Here are two things I say often, and mean it:

Love is the only thing you get more of the more you give it away.

Life is short: show those you love that you love them.

One can show love by listening to and caring about his wide circle. I celebrate the accomplishments, opportunities, fun, and friendship of several people I hold close in my heart:

• Maf, for earning his Master’s Degree, a challenging task that he achieved through hard work and dedication.
• Bruce_Sg for doing so well on his GREs that several graduate programs are interested in him and competing for him to select their school for his doctoral work. And commendations to him for being prudent in making that very important selection!
• “K” who is writing his doctoral paper diligently, though is taking a well-deserved vacation out west shortly. I enjoy emailing with him almost daily, and have learned so much. Have a wonderful trip!
• My best friend “AZ,” for achieving a significant goal that he set out to do: buy a home of his own. Nothin’ makes you feel as wonderful as owning your own place.
• My “booted twin” Clay who has made a very difficult decision in his life and is moving forward — making lemonade out of lemons. I support you, buddy!
• My buddy “G” from Ohio who just co-led a celebration of his parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. He and his family are so blessed to share the joy of a golden anniversary.
• Paul who reads my blog daily and sends me a message about what he thinks about what I wrote each and every day. May all bloggers have such a loyal following!
• A cousin who had always wanted a Harley, but couldn’t afford it. He set up a savings account, and over six years, contributed enough that enabled him to pay cash for his new ride. I can’t wait to go ride with him sometime soon.
• “H”, a childhood friend, who worked hard to put a mountain of debt behind her, avoid declaring personal bankruptcy, and finally pay off all of her bills. It took nine years, but was well worth it.
• “Z” and “B”, mentees and friends, who will be sworn in as our country’s newest citizens on the Fourth of July. They worked hard to pass their citizenship test, and deserve this recognition for achieving a goal of seven and eight years, respectively. They care for their families, work and pay taxes to contribute to society, and demonstrate what the “American Dream” is all about. I’m so happy for them. (I’ll be there waving the flag on the Fourth of July!)
• “A”, my new riding buddy who has been practicing his motorcycle skills and has put on 3,000 miles on his bike in just three months. Way to go!
• Sue, a fellow bloggin’ pal, who in about two weeks is returning home to Australia. She has been sharing joy and stories of visits with family and rides on her Harley that are a delight to read. I hope she continues her blogging when she returns Down Under, as she is a talented and interesting writer.
• My partner, who has been so incredibly patient with his overly-demanding mother. Much more now than ever. God bless him.
• Bama, who honored me recently by spending time with me, havin’ a little fun huntin’ for mud (and only finding dust), and saying that he was fortunate to meet me. Let me tell ‘ya, the fortune was all mine.
• Mrs. “L” for finally getting her crazy tax situation worked out with the state, and getting not only a huge refund but a letter of apology! (I kinda coached her on how and to whom to kvetch.)
• Mr. “T”, who at age 90, walked four miles yesterday morning! Bless his soul!

Life is short: celebrate the achievements of others, and show ’em some lovin’!

Yesterday, I was busy catching up on things at home after being gone almost a week on business travel. My partner is away visiting his mother, so I was tempted on such a sunny, beautiful day, to get out on my Harley and ride. Alas, my aunt required some attention, another elderly couple needed a cabinet repaired, and my usual Saturday routine of grocery shopping with the ladies wasn’t to be missed.

I got home about noon, and thought that the rest of the day would be spent working on our hallway renovation project. I promised my partner I would do that. So I got out all of the tools and materials, and began the job. Then the phone rang.

A buddy was calling saying that he was in a real spot. I had sold him my old parachute and he was getting it ready to go skydiving with some mutual friends, but something wasn’t right with my old ‘chute. He had worked himself up into a dither. He so desperately wanted to go skydiving, but if something were wrong with the ‘chute, then he would not be able to go. He sounded so disappointed and frustrated.

“You know that ‘chute better than anyone. Can you fix it?”

I still wasn’t sure quite what was wrong, but he sounded so desperate, I just had to go help. I decided to bring him my own parachute, so that if I weren’t able to get his ‘chute fixed, he could still go skydiving. I hopped on my Harley (a-ha! what an excuse to ride!) and boogeyed over to the airport. There was my friend. He had the parachute all laid out on the grass.

He jumped up and ran over to me. “I can’t pack it! It won’t pack!” he shrieked. This guy is a nice man, but he does get a tad excitable. Turns out that he had it all backwards. Some of the ‘chute lines were tangled. We straightened them out and ensured each was free, and began to fold it. What I liked most about my old ‘chute is that it practically folded itself. I wrapped the static line loosely along the top of the pack, then closed it with the pin, and voi-la, it was all ready. Nothing was wrong with it; my buddy simply had forgotten how to pack it. (Can’t say that spending eight hours of training on the matter helped him that much, but that’s quite another story.)

The rest of the guys showed up, and the pilot said those magic words, “hey, we’ve got an open spot, wanna come?”

Well, I do have all that work to do back home…

BUT…

I couldn’t resist. Hmmm, for some reason, I was already dressed in BDUs and jump boots. But honestly, that’s what I put on to do work on the floor! Really! God’s truth! (My partner would never believe me, because I usually wear old cruddy jeans and my Station Boots to do renovation work.)

We jumped three times yesterday afternoon. We didn’t go very high — just about 8,000 feet for each jump. High enough to see the surrounding area, but not so high as to spend all afternoon in freefall (LOL).

