I think we're all here.

So easy even a caveman...

Thought you might enjoy what I really look like. That is, before I shave it off. Every year it gets whiter. Some day I'll look like Bob and then I'll let it grow. Maybe.

If you wonder why I'm not smiling, it's because I'm looking at you!

Good News

I spoke to Rose on the phone on Monday evening. I flat out asked her if she wanted a divorce, she said "NO!". I told her then that she needed to make a decision soon whether she wanted to be my wife and live with and love me, or not - one way or the other. We also discussed some other things and I laid my feelings on the line about a lot of it - I said just what I felt. I did not converse with her at all on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I noticed there was a missed call from her on my phone, so when I got home from work, I called her back. She told me at that time that she was ready to come home, but needed to earn some money to pay for the trip. Also, she was nervous about driving home alone. I told her that I would fly out and we could drive back together. Sooo. I am flying to Omaha on the 27th of January and we will then take 3-4 days to drive home. We are planning to drive into Kentucky and Weet Virginia and do some sightseeing on the way home. This will also give us a great time to talk over and hopefully through some of the issues, and maybe get us started on the road to recovery.
Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers during this time and after. Do not hesitate to call or write and check up on us. We love you all. Bob

Home Again

We just spent four days "upcountry", mostly with Amanda, Justin, and the babies. Had a good time with them. The kids are growing up so fast. We have a lot of pictures and I will post a few for you.

We went to an indoor ice skating rink near their place one afternoon. The kids had never skated before and loved it. Even Emily (2-1/2 yrs.) got in on the act, although her version is to have someone push while she rides. Brianna and Gabriel did real well, both were starting to skate on their own at the end. Brianna didn't want to leave. She probably would be on the ice constantly if it were possible.

Cindy and I drove up to see Phyl and Wade Tuesday evening. We went to Lebanon the next morning to see Cindy's mother, before driving back to Philly for the trip home. That is exhausting! Tried to make a connection with Helen and Beth, but just couldn't do it. I think that, next time, we will go to one location and notify everyone where we are and how long we will be there. If anyone wants to see us, they can make the trip. That way we'll know how many people love us! Right? Of course, right.

Now it's back into the grind for a while. This trip killed my budget and I need to replenish before we go again.

Berty, I have a question. Who is Jess?

Love you all.

Our Day

Today, I cooked and cleaned. Didn't really seem like Christmas--seemed like a Saturday! We are celebrating Christmas with our family on the 29th, when Makayla can be with us. Michelle isn't coming home until the morning of the 29th (I think) and Joe, Shannon, Dave, and Jess all have to work, so we're having "Christmas" around 6:00 that night. Joe and Shannon will have Mattie and Lauren that night, so it all works out well. Not really sure what the kids thought about it--we just said "this is what we're doing" and they all said "ok", but it probably eliminated the rushing from one house to the other that you seem to do on Christmas day.

I wanted to do something special, so I made a nice dinner and John and Lynda came over. They always do their family Christmas on Christmas Eve and for years have went to Donna Plummer's on Christmas Day. Donna was getting elderly and moved from Knoxville to her son's in Nevada, so it worked out really nice for both of us. They brought us a gift--a picture Lynda had taken about 3 years ago of Morgan, Makayla, and their granddaughter, Terri, in a nice frame. The three little girls are all sitting in one "camp" chair and is an EXCELLENT picture of Morgan. Warms our hearts. Ed was pretty emotional today...cried several times...misses Morgan. I just kept busy (my strong suit, I think!). We're picking up Makayla on the 29th and will have her until the 3rd. Should be fun!

I did manage to get cards out, Phyl, but only because Ed addressed them all and signed them. I told him that I wasn't going to mail any because I didn't have time. He said that he would do a few if I wanted him to, so I gave him the cards and the rolodex and when I came home that night, he told me he had done 35 (or some such!). I guess it occupied him all day long. I was so proud of him. Well, it's been a long day, so I'm going to close.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas! Thanks for the cards--sorry I didn't get any out this year. Take care of yourselves. Hope you all can put difficult circumstances aside and enjoy the day. Love you.

One from Cindy

This is a picture that Cindy painted as a school assignment. She took the apple blossom photo I shot, cut out a small section, blew it up to fit the canvas, and got an "A" for her efforts. Looks good, doesn't it?

Numero Dos

Like I said. I can see a distinct improvement over the first one. Now all I have to do is decide who to give it to. Cindy says I should keep it, paint more, and do a show.

