Valentine’s Day has lost it’s luster… at least for me

Today is Valentine’s day , it should be a day of great happiness, joy and love, it should be a time when all single folks spend their time with friends or family making memories, it should be a time when lovers profess their love to each other, it should be a time when families openly show their love to each other, it should be a day where you know you are truly loved.

Today would have been our 18th year Anniversary, it was supposed to be a day in which we had our own tradition, today is the 1 day of the year I would have refrained from saying NO to any wish or desire that my wife may have had (and she has had some doozies over the years), Today is the day that I would have spent granting every wish and going to great lengths to profess my love to her.

Today is the day that I would have had reservations at her favorite 5 start restaurant, today is the day our house would have been filled with flowers, today is the day I would have romanced the jinkers out of her, today is the day we would have went dancing.

Today was our day, it would have been our Anniversary, Today is the day I would have gotten down on one knee , opened a small box with a jewelry trinket of some sort and proposed to her yet again for the 18th Time, a tradition I have done every year with her, my way of saying Darling, I loved you from the very start and as each year passes my love for you only grows stronger and deeper, you are even more beautiful now as the day we first met, and Darling, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a single thing, I love you more than life itself.

This Valentines day all I have is a deep sense of loss, my Heart aches and I weep tears of deep sorrow and loneliness, all I have left are memories of a happier time. I force a smile as the memories flow, I weep as I watch families out for a nice morning walk, I miss her, no Today is now just another day now, and will forever be.

Today is hard on Hammy too, today is the day he would have given her a homemade card that he made in art class at school, today is the day he would have kissed his Mom on the cheek and told her just how much he loved her, today is the day he would have strived and gone the extra mile to make her happy, to do as she asked without question or thought, today is the day he would have catered to her every whim,today is the day where he would have shared in the feelings of love, today is the day where he would have felt the love of his little family.

It’s not the same now without her, Today is just another day for Hammy and I now, Today we will play chess and share a nice meal together, today we will go for a walk and try to avoid the families that are out and about, today has become a day of remembrance of what was once a Happy joyous day, today is a day that is forever changed, today is now just another day. a hard day on the both of us.

Butch.
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Despite the Cancer life has to go on

My Wife has been feeling really good lately, all last week and this week so far she has been almost back to her happy former self, she can’t work or go for her long walks but she does go outside and sit on the deck we built together last summer, she putters around the house doing light house keeping, she is back to cooking suppers for Hammy (our son) and I, and gosh let me tell you….my Wife really knows her way around a kitchen! that girl can cook!

This may sound mundane to you the reader, but these simple things that we all take for granted are a very big accomplishment for my Wife, just 4 short months ago we found out she had stage 4 lung cancer, the prognosis wasn’t good, we were told to make final arrangements quickly as she only had 3 to 6 months to live.

We are now on the 4th month, and after 2 rounds of Chemo her health as improved….well okay I am sure her health hasn’t improved, it’s her quality of life that has improved, needless to say we do NOT take tomorrow for granted, we cherish each day, good or bad and pray for just 1 more day together.

Tomorrow she goes back to the Cancer center to be evaluated and booked in, by Friday they will have a bed ready and she will go in for her 3rd and final round of Chemo, after that they want to give her a CT Scan to see what the Chemo has done (if anything) , if it has done what they hope it has, the Doctors will figure out the next step, if that step is more Chemo or surgery we just don’t know yet, and we won’t know until after that CT Scan.

So now that my Wife has been feeling better and is able to be on her own for a couple hours, I have been playing catch up on my spring chores, such as digging my 1 ton work van out of my sisters yard where I parked it last fall, the ground went soft with the spring melt and hence, the van sank right up to it’s bumpers! I did get it out after a half day of digging and pulling with the Kubota (tractor), had to jump start the van as the winter killed the battery. After that I came home dusted off my Wife’s little red car and put the battery charger on it for a couple hours, battery is charged but the serpentine belt broke, so that is on my “to do” list, replace the belt.

Life has to go on despite the Cancer, I have been stealing an hour here and an hour there to putter in the flower gardens, I have been planting giant sunflowers (well hopefully they will be giants when they grow) , I have a great fondness for sunflowers, why I do not know, I have a wide variety of seeds to plant yet,

I enjoy gardening, both flower and veggie gardening, as does my Wife, this year it’s all me doing the seeding and her telling me what goes where exactly, I don’t mind, she always has been and always will be “The Boss” , I am not too prideful or too Butch to admit that my Wife is indeed the Boss, even while sick she runs the house, she manages the budgets and lets me know what bill needs to be paid, she makes out the shopping list and I follow it faithfully, she lets me know when Hammy needs new clothes etc, as I said she is the Boss, she is an organized person who likes lists and budgets, I am more of a just “wing it” kind of person.

