Driveway

Like I do every year, it was time to throw another coat of sealer on the driveway to try and get it to last another year before totally replacing it.  Luckily this year I didn't need to add in any pothole patch anywhere.  All I needed to do was fill a few cracks and scrape up the flaky parts of the sealer from the last couple of years and trowel on some filler in those spots. 

I had a little more than half a bucket left over from last year that I planned on using and then got another two new buckets.  unfortunately, when I opened the old bucket, the sealer was virtually unusable.  I even took my mixer for stirring up plaster and grout to try and mix it, but it was just too watery.  It looked a lot like what quicksand looks like in the movies, except that the little bits of sand were settled to the bottom of an oil mixture.  That was ok though, I just got another bucket of new sealer. 

I started around 9:00 and finished by around 12:30 or 1:00, which was a little longer than I was expecting.  But I took my time, and used mostly a hand squeegee to spread it in small sections to make sure it covered completely.  in the end, I still have about half of a five gallon bucket left over.  I'll watch for spot that might chip, or wear, before it gets too cold, but I think if I did a good job, I'll be fine for another winter.  And this time I didn't even have to worry about ruining a pair of shoes (they were my ratty, yardwork shoes anyway).  One of these years though, it is going to be inevitable that I will have to get the dumb thing replaced.  I am just hoping that it is later rather than sooner.

Cheer Night

Last night was cheer night at the high school.  And against the hated Hamilton Chargers no less.  Since Ali is on the varsity cheer squad now, that meant she got to be announced and walk up the track during the pregame.  And of course Kris and I got to escort her.  It's sort of like parents' night for the Cheer and Dance teams (but cheer is better of course).

Coming Home

Sarah is making her plans to come home for the first time at homecoming in October.  I think that would be a pretty good time.  It'll be about six weeks from the start of classes and a pretty good time for a break.  And it also gives her enough time to get used to her surroundings and acclimated to life on her own.  It's also a good time to come home and see friends.  I know she said something about not caring about seeing her friends, but at least the first year after graduating it is a good time to come back and get together with people.  I did it and it was fun, and my friends and I had planned on doing it every year, but that sort of fell by the way after a year or two.  So I think it is better to enjoy it now before lives get too hectic and it happens only once every 10 years at reunions.  She also wants to come home and do Alison's hair for the homecoming dance.  Though I am not sure why since Ali has said she is not going with a boy.  At least not yet.  Sarah said the same thing and she ended up being asked a couple of weeks before, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.  At least that's the plan for now.

Messages

Kris and Ali keep getting messages (I wonder why I haven't been getting any?) from Sarah.  She goes on and on about how miserable she is at college and how she wants to come home.  How the food is terrible, and how there is nothing to do.  Then a couple hours later it'll be just the opposite.  The messages are about how she is hanging out with friends, going to the rec center to work out, or going to study at the library.  It's a little silly actually.  But I guess when you can't come home any time you want, you do get a little homesick.  Before we left I did try to encourage her to get involved with things like intramurals.  It's just a way to have some fun and meet other people.  So she did take that advice and is on a coed, intramural kickball team.  I think that is a good way to start out.  We had all sorts of fun sports to get involved in.  One of the more fun ones was inner-tube water polo.  Things like that go a long way to helping to deal with the stress of dealing with a new environment.  Hopefully the messages will start being more positive soon.

BIRD!

After the Packer game today I decided to go out and wash the cars.  It was a perfect day to do it, low humidity, low 70s and sunny.  Kris was outside doing some trimming of her flowers, or something like that, and she said to me as I was washing her car, “there’s something in the garage”.  I didn’t know exactly what she meant, so I stopped for a second she said, there was a bird, or a bat flying around in the rafters of the garage.  Then she saw what it was, a woodpecker.  I have no idea how a woodpecker would have decided to fly into the garage, but even more baffling was how it couldn’t figure out how to get out.  I got the ladder down and climbed up to see if I could try and shoo it somehow toward the doors.  I had Kris open the side garage door as well as the overhead door so there were clear areas of egress, but it just kept flying from side to side up in the rafters.   

