Seems like if you have a Toyota truck, especially a Tundra, you don’t sell them. They don’t lose value and there are few to find, especially in the price range I was looking for.

Russel needs a new work-school truck to haul his Aikido mats, his old 1990 Toyota is worn out, but still drivable, so the question was,
“Do we put a ton of money into it to keep it safe and functional, or do we get a replacement?” Then the thought was, ‘well I (me) didn’t want just another Toyota like his old truck, it was uncomfortable.’ And I couldn’t find anything for sale which wasn’t just buying the same problems we have with his 1990.

So after much looking and hard decisions, we decided to pull some money from our retirement account that my Dad left us.
Maybe not a smart idea, but that’s what we did.

2004 Tundra 4x4 Stepside SR5

We bought a 2004 Toyota Tundra 4×4 Stepside SR5 TRD… this truck is like new..really like new. You can’t tell anyone ever drove it. It only had 28,000 miles on it. It’s a bit fancy for our taste, but rides great, I don’t feel like I am in a blender, as I do in both of our other Toyota’s.

We need to get the truck bed a spray on bedliner, and a rubber mat for the bed. Still need seat covers and some really good rubber floor mats.

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Seem’s sort of fitting somehow.. today is my Dad’s birthday.. and he is still giving to us.

So Dad died last year on Mother’s Day. My Mom died in June 1986, so Mother’s Day has always been a bit hard, now it is really painful.

So I am hoping for a new year filled with some fun stuff – not sure just what that will be but starting to plan now!

And I need to port this blog over to WordPress, or at least update the Movable Type version it is running so that I can have comments back. Work has been steady, but frustrating. I have been studying a lot of WP docs and plugins and themes, oh my!

But really if you want to keep in touch, or up with what is going on with me, email is good:

me at onmybeat net will still work

Or come on over to Facebook!

Blessings for a wonderful healthy New Year!

Well I missed both Summer and Winter Arts fairs in 2008 .. my head space just wasn’t open to much of anything.

Dad’s passing has been a heart drama even though I knew he was going.

This year I mark Summer Arts as the first of many, I hope, revivals of my spirit. It was a warm and (finally) sunny day. So many friends and folks I only see once or twice a year where there. Good connections many.
Especially great to see Joellen who has migrated to Brooklyn, NY for the last years or so.

And so many people I know have lost a parent just recently, friends Sharon, Charlie, and Rob lost their mothers (all with in the past month). And there are more. I guess it is our age, and the ages of our parents, that this is to be. As Charlie said to me, “We are now the old ones..!” I guess I wasn’t really ready to accept that..even though it is true.

I have been back home now since May 21. The first 2 weeks, I was so ‘not grounded here’ at all. It is getting better now. The garden is doing great and I will have some photos soon. Russel only has 2 school classes left until fall, and he leaves for Aikido summer camp next Sunday. I am trying to pull myself ‘out of the funk’ of grief and to enjoy the life we have, but I still wake with lots of anxiety and do wonder why. Also, attempting to ‘reconnect’ and solidify the relationships I have with friends.

When I was in Michigan with Dad and Sue, and all my Dad’s brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins and second cousins, nieces and nephews and friends and neighbors.. it was constant visits … there was hospice and home health care nurses, and people stopping by really one after another all day and evening. There was always someone to do anything Sue needed done.. and there still is.

Family, living close to one another and family being true friends, that is what Dad had there. I have that there as well, but I am here and although I have friends … the ‘net’ doesn’t feel as strong as what I experienced in Michigan. So perhaps that is a bit of my anxiety, the reality of aging, and wondering all of the ‘what ifs?’.

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night
~~~Bruce Cockburn

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Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

Dad’s fall on Easter eve (April 11) that landed him in the hospital with broken bones in his neck was the real start of the decline, being confined to a bed.

He was able to talk to me and the dozens of family and friends who have been visiting here. He even got all his brothers and sisters together last Saturday and declared that the day was “a great day”.

But that took a lot of energy and it’s been down hill since then.

Now he is in his last days. No eating, drinking barely a couple of ounces of water. Started morphine on Monday 4th.

I will be staying here now until he passes and the memorial is over.
Don’t really know how long a time that will be.
And I need to get Russel here, but he doesn’t have weeks he can spend just waiting here.
So Waiting is… and i am learning that lesson yet again.

Here’s a photo of Dad, Sue and her new puppy. Dad finally relented and let her have a dog.

There is so much going on that I am not writing here, maybe one day I will put more of it on paper.