A Watershed Week

At 4:21 PM on Wednesday I officially became closer to 50 than 40.  But I still feel the same.  So far, I've been blessed with reasonably good health and I'm still pretty much psychologically sound.

Age is just a number.  A shitty, dirty, no-good number.

Yes, it was a watershed week.

We got all kinds of things accomplished this week, including yard work, splitting wood, winterizing the house and - oh, yeah - installing a new furnace.  Well, I didn't install it, but it was installed nevertheless.

So, no Valley Forge this winter.  I was kind of looking forward to it.

We also moved into a new storage unit this past week.  While doing so, the Speaker of the House and I decided to bring some of our old high school/elementary stuff home and weed through it.  The idea was to throw a lot of it away.  I mean, who keeps this stuff?

I ended up going through all of it and not throwing a solitary thing away.  I just didn't have the heart.

One of the things that struck me was how much I've written over the years.  I have hundreds of pages of journals, poems and stories which will never see the light of day.  I also made my first attempt at writing a novel in the summer of 1993.  I got about 110 pages into it and then abandoned the project because my life suddenly and unexpectedly changed forever.

That's a whole other discussion.  But trust me, I ended up living happily ever after.

I digress...

Instead of "downsizing" (I hate that term), I ended up getting nostalgic and posted several memories on Facebook, which I think put a smile on a few faces.

One of my special memories from high school was my football playing days.  For whatever reason, I kept everything from football (minus the jockstrap, thankfully).  The Boy helped me rummage through that old stuff, and as I pulled out the old headband and wrist bands and socks, he started putting them on (they had "powers," according to him... he is probably right).

Soon, he was all dressed up with nowhere to go.  So I slipped an old shirt over his head and grabbed the old football I used to practice with more than a quarter century ago, and I took a couple pictures on a beautiful, sunny October afternoon.

The Boy in an all-original.  My old wristbands are on his thighs and wrists.  My "lucky" socks, which I wore under the official red/blue striped socks, my blue headband and my old Bertha-Hewitt shirt.  Go Bears! 
The football the Boy is holding was the original practice ball I got my junior year.  I long-snapped that ball through a tire at least 5,000 times in the summer.  I actually got really good at it, and I can STILL do it!

While digging deep into my old things from childhood (it was like a treasure hunt!), I found a box full of plastic soldiers and animals which I used to play with; many of them were still covered in dirt from playing in the sandpile all those years ago.  The Boy and the Girl made what was old, once again new...
These old toys don't make noise, they don't walk or talk... they don't feature blinking lights, bells or whistles.  But the Tax Deductions seem to enjoy them all the same.

Meanwhile, the Girl made a new friend at a recent Girl Scout function.  He will be by her side when I can't be there.  In other words, don't mess with her...
The Girl with her special friend, "Todd."
Happy Sunday to you.  Seize the day!

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