The rest of our week

As you might imagine our weekend was dominated by the news about Jo's sister and helping to arrange the myriad of details that need addressing with someones passing.  In some ways this was a blessing as it provided us strong planners with something to focus on instead of the grief we were feeling.  Prior to the weekend, our week was focused on our usual pursuits of working, exercise, and food.

I completed my work this week on patching and painting all the newly formed cracks in the house.  I remain amazed at the number of these that had formed over the last 18 months since I did this last.  But I believe it is just what you must expect with an old plaster and lath house.  Hopefully, the ones I fixed won't reoccur for at least 24 months - probably wishful thinking on my part.  Jo was focused on completing her yearly performance reviews and held the last of them this last week.  I still remember what a great feeling of accomplishment it was when all those were done for another year - although I certainly don't miss giving them or getting one at all!

Our only other big piece of news this week was getting another 6 inches of snow.  We are now at about 15 inches for February and since it has been so cold it is all still laying around.  I'm not used to living somewhere where the snows doesn't completely melt between snowfalls.  It is starting to get challenging to find places to throw the new snow since the old has piled up so much.  But I am getting lots of opportunities to use my snow blower and you know how that just brings a smile to my face and a warms my heart (and yes, I still can't explain why I like seeing snow being thrown so much.  It might have to do with the neat lines a snow blower makes along the edges of the driveway.  It might be that I'm just a little bit squirrely).  With the new snow we managed to get out for a little bit of cross country skiing on Friday night.  Afterwards it was home to enjoy the last of the Papa Del's pizza (the 3 large pizza's we brought home from U of I in October lasted all the way to here) we had frozen. 

A life too short

Mary and her Family

Jo and I received the news this Saturday that her oldest sister, Mary, passed away after a courageous seven year battle with colon cancer.  I thought I would share some of memories and thoughts about my sister-in-law and the hole that she leaves in the world with her passing.

Mary raised four great children and was fortunate to fight the cancer to a draw long enough to welcome her three grandchildren into this world.  She helped my brother-in-law, Mike, by being both loving at times and critical at times, which every husband needs, even if we don't always want to admit it.  As I think back over my time knowing Mary, I will miss:

• Her constant efforts to convince us (OK it is mostly me, but I get to use the royal us now and then) to paint our walls with some color other than relocation beige - which as anyone who has seen any of the homes we have owned is a discussion that she didn't win.  But she never gave up trying even as we moved house to house.
• The fun dinner time conversations where she would share nursing stories that generally involved some disgusting bodily fluid or body part.
• Her need for speed when behind the wheel.  Although to be fair, she might have inherited that from her father.
• Her visit to our first, new house with the entire family and the thrill of discovering we had a broken sewer pipe (which happened while it was being constructed but we didn't know), in the middle of winter, with eight people in the house.
• The ability to laugh at herself, tell a funny story, and in general make those around her feel a little happier.
• Her incredible devotion to a dog that, as near as I could tell, was single minded in trying to destroy the inside of her house using any means possible.
• Her need to fill a coffee cup up above the brim where only the surface tension of the water would keep it in the cup and then proceed to walk with it.

The three sisters

There are too many stories that come from the 32 years that I had the opportunity to know Mary to share them all here that have created the image of her that I will carry with me.  I would say, that she was an interesting person with a warm heart and flaws that only made her more interesting to know.

As Mary struggled with the colon cancer and the treatments that represent cancer therapy today, she was the model for how everyone should approach these difficult moments in life - whether it is unwanted medical diagnosis, or just a bad day at work.  She was always upbeat, convinced she would beat the cancer, and voiced only minor complaints as she went through the standard pharmaceutical treatments, novel new therapies in early trials, repeated surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, and radiation treatments.  The side effects of these treatments would leave anyone exhausted and ready to give up, yet throughout Mary always managed to remain optimistic and hopeful.  I only hope that someday I can learn to deal with the difficulties in my life, that are so minor by comparison, with as much grace as she managed.

There is much more to say to adequately describe her impact on Jo and me, but let me close with we will miss having her around to provide us her thoughts for the rest of the time we get to enjoy here.