I never once attempted to take any sort of control of the house away from her, even when she is so sick she can’t get out of bed, instead I just pick up where she left off and take care of things and when she starts feeling better I hand over the reigns back to her.

anyway, it is late, thank you for letting me ramble (blogging is therapy for me), remember to express your love often, and never take tomorrow for granted. Peace be with you all

Butch
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Winter has arrived and other shtuff

Winter has arrived here in Saskatchewan, Canada (The big prairie province in the center of Canada on any map), it actually arrived last Monday but only an inch or 2 of snow fell, along with the freezing rain which made the roads a real joy to drive on

Anyway we are getting another 2 or 4 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow (so says the weatherman), I dont mind the snow, its the stupid rain that comes with it that I hate.

I have readied the house and property for winter, I began doing so near the beginning of October as I am old enough to feel it in my bones, that and I observe nature to see what the plants, birds, and animals are doing, they are a good indicator of weather be it good or bad.

A Canadian winter is brutal, but I tell you this.... you havent truly lived until you have survived a Saskatchewan winter! ( those of you in Alaska would be the only other folks who could relate, and those in various areas of Russia as well ), Saskatchewan has 2 seasons , Hotter than Hades or Colder than a Witches tit on Sunday! there is no gentle reprieve between the 2, its either 1 or the other.

I have prepared my family for the next 6 months of brutal winter storms, I have winterized the house by shoving expanding foam into and all cracks,cleaning the furnace and ducts,stocked up on furnace filters,put poly over all the windows (outside),stacked 90lb square hay bales around the foundation perimeter,insulated all the water pipes and sewer lines, I also stocked up on essentials like Crap Wrap!!(toilet paper), nothing worse than running out when its 40 below zero during a winter blizzard and you have to drive 26 miles to the nearest Walmart or Costco to get more!!

I finally made it out hunting and have a chest freezer full of half a deer (I split it with my sister), 4 ducks and 2 geese, theres enough room for about 40lbs of store bought meat, I plan on heading out to the Hutterite colony next week to buy some of their chickens and a couple turkeys as well as 50lbs of taters. Hutterites are like Amish only they do use electricity drive cars and use modern farm machinery, they dont how ever have television radios and such, no individual owns any property or money they share among the colony , they do believe any outsider is doomed to eternal Hell but are always happy to sell their goods to us damned sinners, they have great prices too, far better than retail stores or warehouse stores, so I do business with them quite often.

I took our 12 year old son "Hammy" out hunting for the first time, the killing of the deer disturbed him enough that he had us bow our heads in prayer for it and say thank you to the deer for giving its life to provide us with meat throughout the winter.
I am so very proud of him and his insistence taught me a lot about the kind of man he is slowly becoming, of course cleaning the deer almost made him pass out, but nothing went to waste, the innards that cant be used were left for the turkey vultures, coyotes, and foxes, the antlers I will mount and varnish so my son can use it as a hat rack ( he loves his ball caps), the hide will eventually be sold and the meat I divided between my sister and her family and myself and my family.

Some folks would argue that its wrong to take a 12 year old boy hunting and to teach him how to hunt,kill,and clean an animal...those people are what I like to call moronic busybodies who would (if given their way) put every kid in bubble wrap and make them watch barney all day, totally out of touch with reality. you teach a kid that killing is serious and not just a video game they will develop compassion and empathy for the animals and they understand the food chain better, it also teaches them ethics and makes them look at the food industry closely.

Will our son grow up to be a hunter? probably not, but he will have the ability to do so to provide for his family should he ever in his life have to, most likely he will get his food from the store just as the vast majority do, and like I usually do, I hunt for a few reasons, #1 it culls the herds so there is less starvation during winter (means more deer survive the winters to have baby deers in the spring), #2 I supplement our grocery store food with wild game which makes my grocery bill less expensive (handy when finances occasionally get tight), #3 its bonding time with my male friends who hunt, we have something in common and do it for the same reasons, and this year the new reason #4 was to teach our son about life and what it means to take a life. you just cant teach that sort of thing in school, its something you need to learn and experience first hand. (PETA is gonna be up my ass for this blog entry)

guess thats all for now

Butch
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