Missing Him

I remember him drinking coffee all day, with two teaspoons of sugar.
I remember him plugging our ears while we drank a glass of water trying to get rid of hiccups.
I remember him calling Grandma "Bee Shit" when she requested that he call her "honey".
I remember him telling stories of growing up in an orphan's home during the Great Depression.
I remember him calling my brother "sparkplug" because he was just that.
I remember him calling me "Minnie Mundt" (Mundt is my maiden name).
I remember him meeting me at the mall when I was in high school because my car wouldn't start.
I remember him being very proud at our (my cousin and I graduated together) high school graduation.
I remember him helping my Dad build a deck and all the arguments discussions that ensued.
I remember seeing him drink a Pepsi.....once.
I remember him telling me if I were a good granddaughter I would sneak him some salt.

He has missed many weddings.
He has missed many births.
He has missed all the birthday parties that followed those births.
He has missed many Christmasses, Thanksgivings, Easters and Halloweens.
He has missed my Grandma's 80th birthday.
He has (thankfully) missed his son's death.

I miss him all the time, but now more than ever when I see Wayne tinkering in the garage all day, because they would be two peas in a pod. I can see them in the garage together for hours, never really accomplishing anything, but having a great time doing it.

Today would be my Grandpa's 80th birthday. I wish we were planning his birthday party, he passed away 13 years ago.

You Capture--Color

This is part of Beth's weekly photo challenge over at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

This week's challenge was COLOR. 

It sounded really easy, but this one was difficult for me.  I still haven't gotten all my wall stuff up yet since the move and now that the Christmas decorations are down, things are pretty bare around here.  This is the only indoor shot I have for this week....my scarves on my dresser.

We've had lots of fog lately.  I stepped outside to take Lola out and saw our neighbor's flag in the fog.  I really toyed with editing this photo to make the colors a bit sharper, but I decided against it.

This next one of our backyard is probably one of my favorite photos I've taken.  The previous owners used this as a chicken coop many years ago.  We will be using it as a guest cottage....just kidding....maybe....

And this is the burning bush in our yard.  At least I think that's what it's called, I am no gardener...

If you'd like to see other's interpretations of this challenge, head on over to Beth's.

Captain Crabass Takes Minneapolis

Wayne is usually quiet and calm. Nothing really rattles him or gets him excited.

However, he has no patience when it comes to traffic and lines. This is when my usually laid-back husband turns into Captain Crabass quicker than Clark Kent turns into Super Man.


We've gone to NASCAR races before where 100,000 people cram into a town of 20,000 and when we get in the car and try to leave the track he gets so mad and whines and moans the entire time. And the entire time I'm all did you really think 100,000 people were just going to vanish into thin air.


We went to Minneapolis last weekend to see the playoff game between The Cowboys and the Vikings. It was dark Saturday night when we got into town and he used that and the traffice in Minneapolis as his excuse for being cranky. Being the party animals that we are, we went to the hotel restaurant and were asleep by 9:30. Yep, I know you're jealous.


We left the hotel early Sunday morning and were one of the first people in the stadium when it opened. We got some drinks and headed to our seats without trouble. Phew.


Early in the 4th quarter the Cowboys were losing (BIG) so we decided to leave early. We got out of the stadium and made our way back to the hotel in no time.


The plan was that I would run inside to get some snacks and he would retrieve the car, get the GPS out of the suitcase and figure out how to get home. I had been gone for 2 minutes and was on my way to the door when I got this text "where r u".


I walk out the door and he's standing at the trunk about 20 feet away and screams "I can't find it, where is it?". I walked over there, put my underwear back in the suitcase(that he apparently threw out in his frenzied search), reached in and found the GPS in about 20 seconds. He snatched it out of my hands, plugged it into the car and started yelling that we had to go right. now. or. we. will. die.


It really was like a scene straight out of a comic book. We were in an alley in downtown Minneapolis in the middle of a bunch of large buildings, when I suddenly look up and Captain Crabass swooped down and took Wayne's spot behind the wheel.


