his head in backstroke and the oldest because a jerk from school is in the same class.  The kid hit our guy on Friday because a girl pushed him and he thought it was our guy.  The girl told him she did it, but Jordan didn’t believe her, so he chased our guy and punched him in the back. Our guy turned around grabbed Jordan (short kid)by the arms and held him off with stiff, strong arms away from him, so that Jordan couldn’t reach or swing at him and told him to “Knock it off.”  Jordan had no choice but to stop.  Our guy had to wait until Monday to talk with the principal about the  incident.  He did have that chat and they brought both boys in….needless to say…Jordan lost his recess for the next few days and had to apologize.  I’m proud of my guy for not taking the route his mother would have and gotten into a knock down, drag out fight.  What a good boy!

That’s our news for today…12-12-12….by the way….Jordan is telling everyone at school that today is the end of the world, which does cause angst and unnecessary stress for 10 year olds.  I can hardly wait until tomorrow. Obviously, my mantra for today is forgive, forgive, forgive.

God Bless.

Yesterday afternoon we spent 2 1/2 hours at the eye doctors with the youngest who has had trouble seeing lately. It turns out he’s about 20/30, as he was a couple of years ago at his last exam,  but they couldn’t get him to 20/20 with their machine so we’re off to a pediatric eye specialist. They said his eyes look fine, no glaucoma or cataracts or anything else they could see but want him to be checked out by a children’s eye doctor. He’s also had some headaches which we need to get checked out. So say a prayer that all’s ok. I think some of this could be from endless hours on the computer that mess with his eyes but who knows. We’re just praying it’s nothing serious.

Today, with a little luck, I should have all my orders in but Ohio. They’d better come in by the end of the week.

It snowed again last night. The news is calling it a surprise. I don’t know how a weatherman could be surprised that it snows. Like I’ve said before, weathermen have a 50/50 chance when calling the weather and pretty much just guess, what a job.

This morning I need to run  to the distributor, again, and then lots of computer work. Andrea Bocelli tickets went on sale here yesterday for the June 5th show. I had lots of emails and calls asking about tickets and I just told them to go buy them. I don’t know if people expect me to give them to them for free or what. We pay for tickets too but do get a discount. There’s also a show in California at the Hollywood Bowl on June 8th and tickets also went on sale for that show. I can’t believe how far in advance they, and all shows, want you to buy tickets, 6 months ahead of time.

Both dogs are in and resting and it’s almost time to wake the misses as it’s 6:30. I think I’ll go and start the cinnamon rolls the youngest wanted for breakfast. Hope everyone is ok and we’ll keep you posted on him and his eyes. God Bless.

That’s what the news says, something like 280 million packages will be sent Fed Ex today. I don’t know what everyone is sending as we haven’t bought a single present yet. Part of it’s time but most of it’s money. I guess lots of people have a better job than I do or else have different priorities. We’ll hopefully start on the kiddo’s this weekend.

We might just be making gifts this year so if you have your heart set on a new sweater or scarf or maybe a box of truffles, let us know now! Otherwise you might get a vase made out of a wine bottle or a bulletin board made from corks as we have plenty of those lying around. The sweater and scarf might be out though as I don’t know if any of us can knit.

Well yesterday was pretty much a nothing day. Everyone was tired and not in the best mood as we were still worn out from the party Friday. I don’t know what, if anything we accomplished. The misses did make it to Target to try to find some lights for our new tree but all the stores were sold out. I did make a prime rib I bought on Friday that was pretty good and the boys watched a movie. Then everyone went to bed pretty early.

Lots of work today and other stuff to do. There are a higher than normal amount of earthquakes and sinkholes showing up around the country and the World. They say this seismic activity is unprecedented plus there are all these unknown loud booms going on across the southern part of the country that has scientists mystified. No one seems to know what it is, check this out,

String of mysterious ‘booming noises’ reported across several U.S. states

First off, yes the party was great, the house amazing and the food fantastic, all with a fun group of people. Staying true to our tradition, we had a mix of people from different groups of friends and places. All in all it was a great party. I usually don’t get to talk to everyone much as I’m running around trying to make sure everyone has a great time but this year, with it running a little later, I tried to mingle a bit more.

We woke up around 7:30 and I ran the chaffing pans back to the restaurant that provided the food. Then it was a quick shower and time to gas up the truck to go cut down our Christmas tree. You see our friends earlier in the week, picked up 3 permits from the forest service to cut some trees. Two for them and one for us. We took two cars, or a suburban and a truck, and headed up to the mountains. About an hour later we were in the high country back in the woods getting out of our vehicles to go find the perfect tree. We went one way and our friends the other. It wasn’t long until we found what we thought would be the perfect tree for our family room. It’s just tall enough, just wide enough and overall is just perfect! Our friends packed a great picnic lunch and we all ate by the truck after cutting down our trees. As we were eating a jefferson County Sheriff came driving up in his 4 wheel drive and stopped to give the kids a sticker and then right behind that was an older lady on her horse all decorated with Christmas  decorations and an old bank bag hanging from the saddle filled with lollipops. She trotted up and gave the kids all a sucker and we took their picture by the horse. Then it was off for the hour drive home.

We put it up and I told the misses that even though our  artificial spinning tree, with lots and lots of ornaments collected over years and years, looks fantastic, I like our freshly cut, real tree the best. We have a few lights on it but nothing else so far. The branches, being real, wouldn’t hold many of our ornaments but I think we’re going to string popcorn and put some homemade ornaments on it like they did 100 years ago. I’ll have to have the misses take a picture when it’s all finished and put it on the blog.