After about 5 minutes of trying to herd it thru one of the doors, I decided to just leave it in there, hoping it would eventually figure it’s way out (and not poop all over the cars in the process).  It must have found its way out, because when I had finished about a half an hour later and was ready to put Kris’s car back in the garage, I went in to look for it first and couldn’t find it anywhere.  I just hope it didn’t fly into a wall, break its neck and die, and I will end up finding it in an empty box in a month when I get the Halloween decorations down (or put the trampoline away).

Remembering September 11th

It was seven years ago that I found a blog, project 2996 (though I don't know if it is still around and operating)  that was committed to remembering the victims of 9/11.  So this year, on the 15th anniversary, I thought it would be a good idea to revive my original entry.  Never forget!





I am going to take a break from posting things only about our lives for just a minute. In my surfing around the worldwide interweb, I cam across a blog that had linked to a site started by Dale Challener Roe (or DC Roe) called Project 2,996. It is a network of bloggers who have decided to annually on 9/11 to remember one (or two) of the victims of the 9/11 attacks. I thought it was a great idea because the farther away we get from that day, the more people forget. Sure you hear about it on the news, or you hear people talk about it, or even see images of the WTC on fire, but unless you watched it and lived it while it was happening, I don’t think you can ever truly appreciate the impact it had on people’s lives. And while the victims will always have their immediate friends and family to remember them, I think that they need to be remembered by more than just their loved ones in order to realize the impact of what happened that day and to never forget why we fight terrorism.

I picked two people off of the list to remember, Sara Elizabeth Low and Richard D. “Richie” Allen. I chose Sarah Elizabeth Low because it is the my oldest daughter's name, Sarah Elisabeth. I still remember her watching the TV with us on 9/11/2001 and looking at me asking why those buildings were falling down. I thought that because of the name it would be a good choice, since I would always remember it. Second, Richie Allen was an NYC fire fighter. I have, over the years, developed a special appreciation for fire fighters. My father was a fire fighter for 25 years and it wasn’t really until 9/11 that I realized the extent of what he did for a living. Every day he went into work he was essentially putting his life on the line. He never knew when there was going to be a fire, never knew what the extent of that fire would be when he went on a call. Just like members of the armed forces, police and firefighters put their lives on the line with every call and do it willingly never knowing if the next run they go on will be the last run they go on. They are lifesavers, and true everyday heroes, and I'm proud to tell people that my father was a firefighter.


This is Sara Elizabeth Low.

Sara Elizabeth Low was a flight attendant and a resident of Boston, Massachusetts. She grew up in Batesville, Arkansas and graduated from Batesville High School in 1991. Sara was a track athlete in high school, and her team won a state title in 1989. In honor of her memory, Batesville has annually held the Sara Low Memorial 5K Run and Walk.

Sara died at the age of 28 in the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She was one of nine flight attendants onboard. Sara and the rest of her flight crew, being on the first hijacked plane, could have no inkling of what lay in store, unlike on United Airlines Flight 93, where the crew and passengers learned of the earlier attacks and mounted a pre-emptive counterattack that stopped the hijackers from succeeding in their suicide mission. The last recorded information that we have about Sara Low is that on the highjacked American Airlines Flight 11, she gave to another flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, "her father's calling card, which allowed [Sweeney] . . . to pretend to be a passenger and use an AirFone to call Logan Airport and relay the vital information." Even a small act like that took presence of mind and some degree of courage in terrible circumstances that the vast majority of us will never face.

Despite having earned advanced degrees in banking and finance from the University of Arkansas, Sara E. Low was dedicated to her career with American Airlines. And the 29-year-old flight attendant was stationed along the eastern seaboard--a part of the nation she adored. For Sara Elizabeth Low, a career as a flight attendant was a birthright. Family vacations meant piling in the back of her father's small plane and heading from Batesville, Ark., to the Gulf Coast or Rocky Mountains. "Sara didn't think there was too much difference between being in the plane and being in a car," said her mother, Bobbie Low.

Poised, collected, yet prone to sudden streaks of silliness — a personality to calm even the most enraged traveler. And her job sated her wanderlust, her need for cosmopolitan glamor.

"She would call us from the different destinations and give us a hard time," said her older sister, Alyson, a teacher in Fayetteville, Ark. "In the summer she'd phone from San Francisco or Vancouver because she loved that she had to wear a sweater, rubbing it in about how hot and humid it is in Arkansas."