Enjoy

Hi all. Just to let you all know, I am doing OK. I still don't know whether Rose and I will get back together or not, but at this time I just keep telling myself that it is the choice that she has made, and I feel confident that I could not have changed the choices that she made regardless of whether or not I could go back in time knowing what I know now. I also feel that I did not treat her wrongly, so I do not beat myself up thinking that I should have done something differently. I am staying in contact with her, I either talk to her or text her almost every day. Some days I think that she will be back soon, other times I think that it is a lost cause. I have made up my mind and I have told her that I will give her some time to decide what she wants to do, but I will not put my entire life on hold while she tries to decide. She will have to make a decision whether she wants to be married to me and be a part of this family or whether she wants some other life, and she will have to make that decision fairly soon.
On another note, Nate and Amanda and their kids are home for Christmas until the 28th. Bambi & Kevin came over tonight, so all the kids were here for a while. Really enjoyed the time together. The kids are all getting so big & I really do enjoy them.
I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and get lots of time to spend with your families. I do love you all. Love, Bob

First of Many, or Getting Better All the Time

OK,don't laugh. Here it is. You can skim down a few posts to see the original. I'm quite pleased with it (for starters), but I can see every mistake I made. I'm going to have to create a learning curve for grass. (Looks like little, crawly worms, doesn't it?) But the perspective and the lines are quite close, so I think that I just need experience.

I think for now I'm going to focus on close up shots of beautiful flowers. I have a picture of apple blossoms that I took a few years back in PA and I know a place here that has a vine hanging over a fence with gorgeous purple flowers.

Here's to Numero Dos. Merry Chritiquing!

I have the painting done and framed. Still need to get a picture to upload. Looks pretty good, or at least I think so.

Starting to get ready for Christmas

We went to the tree farm last Sat. with Tara & Tom and got our Christmas tree--it's in the garage. And today I shopped for gifts for my volunteers. If I get to work tomorrow, I'll start wrapping them. We're supposed to have a storm so if it's really bad, I'll stay home and start baking cookies. I have scheduled cookie packages for all of our patients to be delivered next week so the volunteers will be bringing in their cookies on Mon & Tues. Then on Wed. afternoon, we'll package them up and spend Thurs & Fri delivering them. Plus I have to bake some for our house. We've already gone to one Christmas party and have two more on the schedule. Did a little bit of shopping last Sat evening and probably will do more this weekend. No decorating done yet in our house.

How's it going with you?

First Attempt!

For the first time in my life, I'm going to paint a picture. This photo came from my front yard and has been sitting on my computer ever since. There is a pencil sketch on the wall in front of me. Yesterday I drew outlines on a canvas and am just about ready to start putting paint to it. I have been reading one of Cindy's books on color. She is giving me some technical advice, but the end result will be mine entirely. When I get it finished, I will post a photo here.

Hi all. Been a while since I wrote anything. Been busy, just got back from a few days at Mike Mitchell's. Hunting, got a couple of shots, but nothing to show for it. Oh well, there is still some time left in the season. Nate's are coming home tonight for the weekend.

Wanted you all to hear it from me before rumors get spread around, Rose has left us for the time being, and maybe permanently. Roger and I went to Mike's on Friday night, and on Saturday Morning she left, took her clothes, her truck, some savings, and a few other things. She apparently met a friend (male) who had flown out from Nebraska at the Buffalo airport and they drove together back to Nebraska. I just talked to her for the first time since she left, she said that she doesn't know what she wants to do yet.

I will let you know as much as I can as soon as I can. I would ask for our sake (both hers and mine) that you keep this info to yourselves at this time unless someone asks, then if possible share as little as possible. She may at some time come back (I am not real optomistic at this point, and I am not certain what I want), and I would prefer to share the news with people as I feel they need to know. Please do not judge her harshly, for my sake if not for hers.

Love, Bob

The Last Piece Is In Place

The carport, sunporch, & deck were added over the last couple of weeks so the house is completely framed. This addition makes it look much larger even though it's only the size of a two car garage. But because of the height, it looks big. Wade has been shingling the roof since the weather was so good and working on the insulation too. It's coming along really well and keeping him busy. No nibbles on this house--actually very few lookers--so no reason to rush to finish. And with the holidays coming, I suspect traffic will become even slower.

I just remembered that today is Mom's birthday and her death day. She would have been 83 years old. I still think about her a lot.

Miss you, Mom. Happy Birthday!

Knauer Knews!!

Hey..How are you all? We are doing pretty good here...Boring life but busy....work, sleep, do papers, work, sleep, clean house, do papers...get the drift?? But anyhow...Life goes on and seems to be going faster and faster...can't believe it's almost Christmas time again...Good grief!!