I usually print the mapquest directions out as well because I'm just that anal.  But he told me we have the GPS and don't need it. Well, the GPS couldn't get a signal. He was yelling at me because we were in the way and had to get moving but we didn't know how to get on the interstate. I don't know what he thought I could do about it, but he kept yelling anyway. He kept inching toward the road without actually pulling onto the road.


We finally decided that we just needed to get out onto the road and figure it out. Actually I told him we just need to get out of this alley and because he didn't have a better idea, he agreed.
When we finally got a signal, it told us to turn right...NOW...Apparently I think that Captain Crabass is deaf because I repeated everything the GPS (we call her Denise) said so it goes something like this...


Denise-turn right...turn right
Me- (as we're passing the turn) Oh, you should have turned back there
Wayne-Well, I'll turn here then
Denise-perform a U-turn...perform a U-turn
Me-You have to turn around Wayne. It's a one way...you can't turn right here. Maybe you should pull over so it will recalculate the route and get us back on track.


At this point Denise is flipping out. It starts to recalculates, gets halfway there then recalculates again. I expected smoke to start billowing out of Denise.


Me-OK, you have to pull over and let it catch up.
Wayne-Where do you want me to pull over Melissa, we have to get out of here.
Me-Well this isn't getting us anywhere.
Denise-Turn right and enter the freeway.

Yes, the entrance to the interstate was about 4 blocks from the hotel. About 10 miles down the road Captain Crabass left and Wayne returned.

On Ice

We had an ice storm yesterday. There is now 1/3 inch of ice. covering. everything.

Normally the biggest concern with winter weather is driving conditions....

My biggest concern is this......tree limbs on the power lines.

Three years ago we had an ice storm that knocked out our power for 6 days. I didn't even realize that was possible in this day and age. It was cold. and dark. and it sucked. Now every time we get adverse weather I get really freaked out. I make sure I have the house cleaned, all the laundry done and I pack a bag in case we need to go to a hotel for a few days....just in case.

This tree is not usually this low over the driveway...

But for now I'm enjoying taking pictures and looking at all the glistening ice.

You Capture--Love Around Your Home

This is part of Beth's weekly photo challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

This week's challenge is Love around your home. I was excited when I saw this challenge and I knew exactly what I was going to do.

This one is obviously not from this week, but there is no love around this home without these guys....and the dogs are just too cute in their Christmas jammies. Lola is the one that's upside down at Wayne's feet, Toby is the black one on Wayne's lap, Wayne is the one wearing shoes and the other one is Lincoln.

And here's Lola (top) and Toby. At any given time, Lola is antagonizing Toby or chewing on his hind leg so this picture is truly rare...and sweet.

This was taken at the Cowboys game this weekend in Minnesota. I do not know the lady in this picture. She (we'll call her Sue) has season tickets to her beloved Vikings, was dressed completely in Vikings garb and shook that rally towel like her arm was going to fall off. If you cut her she would bleed purple and I didn't ask, but I'm pretty sure she was wearing purple underwear. That's just how dedicated she is. Sue reminded me so much of my Grama Mary. Grama had season tickets to our local semi-pro hockey team, the Quad City Mallards. Grama had a Mallards jersey that she wore to every game, and she too high-fived the young, rowdy guys sitting next to her. Sue and Grama both yelled their instructions to the players and expressed their disgust with the officials when the calls didn't go their way. You're probably wondering what this has to do with the challenge. Grama passed away 5 years ago this June (buried in her Mallards jersey and socks). And I would love to have her around my home, but instead I will take this great reminder and smile every time I see it.

I call these "Daddy's Earrings". They used to be my Dad's wedding band. He never wore it, so 28 years later he had it made into earrings for me to wear on our wedding day. Thirty-four years ago this ring was bought for $100, now it is one of my most prized possessions. I wore them when Dad had major, risky neck surgery and for Wayne's surgery and the duration of both of their hospital stays as a good luck charm. It worked, or maybe it was the incredibly talented surgeons, but I'd like to think it's my earrings.....

After some of these other photos, this seems really materialistic and silly, but I love this lamp. It's a little curvier than I usually like, but I think the shade and the black nickel base give it the modern look that I was looking for. I actually think the base kinda looks like an Oscar award. And it's sitting on the table that Wayne made for me!