Yet one aspect of the itinerant life wore on Sara: in her first two years as a flight attendant she had about two dozen roommates. So at age 28 she had finally found a place of her own in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, the city from which she boarded Flight 11. "It had a fireplace and wooden floors," Alyson said. "Our mother went to Boston in the summer to help her clean it up, and it was going to be a real home."

"She absolutely loved the airlines and helping people," her father, Mike, said. Sara is survived by her parents, Mike and Bobbie Low of Batesville, and her sister, Alyson Low of Fayetteville, Arkansas.


The second person I remember is Richard D. Allen, know to family and friends as "Richie".

Richie was 31 on Sept. 11, 2001. He was a life-long resident of Rockaway Beach. He became a victim of this tragedy as he heroically saved lives in the line of duty.

Richie loved the beach and worked Rockaway’s beaches as a lifeguard for many years and he treasured it. The beach was a peaceful place for Richie and brought him comfort; it was Richie’s Heaven on Earth. He loved the ocean, which is where he surfed, fished, swam and paddled.

Before becoming a fireman and when not lifeguarding on the beach in the summer, Richie spent his winters as a New York City Public School teacher. He quickly and easily gained the admiration and respect of his students as they could tell that he was not like their other teachers. To his students, Richie was someone they could relate to and they described him as “laid back” and “cool”.

People become firemen for many reasons. Richie’s family believes that he became a fireman because saving people and helping is what gave him life. During his short life, he saved many people; some he saved as a fireman, some he saved while lifeguarding and some he saved from themselves. His family believes that this is what God put him on this earth for. Once people met Richie, their lives were changed forever.

On September 11th, Richie was doing what he loved to do: he was helping others. Richie was a probationary New York City firefighter with Engine 4/Ladder 15 in Manhattan. While he was on the fire department for only a short time, he fulfilled a life-long dream. Prior to becoming a fireman, Richie held several other jobs with NYC, which he loved. He worked for the sanitation department, he was a teacher for the Board of Ed and spent his summers working as a lifeguard in Rockaway. All of Richie's jobs entailed serving the people of NYC and making a difference in other people's lives.

Richie is survived by his very proud and loving family, which includes his parents, Richie Sr. and Gail; two brothers, Luke and Mathew; three sisters, Maggie, Lynn, Judy and her husband Mark; close family relatives, Kathy, Charlie Sr., Charlie Jr. and Katie Marquardt, as well as many other dear friends and relatives.

Thanks to www.livingtribute.com, www.legacy.com, www.sep11memories.org, & gypsyscholarship.blogsot.com for the information on these victims.

First Week

Sarah is getting to the end of her first week and has called Kris the last couple of days.  Apparently she has come down with a cold.  She has been running a 101°-102° fever.  So Kris got the call saying she was sick and didn't want to go to class.  I told her that she needs to go.  Take a couple of aspirin or tylenol to make it thru class and then go back to her dorm and go to bed and rest.  If things are still like when I went, there are usually waiting lists for many of the classes, and the teachers take attendance the first week or two of classes.  In addition to getting your course syllabus and handouts, if you miss a class, especially the big ones that everyone needs to take, they will drop you and add someone from the waiting list. 

This isn't helping with the difficulty of adjusting to life at college.  Unfortunately, these are the things you get to learn to deal with.  It just so happened to hit her within the first four or five days she has been there.  There was actually a home football game today and Sarah had slept in because she still had a little bit of a fever.  Then when she was feeling better, no one was around because they were all at the football game.  I hope this setback doesn't hurt in her adjusting to her new surroundings. 

Worrying

Kris and Ali have been telling me that they have been getting messages from Sarah saying how miserable she is.  This has me worrying about her.  I thought it would be no problem letting the first baby bird out of the nest to fly on her own.  But I am finding that I am worrying about whether I (we) have done enough to prepare Sarah for life on her own.  I keep thinking that she has to learn it sometime, things like how to do laundry, take care of making sure you get up on time, etc. and that she was able to get by while she was here.  But I think that Sarah may have also felt like she could always fall back on Kris or I to help her with things.  Now we are three hours away and can't be there to catch her.  So it's a little tough thinking about her struggling and dealing with being on her own.  But the best way to learn is to just jump in and do it.  That is what I hope she does and she learns that she is independent and can do  whatever she needs to without the help of mommy and daddy.  Hopefully it won't last too long, but it still makes me worry about her.