Today, I promise: I will work on that hallway project which must show significant progress before my partner arrives home about 2:00. (And either call me honest or a glutton for punishment, but I plan to tell my partner about the Saturday diversion, even if he won’t be happy).

Life is short: have fun!

Last weekend was busy, as usual. I haven’t shown yet the most recent progress on the flooring project of our upstairs hallway. Here it is!

We are making slow but steady progress. The flooring goes down fairly easily. The only hitch I have run into is that occasionally a board must be nailed into place (to keep it from sliding) and the cheap Chinese-made nails I am using bend while being hammered into place.

Hammer? Whazzat? Don’t you use a nail gun?

Sure, I have a nail gun — a pretty good one, as a matter of fact. It nailed our house together. But it’s big, cumbersome, and heavy. If I have to nail one finishing nail every now-and-then, I will use a hammer instead of getting that big bulky thing out, making all that noise, etc.

The progress is slowed on our renovation work due to my partner’s health issues (resolved now) and some travel that takes me away for a few days. But it will get done… steady and surely.

Life is short: do your own renovations!

Family means so much to me. Pictured, left to right: me, my lovely 94-year-old aunt for whom I care regularly, and her grandson with his daughter, my aunt’s first and only great grandchild. Her grandson came all the way from California to visit with his Grandma. This was the first time my aunt has ever seen her great granddaughter in person, with all the energy that a 3-year-old brings to life. We had a great time, and the light in my aunt’s eyes was such a delight to see.

I am so very blessed. Gen 1: my father’s siblings; gen 2: my siblings and first cousins; gen 3: my first cousin once removed; gen 4: my first cousin twice removed. That’s what it is called in genealogical terms.

While my aunt’s son, father of her grandson, was not here for this visit, he has been here before, and even went for a ride with me on my Harley! A warm heart, great soul, fond friend.
Life is short: show those you love that you love them.

This past week you have been reading auto-blogs. That is, messages written and posted for display on this blog well in advance of their appearance. This message, however, is recent; I wrote it just last night, to display this morning.

The week deteriorated on Wednesday where my partner realized that he had a prescription medicine mix-up. He received two meds on June 11 for a skin infection on his foot. He took the meds as directed. He ran out of one of them rather quickly, and had it refilled on June 16. We noticed that the pills in the second bottle did not match the pills in the first. He began to shake and he became, let’s say, “quite upset.”

I took all of the bottles back to the pharmacy. The head pharmacist admitted that they erred, in that they put the pills for two different meds in the wrong bottles. The unfortunate result was that my partner overdosed on one med, since it was prescribed at 3x/day, when he should only have been taking it 1x/day. At the urging of his physician, off to the emergency room we went for urgent blood tests and a liver test.

My partner does not handle medical emergencies well, especially when he is the center of the emergency. I advocated for him throughout the process, and took care of his needs. Thank goodness for Maryland’s progressive laws, as I never once had to have an argument with anyone about my role in looking after my partner’s needs, or receiving information from medical professionals about his condition.

Fortunately, the overdose was not of a medication that could do long-term harm, nor produced bad side-effects. The situation was more of a scare than anything else — but it could have been much worse. Some have asked if we are going to sue the pharmacy. Our response is, “why?” They admitted the error, paid for the emergency room visit, and disciplined the pharmacist who made the error. The State Pharmacy Board is also investigating. While we likely have a “good case,” a resulting punitive award just would spike the cost of medical care in the long-run. We aren’t out to make money out of this. We just want things to quiet down and for my partner to be okay. He’s okay; just frightened.

Anyway, I’ll be back to blogging more actively now that my partner is okay and I can begin to get back to a more usual multi-tasking routine. This past week was rough, but we survived.

Life is short: read the package inserts!

I opened our bill from the power company the other day. The bill for the month of May is always our lowest, as we are usually able to refrain from using air conditioning (yet). With longer day length, we do not need to turn on lights for more than about an hour before we go to bed at night.

However, I was pleasantly surprised when I read past the gobble-de-gook to the bottom line of the bill to see that the power company owes us $55.24. That’s right, our “bill” was a credit instead of a charge.

Eleven years ago, almost to the day, I was building our house. We had finished the framing and had the roofing rafters installed when the solar panels got delivered. It was still months before they would be installed, so I recall figuring out a location of where to store them securely until it was time to do the installation.

I had researched what application would be best for a residential setting at our latitude. I bartered the installation for electrical work on another guy’s house and by September that year, the system was working.

Generally, the solar panels produce enough electricity to provide adequate power for our household’s ordinary needs, such as for the refrigerator, freezer, clocks, and some (fluorescent) lighting at night. When our power demands are greater than that, such as when we need to have the air conditioning turned on, then we draw power from the grid. But in those weeks with cool weather and long days, our system actually produces more power than we use, and our meter runs backwards. That’s right, we sell our excess power back to the power company. The company is required by law to pay us for the value of the kilowatts of power produced over demand.

Most months of May, we still incur a bill, though it is low. This was the first time that prolonged cool weather (since it has rained so much) with long days resulted in a huge credit. While my neighbors are griping about their electric bills being so high, we’re basking in the glow of a wise decision to install solar when we built the house.

Let me tell you, installing an active residential solar power system is not for the faint of heart nor is it cheap. We figure that even with tax credits and other government incentives provided at the time of installation, it took about seven years for us to realize enough savings on our electric bill to pay for the added cost of installing the solar panels and hooking it all up. As an electrician, let me tell you, the hookup was incredibly complex. However, we are happy with our decision, and have the “greenest” house in the neighborhood! (Kinda goes well with our green lawn LOL!)

Life is short: go green!