On May 23, back in 1998,I stood out on a wooded hill behind a church in New London, MN. I actually spent quite a bit of time waiting on that hill that day. First to see Shelly for the first time in her dress. Because the whole modern picture taking tradition has pretty much taken away the special moment of seeing each other for the first time, we carved out time specifically for that on the hill before photography.

Later, I stood on that hill alone, waiting to go into the side of the sanctuary for the ceremony from outside. The music seeped through the windows and a crack in the door and it all started being very real to me.

Now, 10 years later, many of the details of that day: the ceremony, the dinner and reception, the dance in the barn are all still vivid. The day both seems as only yesterday and a long time ago.

That one specific day is something we celebrate each year as its anniversary passes. However, that one day actually fades in the face of the ~3650 that we've spent since as husband and wife.

We've lived in many places, had some of the sickness and the health, been richer and poorer and had our fair share of better and of worse. We've both remained stubborn in some habits and personality traits and changed wildly in others.

In the vows I wrote for my part in the ceremony, I talked about how we were poised at the beginning of a journey as traveling companions. Now, 10 years later, I can say that, with a good start on that journey, I could have no better person with whom to share the trek and I'm looking forward to where the next 10 years and beyond bring us.

In case you hadn't figured it out, there's a LOT going on here lately. After being in Iowa Tuesday for the funeral, my dad had neck surgery today to relieve the debilitating neck pain he's been living with for a long time. When combined with his Lyme's disease, the neck pain and joint pain often makes it nearly impossible for him to work.

So, today, I was at the hospital along with my mom for the day as they dug around on my dad's spine, inserting Kevlar between his vertebrae and putting him back together. It's amazing how they've evolved some of these procedures to cause the least amount of damage while doing really invasive things.

Everything appears to have gone well and he's now resting overnight at the hospital. He's reporting less pain *after* recent surgery than he's been living with every day of the last year. That's a good sign that things will get better as he heals from the surgery and possibly will be free at least from the pain in his neck.

I had a good chat with Mom as we waited in the waiting room and further good conversation when Dad came out of surgery and ended up in his room for the night. When they first asked if they could get him anything, all he wanted was a big bowl of cereal and for someone to get and fill his coffee mug: also good signs.

So, with him heading home tomorrow, I'm hoping to get caught up on work and get things back to normal and get past some of this extreme stuff.

About a year ago, my maternal grandmother passed. Early this week, I got a call that my other grandmother (my father's mother) took a turn for the worse and that the doctors were essentially just going to make her comfortable; that there wasn't anything else they could really do for her. The "hours" she was expected to live lasted until Thursday morning, when she was finally released from the ailing body that had her trapped for decades.

When I was just a kid, the tremor in her hand was confirmed, along with other symptoms, as Parkinson's disease. She was told she had 10 years to live. However, true to her hardy nature, she lived double that, and the disease consumed her, bit by bit.

I and the rest of my family watched as the tremors became worse. When she could no longer hold a crochet needle, my grandpa learned how to crochet and finished her projects, continuing to make afghans for the grandchildren. Eventually, her ability to move around suffered, as did her speech and her mental clarity.

For the last 5-10 years, she's been in a wheelchair, rarely able to communicate. She often suffered from hallucinations and eventually ended up in a nursing home, under fulltime care. Along the way, expensive drugs and nursing care consumed nearly all of the money they had (I've been sending money monthly for quite a few of those years) just as the disease itself consumed her.

It's really hard to watch Parkinson's take someone. And, someone else close to me has been diagnosed with it this year. Because they don't know exactly what causes it, and the symptoms usually don't show up until someone is 50, it can be a ticking time bomb in those you love. Like Alzheimer's (which Shelly's grandmother has), it affects an increasingly large percentage of the aging population.

The funeral will be on Tuesday and I'll be a casket bearer. I did the same last year and it definitely makes saying goodbye easier: more definitive closure. 

This morning, I felt like I just entered a clearing in the woods. For all of September, I felt like I was racing through the forest, being chased by a couple of big, hairy projects. For a few days, here and there, I got out ahead of them and had time to enjoy with my family, but I was always watching over my shoulder, waiting to hear them crashing through the brush.

On Friday, we pushed the code for project #1 to staging, thus ending the pursuit of that particular monster. I worked the weekend until the code for project #2 was ready at 8:30pm last night and delivered that as well. Thus, this morning, I found myself facing the alarm clock at 5am without the internal groan that has been there for most of the last month.

Then I thought about it and realized that it was also October 1, the beginning of my favorite month of the year, making this morning an even better new beginning.

I absolutely love the month of October. First, it starts off with my own personal holiday: Sit on Your Butt and Watch Movies Day, which just happens to fall on my birthday each year. Rather than just taking a look at a new number to put in the "age" field in forms and deciding if you're now "old" or not, I take the day to specifically do the things I really enjoy: celebrating my favorite things.

Birthdays mark the passing of another year on this earth and one fewer left before our little blink of existence is over. That fact is made all the more real for me on my birthday as this year's marks the 1st anniversary of my grandmother's passing. The things that made her happy: entertaining, cooking, gospel music, needlework and taking care of others were all present in her daily life. She made each of her 90 years count.

So, on Friday, I take the day off to think about my time on this blue marble thus far, celebrate the things and experiences I enjoy and contemplate how I will spend the next year and those to come. I will observe a moment of silence in her honor and truly enjoy the day.

Birthdays aside, October marks a shift in the weather here in Minnesota that brings crisp, cool mornings where you can see your breath in the early morning sun followed by afternoon breezes that blow through the bright yellow and red leaves as the trees prepare for winter.

October is the first time since May when I know that I'll be free from uncomfortable heat until some time in May.

And, finally, this year, because of how the calendar came out, there are more billable days than any other month of the year. So, not only can I take time off to celebrate life, but still end up with a nice invoice at the end of the month.

There are still leftover effects from September's chaos, but much more manageable and under control. It feels good to be returning to feeling like the "normal" me.

We're only about a week away from our exchange student, Laurin arriving. I wanted to write about that whole experience, and invite him to join me in talking about the experience. However, I don't want that to take over this site, or to radically shift the focus and rhythm here (which I like).

So, this is just a quick note to point to a separate Wordpress install I set up to talk about the cultural exchange we're going to be experiencing.

If you're interested in what the year hosting an exchange student is like, head on over. Otherwise, it'll probably only show up here when it makes sense.