{"id":1085,"date":"2011-02-21T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2016-05-11T07:53:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T11:53:41","slug":"large-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=1085","title":{"rendered":"Large Family …"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have mentioned before on this blog that I have a large family.  Larger than most, and very involved with each other.  We truly try to help each other out when we can.  Not only my siblings, but also my cousins, nieces, nephews, and greats… literally, hundreds of ’em.<\/p>\n

This past weekend has found me involved with family up to my eyeballs.<\/p>\n

Friday night featured our regular family dinner.  About 40 of us gathered at a sister’s house to enjoy a meal, lots of talking, banter, and familial camaraderie.  I only go for a couple hours — pretty much only enough time to eat and chat for a little bit.  But seeing my family once each week really means a lot to all of us. I rarely miss a Friday night with the fam, unless I’m away on business travel.<\/p>\n

My partner and I spent most of Saturday cleaning up and cleaning out my aunt’s apartment (the aunt for whom I cared for so many years<\/a> and who died three weeks ago).  I promised her sons — my cousins — that I would do that.  It was a lot of work, as my aunt had more stuff squirreled away in places that I never knew she had — and I thought I was very familiar with her small apartment.  Nonetheless, the place is empty, and it matches the hole in my heart.<\/p>\n

During dinner Saturday evening, the phone rang.  I seldom answer the phone but the caller ID showed that it was from a cousin who rarely calls, so I thought something was going on.  Turned out that my cousin’s son had fallen and he was alone at his parent’s house.  His parents were away on vacation to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.  I ended up taking my cousin to the emergency room for an x-ray. He broke a rib.  The doc gave him prescriptions for pain meds and sent him home.  I took him back home, and did not arrive at my home until 1am on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Sunday all day involved more family stuff.  It began by going to church to see a couple “great-greats” get baptized.  These children, actually, are grandchildren of first cousins, so technically that makes them first cousins twice removed.  Whatever… I spent time with another branch of this large family tree.<\/p>\n

Then I did a short presentation that my boss asked me to make and had been pre-arranged.  After that, I returned home and prepared lunch for my partner, then took off to attend not one, but two birthday parties for more “greats” (grandchildren of a brother and a sister who are twins, and these grandchildren are twins… pretty odd, but not all that unusual.)<\/p>\n

How was I dressed? Casually — boots, jeans, and leather jeans throughout the weekend. Nothing different or unusual for me. I did wear a nice pair of slacks to church and to make the presentation on Sunday, and wore a good pair of dress cowboy boots. But when I returned to “my own time,” casual wear returned to leather.<\/p>\n

My family is important to me, and I spend a lot of time with them.  I feel that to be part of a large family, you have to spend time with them.  And believe me, in MY family, there are always opportunities LOL!<\/p>\n

Life is short:  love your family!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have mentioned before on this blog that I have a large family.  Larger than most, and very involved with each other.  We truly try to help each other out when we can.  Not only my siblings, but also my … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}