This penguin is one of the best Christmas gifts I have ever received. Two years ago in the summer, I saw these ceramic penguins that were super cute but ridiculously expensive so I didn't get them. That year at Christmas, Wayne remembered the penguins but didn't know where they were so he looked all over for them. He stumbled into a ceramics shop, not knowing that it was "paint your own". So he painted me a penguin! As you can see, he's not perfect but I just love him!

This is the second challenge I've done and it's a lot of fun. I also tend to leave my photos on the memory card so this is encouraging me to get them on the computer. I highly suggest you check it out.

Polly Possum

This morning, Lola was driving me nuts because she wasn't coming inside when I called her. I finally went and looked for her and found her by the apple tree. I thought she was just eating the apples off the ground until I saw this.

The damn possum is back. At this point she is making a weird noise, kind of like a combination between a growl and a hiss. Lola is not deterred one bit by this and just pokes it with her nose, she didn't even bark. She seemed to be mad that it was not playing with her.

I've decided to name her Polly. No I did not get close enough to verify that she's a girl, but I think Polly Possum suits her and if she's going to keep hanging around she should have a name.

Lola continued to dance around the tree, provoking Polly for a while.

Then this happened.

Yep, the possum is playing possum. Which started an argument between Wayne and I about whether that phrase was coined because of the possum or the possum was named because they do this.

Wayne told me (over the phone) that I needed to walk over and put Lola on a leash and get her away from it. I told him he was nuts because she was too close to Polly. So I kept calling her and she kept circling the tree until I was able to grab her and get her inside.

Shortly after I saw Polly walk away and into the neighbor's yard. With any luck she'll stay there...permanently.

You Capture--Winter

Beth over at I should be folding laundry does a photo challenge each week. I've been meaning to join in but just finally got up the courage.

This week's challenge is winter. I wouldn't say I love winter, but I love the way it looks.

A couple days ago I accidentally deleted all the pictures on my memory card so I lost everything I hadn't downloaded yet so this is all I have this week.

O.......Possom

Let's play a little game. I'll give you 3 clues and you try to guess what I've been up to today.

Clue #1

safety glasses (really cute, pink safety glasses)


Could be anything right? This might help.

Clue #2

Wayne's welding gloves

Hmm.....still not sure?

Clue #3a gopher grabber

Still don't know? No, I wasn't cleaning the toilet. Not washing Wayne's filthy work clothes. Not washing Wayne's back.

I was trying to catch a possom. Yep, I said possom.

Okay, I'll start from the beginning. I put all three of the dogs outside in the afternoon and shortly after our beagle Lincoln started barking profusely. That's really not too out of character for him but it was really loud and he wouldn't shut up and wouldn't come when I called him.

I found him in the bushes in front of the porch. I bent down and saw what I thought was a cat and went to touch it but it ran into the bushes. I came back in the house for a while. The whole time Lincoln's barking, the other two dogs are inside barking as if to say they've got his back. I looked inside the bush and saw what I thought was a baby possom.

I couldn't take it any longer so I called Wayne to see if he had any ideas of what I should do. The only thing he could come up with is to throw a blanket over Lincon to hopefully distract him so I could grab him. I knew that was not going to work. He was literally nose to nose with this stupid possom. Neither of them were giving up. Wayne suggested calling one of our neighbors or to get his bow and arrow to shoot the possom. Are you kidding? I might as well call the vet and 911 and get them on their way, I will for sure shoot myself in the foot or some poor person walking on the road. We were afraid that if I just reached down to grab Lincoln he might bite me 'cuz he was so keyed up.

After consulting with my Dad, I grabbed Lincoln by the tail and moved him backward until I could grab his collar. I got him in the house and Lola and Toby started hovering around him like he just scored the winning touchdown. If they had hands, they would be high-fiving and slapping each other on the butt. Wayne called and I told him I got him. He said "the possom?". I said "No---hell no, who do you think you're talking to?". My Dad asked me the same thing. Then he said "Missy you have to get him out of the yard or Lincoln's gonna go back to that spot every time he goes out. Just grab him by the tail and throw him over the fence." At this point I'm wondering if my Dad fell and hit his head. My response was "if that damn possom had any sense at all he'd leave now that Lincoln's gone." He also asked if I had some kind of pole with a hook on it that I could just grab him with. Oh right, my possom grabbing stick why didn't I think of that.

