Random Ramblings

Yep Gary, I know how it feels when your kids spread out their wings and fly away from home.
My mom has teached me, let them go.
Our youngest left home two months ago.

rockerVu2 wrote:

Yep Gary, I know how it feels when your kids spread out their wings and fly away from home.
My mom has teached me, let them go.
Our youngest left home two months ago.

It's not easy but I guess you have to. 
We still have our middle child living with us (he moved back in a few months ago), but he is probably going to leave us in the Fall, then it will just be the two of us.

New beginnings   

I like being empty-nesters but there are times when we miss having the kids around.

My wife and I have always been empty nesters as we never had our own children.



Last night was the final performance of my play.  The show has gone pretty well despite unnecessary behind the scenes drama and cast changes.  Last night was probably one of the best performances as everyone could relax knowing this was the final appearance together.

We did this weekend in The Thomas House in Red Bowling Springs.  It is an old bed and breakfast that still operates.  It's big claim to fame is that it is supposedly haunted.  They've even had one of the nationally aired ghost hunting shows come out and film there.  Ghost hunters from around the world travel there because of the reported activity.  Personally, I don't believe in ghosts, so I have seen nothing and never expect to.  If there are spirits there, I believe it to be more demonic in nature and it would be time to kick into prayer meeting mode if I did see something.  Greater is He who is in me than he who is in The Thomas House, right???

I counted the months, days and minutes until the last one moved out (and of course with my son, I'm sure many of you remember how VERY easy he made it for us to say goodbye and not miss him living here).
The way I look at it is, I married Lisa... not the kids. So, though I miss them on occasion, I DO NOT miss them actually living here. 

We've been empty nesters for about 5 years now and LOVE finally having the house to ourselves 

I just took Sting's advice is all... 

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Greater is He who is in me than he who is in The Thomas House

While I do believe demonic activity is alive and well around the world, I also believe the vast majority of people's claims to have "seen" or felt ghostly activity is poppycock, just attention grabbing crap.

PSA:

If you're going to steal in my store, make sure you don't get caught by the off duty constable just 6 feet away from you while you're stuffing your giant handbag with 85 bucks worth of items.

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

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Greater is He who is in me than he who is in The Thomas House

While I do believe demonic activity is alive and well around the world, I also believe the vast majority of people's claims to have "seen" or felt ghostly activity is poppycock, just attention grabbing crap.

This is one of the strange cases where I actually believe people ARE seeing things.  There are too many reports of strange happenings and sightings.  Many times, people who are unaware of what others see will have the same type of sighting.  That begins to give you some credence that there is something going on.

I don't believe in any ghosts but the Holy Ghost myself.  I used to love to watch paranormal shows and read books about it, too.  In almost every case of "hauntings", the spirit would become malevolent with time.  I think that shows that these aren't dead humans but rather demonic beings bent on misleading people away from Jesus.

Also, the Bible says that it is appointed once for man to die and then the judgment.  I believe that when we die we go to our eternal home with the Lord or end up in Hell like the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.  I don't believe that anyone, no matter how tragic their death was, walk this earth until they find some sort of peace.  If people are seeing spirits and interacting with them (both of which have happened multiple times at The Thomas House), then they are divining with evil spirits.  This homey don't play that game!!!!

If it's not some attention getter, or someone who "thinks" they seen something when they didn't, THEN I firmly believe it was demonic activity. This includes all the supposed dead relatives that are "contacted" at seances and stuff

Guilty/Forgiven wrote:

I counted the months, days and minutes until the last one moved out (and of course with my son, I'm sure many of you remember how VERY easy he made it for us to say goodbye and not miss him living here).
The way I look at it is, I married Lisa... not the kids. So, though I miss them on occasion, I DO NOT miss them actually living here. 

We've been empty nesters for about 5 years now and LOVE finally having the house to ourselves 
...

The having the house to ourselves part will be nice (once my middle child finally moves out).
But I'm really missing the youngest kid.  My wife thinks that is because he engaged with us just as much when he got older as he did when he was a kid (unlike the other two who stopped wanting to be around us much when they hit their mid/late teen years).  Oh sure he had his friends and did stuff with them, but he would still go to the movies with us, or even just shopping.  He would talk to me every day when I got home about his day, and often helped me with dinner.  He also didn't just move down the street, or over to the next town (like our daughter).  He is on the other side of the country.  With the exception of coming home for a week or so in October he isn't even likely to be stationed anywhere near us.  I really miss him.

Always good to see some progress on some slow moving projects.

For the past DECADE, I've lived in places too small to have my music collection on shelves.  (I don't have that big of a collection, it's just that I've lived in pretty tiny places.)  But we just bought some cheapo shelves from Walmart and I FINALLY got to organize my music on 'em!  I'm happy now.     I don't think I'll ever get to "Jim level" of shelving, but it feels pretty nice nonetheless. 

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 I don't think I'll ever get to "Jim level" of shelving, but it feels pretty nice nonetheless.

Mine is a sickness... don't get to that point, trust me 

Well, I don't know about everyone else... but...

Kerrick, those shelves...

WE WANT PICTURES!

Hahaha alright then.    Sorry it's not the greatest picture but should give you an idea.  The top two rows are my music CDs (with room for expansion haha), then movies, and then the bottom two are books.  The things on top are masks I made out of wire in college.

Nice!

I love a good fireworks display.  I hate fireworks being shot off by kids in the neighborhood 30 mins. after they are supposed to stop.  Of course, our local "Barney Fife" police force isn't going to do anything except run radar to raise more funds for the city and thus justify their slightly above minimum wage jobs.

I might be turning into an old curmudgeon, but I'm done with the fireworks.  The people in our town (especially our neighborhood) spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on fireworks.  They basically start at around noon on July 3rd and continue until nearly midnight on July 5th (even though they are legally limited to between noon & midnight on the 4th).  It literally sounds like a war zone from the time it gets dark until about 1 am (seriously I have been on military live fire exercises that were quieter).  A few guys must have small cannons, because you always get a dozen or so massive booms that will actually rattle the windows in your house.
There are a few towns in the surrounding area that have outlawed nearly all fireworks.  Every July 4th I give serious thought to moving to one of those.

Fireworks around here are much more tame by the sound of it. In Quebec, we do fireworks both on St-Jean-Baptiste (June 24th) and on Canada Day, a week later. Around here, it's more or less just the city that does it.

I have friends who got married on June 24th last summer so that they'd have fireworks on their anniversary

kerrick wrote:

Hahaha alright then.    Sorry it's not the greatest picture but should give you an idea.  The top two rows are my music CDs (with room for expansion haha), then movies, and then the bottom two are books.  The things on top are masks I made out of wire in college.

So Kerrick, as someone who loves to snoop thru other people's music collections, this picture was not very satisfying as all I could make out was the book "What To Expect When You're Expecting"

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then it will just be the two of us.

That how it is here too.
Only the two of us.
Gary, do you still have the dog?