Next up was the neighborhood progressive dinner where 6 houses all serve a different course and the entire neighborhood goes from house to house. Not everyone participates as some people don’t like some people. We usually have another commitment or are too tired to join in bit this year the boys, especially the youngest, wanted to go. So off we went. We arrived at the first house just as they were getting ready to go to the second house as the misses had the time wrong. I made it to two houses then slipped away and went home while Mom and the boys continued on for the next 2 hours from house to house. I was just too tired and after a couple of houses had seen enough of the neighbors.

It snowed last night, finally, even though only an inch or two. It’ll be cold today and then warm up in the middle of the week. I’m almost through with all my orders that I need to wrap up the year but have a couple of stragglers.

Oh yea, here’s a comment from Grandma Annette,

So time to go, hope everyone is well, take care and have a great week.

Good morning.  The Mr. and I ran some errands before the party and at 4p.m. it didn’t look like we would be ready.  Grandma came over before the party to see the house…the kitchen wasn’t quite cleaned up (I still had a salad to make) everything else was complete. The Mr. and the oldest went to pick up the Lasagna Bolognese and Artichoke Chicken while I showered, shampooed and shined myself up.

We had the main courses along with grilled asparagus and roasted red peppers, veggies with jalapeno artichoke dip, an assortment of cheese and charcuterie (salami , prosciutto etc.) olives, pesto, bread sticks, blackberries, raspberries and tiramisu.

The guests stared arriving a bit after 6:30.  We had a mix of people from family and neighbors to school friends, to wine friends and clients.  The oldest was dressed in a sport coat, shirt, tie and vest.  He is so handsome and unbelievably helpful.  Not only did he light the sterno and candles before the party began, but he greeted each guest and offered to take there coats and then directed them to the beverages.  He chatted with the Mayor of Cherry Hills (the Mayor gave him his business card for future use) and the rest of the guests.  He also played christmas songs on the clarinet for guests to everyone’s great appreciation. When our guests were leaving he shook the men’s hand and thanked them for coming.  Needless to say the Mr. and I were very impressed since there was no parental coaching for these actions.

The youngest was quite handsome as well, but decided to spend most of the night upstairs coming down only to fill his plate with butter cookies and a coke.  One of our friends brought her daughter, so the youngest entertained her upstairs with the computer and a movie.

The wine was amazing and we gave everyone a gift wrapped jar of dark chocolate sea salt carmel sauce upon departure.

Two of our friends stayed for clean up…thank you, thank , thank you friends and I think we got into bed at 1:10 a.m. Ugh!  Maybe there is hope for us to stay up for the New Year this time around.

All in all, I think it was a good time.  We have more clean up and we are off to chop down a Christmas tree in 30 minutes.  Definitely time to run. (I’ll try to post some pictures.

Have a wonderful day and God Bless.

Our oldest one had his first concert last night and there must have been 60 or 70 students or more in the band. They were separated into two groups side by side with one group being the so called advanced group. Now I’m no expert (well sort of) but he most certainly should have been in the advanced group. The way he plays around the house was as good if not better than the students in that group. Oh well, politics are even in play in 5th grade band from what I understand. Anyhow he dressed up in black pants, a blue shirt and a tie, a vest and a sport coat. Half way through his performance the misses said she should have had him wear black socks as he had on white socks and tennis shoes with his formal outfit. He deserves congratulations for his hard work and playing. After the show the misses asked him what he was talking to Emma about (his classmate sitting next to him) and he said, “oh she just needed some help with some notes”. What a great guy.

Meanwhile the Bronco’s were dismantling the Raiders and Uncle T was texting me every few minutes giving me updates. I made it home half way through the 3rd quarter to see the end of the game. Many parents, moms and dads alike, were checking their phones throughout the performance. We’ve won 8 in a row and the town has never felt this good since the days of old #7, John Elway. It was also the beginning of the fantasy football playoffs of which I’m in and the Bronco’s I had playing have me off to a great start, keep your fingers crossed that I win!

Today is of course Pearl Harbor Day and it’s also Mojo’s birthday! Tonight of course is our big party. The house looks great as the misses has everything fine tuned for the evening. We (meaning mostly me) have a few last minute errands to run for her, plus I still need to wrap up work by securing another $200,000 worth of orders today. They’ll be over 30 people in our little house tonight starting at 6:30. Wish us luck.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to the mountains to cut our own Christmas tree. We already have our artificial tree up but friends called last week and said they picked up two permits so off we will go. I prefer real trees but when the kids were little, the fake tree made sense, plus it is a whole lot easier not having to water it daily and deal with all the needles and of course the fire hazard, BUT, there’s just something about a real tree, we’re all super excited.

So there you have it, busy day around here, lots going on in the World, a big earthquake in Japan and a small tsunami, in fact tons of earthquakes all around the World. The economy is still a mess, our politicians are a mess and on and on. But it is Christmas so I’ll try to ignore all that crap and focus on happy things like the Bronco’s.

Take care and have a great day and weekend. God Bless and oh yea, this weekend, the snow finally arrives.

That’s right, today is the 700th post in our little journey to keep everyone connected. It seems like yesterday it was December 31st, 2010, the day we started. We hope you all enjoy the blog more than you don’t. Here’s a comment from Grandma Annette, I hope she’s wrong but she’s probably right!