Well don't think I ever updated about our trip...Will post some pics later when I get aroundtoit...but we went almost 2300 miles. Left on Thursday am and came back on Monday afternoon...It was way too many miles for that many days...Don't think we'll do that again..We just went into Ohio and Michigan (as Roge said--it's too far to go to Wisconsin and down into Indiana too...As it was we ended up driving a lot of interstates just to get somewhere and then to get home at a decent time..Don't want to do that again but ...we did get to see some fun stuff and we did enjoy ourselves. Went up to Cleveland Ohio and saw Lake Erie from there--had to get down and taste the water there--never saw waves on water that wasn't salt water so wanted to be sure...That was fun... Then checked out the Cleveland Browns stadium--not a browns fan but....still was cool to see something you only see on TV. ... Then went on to Michigan. saw a lot of flat land and alot of trees--some colorful some not--went up the West side of Michigan, so saw Lake Michigan, and alot of pretty county there. then went up to Mackinaw Bridge and crossed into the "Upper Peninsula" . The Mackinaw Bridge and the Upper Peninsula were worth the whole trip....The U/P is very remote and not much up there--makes you realize how the country was years ago before we all were here...We really liked it up there and liked seeing all the lakes..Went up to the northern end so we could say we touched Lake Superior too...Would have liked to travel across the U/P and came down through Wisconsin but knew we just didn't have enough time to really enjoy it... Maybe another year...We were kinda disappointed in that we were surprised at how flat Ohio and Michigan are...There are not a lot of hills...Of course, I thought "go north--see hills" like in PA--found out that wasn't so...So we decided we are more "hill country" people and will travel to those more next time.. Wherever that may be....But we still had a good time and enjoyed being by ourselves and also being away from work and stress here so it was good....

well, I'd better go...will write more again soon about the rest of our life...write soon everyone...

hello

Just wanted to tell everybody I love you and your all awesome people

"So Long, Farewell, Aufweidersehen, Goodbye"

What a week it's been. I'm glad it's almost over. Don't ever want to go back.

I started feeling a little funny last Sunday, but didn't think too much about it. By Monday morning I knew I had the flu, but worked most of the day anyway. (I did knock off earlier than usual.) Monday night was bad, bad, bad--fever, chills, nasty headache, diarrhea, painful joints, etc. Tuesday was a repeat that didn't start to let up until afternoon. Wednesday was better, but I didn't do anything. On Thursday, I went to Starbucks for a cup of coffee and cleaned around the house a little. That night, I went to Wal-Mart and bought some Pepto-Bismol and Alka-Seltzer. Yesterday, I went to a large kitchen remodel we are doing just a few miles away and worked all day. Had at least seven men there and got a lot done, but I was whipped at the end. I'm feeling fairly good right now, considering, except for my hands, head, belly, and just generally overall, which aren't back up to snuff.

I've had to force myself to eat simply to maintain, lost a lot of strength which I need back. For about three days, all I had were two bowls of chicken noodle soup and a couple Reese's cups. I did chug the water though, didn't dare to get dehydrated.

I haven't been sick for years and this one made up for all those others that missed me. I think this has been the worst flu I've ever had. Since Cindy was in "Joisey", no one was here to feel sorry for me except the dog, and he spent at least as much time sleeping as I did.

Speaking of Cindy, last time I talked to her, she had the flu, Amanda and the three oldest kids had the flu, Justin was gone most of the time working, and then the mother-in-law showed up. She was not a happy camper. She'll be flying back to Jax on Sunday afternoon, which will probably make a difference. We'll be flying up Dec. 27 for three days, so might be able to see some of you then.

Berty, how are you doing? I think about you a lot.

Love you all.

Makayla

I got a letter from Makayla on Friday. It says and I quote...

Gramma, That was so nice of you. I was wundring wat you wur dowing to. Love, Makayla I am cey borging.

Now, I'll translate... She was wondering what I was doing also. (I wrote in my letter to her what I was doing at the moment--can't remember what that was.) She is keyboarding (in school). She gets her d's, b's, and g's a little confused and she writes just like she thinks it sounds! Sometimes, I have to think for a little while what she's trying to say...

Beth suggested a great idea. When I write to her, I enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. That way, she can write back to me without it being an issue to anyone. This is my second letter from her. I was SO happy to get it--I can't imagine how she must feel when she gets a letter from someone. On that note, if you have time to write a short note to a little girl whose life has been topsy-turvy, I'd be forever grateful. Her address is 30 Pee Wee Ln, Duncannon, PA 17020.