As it turns out, he doesn't have much common sense. After a little thought and more encouragement from my Dad I decided to try to get it out of the bushes. So I got the above equipment and a long extension pole. My plan was to coax it out of the bushes with the extension pole then grab in with the gopher grabber and throw it over the fence.The welding gloves were in case he bit me, the safety glasses were to protect my eyes....duh! So I poked him (still thinking it's a baby) and he just turned his head and glared at me with his creepy red eyes and it was clear he was not a baby.....he was huge.

At that point I told Mr. Possom that he could have the bush and he could raise his little possom babies in there. In fact, I'll let him have the whole front yard if he promises not to chew me up and spit me out.

New Year's Revelation

Last Saturday was a really busy day, I had a BeautiControl meeting in the morning and my cousin Vickie threw a surpise party for her husband, John's 35th Birthday in the evening. For someone that stays at home mostly all the time, that was a BIG day.

Of all the conversations and the one, big, stupid thing I did (I'll share later), two conversations stuck out the most.

At lunch one of the BC girls mentioned that her Mom lost a kidney to Kidney Cancer and that she had Uterine Cancer herself. I responded with "My husband had Kidney Cancer.......last year". The conversation ended when our food came, but silently I was all Woo Hoo, it was last year......OMG it was last year.....I can't believe it was last year.....that's soooo exciting!!

Later at the party, I was talking to Tammy who I've known for a few years but we don't know each other really well and I got to say it again. She sells Partylite, so we were talking about our respective businesses and I told her that's it's going really slow for me mainly because I took a hiatus when Wayne got his diagnosis. She then asked how he was doing and I got to do my "woo hoo it was last year" dance. I started crying.

There were some pretty dark days in March, April, May and June that I couldn't fathom not thinking about kidney cancer every day. I still think about it very often, but it really seems like it's behind us now that it was last year.

What a year!

I had plans for a different post but the guilt of not getting around to sending out Christmas cards got to me and I decided that 2009 was just too big a year for us to go without summing the whole thing up.

2009 began with my Dad recovering from major neck surgery that went miraculously well. In January my brother (finally!)proposed to Anna,his girlfriend of 3 years. We're all thrilled to have Anna and her two boys, Ethan and Kayden, join our family. At the same time Jake, Anna and the boys announced they were moving to Northern WI. They moved in Frebruary, not so thrilled about that.

In March, while trying to find the source of right side pain Drs found a tumor in Wayne's left kidney. To this day we still don't know the cause of the right side pain, except a sign from God. I spent the rest of the month googling and praying. After the initial diagnosis we found Dr. Joudi at the University of Iowa. I've said this before, but Dr. Joudi is FANTASTIC!! I wrote more about those first few days here, here and .

April brought surgery to remove the tumor and half of his kidney. The 2-3 day hospital stay turned in to 6 days and he was in significantly more pain than he expected but they got all the cancer and his prognosis was very good.

Wayne had some minor setbacks in his recovery in May but was able to go back to work in June, we were both nervous about whether he'd be ready but anxious for things to get back to normal. Going back on nights was difficult but after two weeks he has been able to be on days ever since which has really been a blessing. Overall, he did well at work but we struggled to get back to a routine and he was still in a considerable amount of pain. We made the decision to seriously look for a house to buy.

July found Wayne starting to really feel like a human being again for the first time in 3 months!! We really ramped up our home search and put in an offer on a house. The rest of July was spent packing, decluttering, organizing and preparing for a yard sale.

August and September were pretty much a blur with closing, renovating and then moving into our new home. Oh and let's not forget the cat bite.

October and November were spent settling into the house. On November 2nd, we got the best news from Wayne's 6 month scans. N.E.D.--No Evidence of Disease!! We truly had something to be thankful for this year.

I've had many people come up to me and say "boy I bet you're glad to see 2009 go". Yes we are,
but in many ways this is not the worst year we've ever had. In March, I couldn't imagine saying that last sentence, but looking back it could have been a lot worse. Parts of it sucked, don't get me wrong, but parts of it were really great andwe're all still here!