The corner office

Joann moved to a new office this week in the corner of the 5th floor with great views of the Milwaukee Art Museum and the lake.  I was able to help her organize the office and get a first view of her new spread this last Sunday.  Let me just say, she now has an incredible office.  It is about the size of our first apartment and the tiny attached bathroom and walk-in safe are interesting additions.  It is paneled in wood and has the expected large desk, conference table, and two chairs for lounging in when you are tired of sitting at all the other spots in the office.  I did find the old safe interesting and would probably hide out in it all day if it was my office - which is probably a good indicator of why I never achieved a corner office (in case you are curious, the safe is hidden behind the big plant that is just in back of Jo and it isn't usable anymore, the locking mechanism was deactivated - yep, I checked).  It is quite an achievement and she can now watch the wings on the Art Museum open and close.

For the rest of the weekend we headed over to Madison to visit with Jo's sister and significant other.  Friday night we went to the Badger hockey game which was quite thrilling with the game coming right down to the last few seconds although the Badger's fell short.  Afterwards we went to the south Union and enjoyed some hot chocolate on a cold night.  We sat and talked for almost an hour solving most of the world's and US problems.  Saturday we headed out for a little shopping and then a delicious lunch at Bluephies (I think that is how it was spelled).  Then we went house/lot viewing as we continue to try to scope out the right place for us to be in Madison.  Later that night our nephew Sean joined us for dinner so we were able to catch up with the latest news in his life in Iowa before we packed the car up and headed for home.

Nothing very noteworthy in the rest of the week as I continued to paint items for our enclosed porch and patching cracks in the interior walls.  The roads and sidewalks remained iced up and with the weather so cold we didn't get out for very many runs opting to work out inside instead.

Nice to be warm for a few days

Jo and I got to enjoy a couple of days of warm weather this week.  We traveled to beautiful, sunny, and warm Orlando for three days for her southern regional meeting.  After our last few weeks of frigid weather it was a treat to be in the 70's.  We flew down on Thursday just in time to miss the seven inch snowfall back in Milwaukee.  After checking in we quickly headed outside to enjoy being outside without layers and layers of clothes.  The meeting was enjoyable but the best part was Friday afternoon where we both got some time out by the pool in our shorts and T-shirts.  We also woke up early each day to get a run in before the meetings started, again, to enjoy running without our winter weather gear.

Unfortunately it was over way too soon and we headed back home on Saturday to unbury our car at the airport and dig out our house.  Although, we were thankful we were coming home to only seven inches instead of the 36 inches we would have had if we were still in CT.  We caught up on things around the house on Sunday and readied ourselves for the week ahead.

Last week was focused on painting for me as I tried to get a coat of primer and a first coat of paint on all the various pieces for our porch.  Jo was busy with performance reviews, always a fun part of the beginning of each year - and something I don't miss at all (both getting and giving them). 

And now, more snow

After our warm weather teaser, we have settled into the real Wisconsin winter with frigid temperatures and snow falling, seemly, every day.  We woke up this morning to several inches on the ground, more coming down, and more predicted for several days this week.  This is on top of the several inches we got Friday night.  Fortunately, it was finally enough to warrant breaking out the snowblower, which as any faithful reader of this blog knows is one of my favorite things to do in the winter.  Just love launching snow 4-6 feet.  Also, with all the snow and a bit of scheduling luck we might get some cross country skiing in this week.

We had a quiet weekend as between the cold temperatures (it didn't get out of the teens on Friday, Saturday or Sunday) and the snow on the streets and sidewalks it has limited our outdoor pursuits.  Friday night we warmed up some Papa Del's pizza and caught up on some of our taped (or should I say, DVR'd) shows.  Jo made an apple cake for dessert that was one of her favorites growing up.  Quite tasty especially with a little whip cream on top and hot out of the oven.  Saturday the sidewalks were too treacherous to attempt running (that and a windchill below zero) so we settled for some yoga followed by a little lifting at the gym.  Then it was off to a local diner for lunch followed by shopping for some volleyball gear.  The afternoon was usefully spent with me playing my new computer game while Jo caught up on some reading. 

Sunday was, again, just too cold to make running enjoyable so we settled for working out in the basement.  The rest of the day flew by with various small chores we needed to work on together and before you knew it, it was time to watch the Superbowl.  We both decided to cheer on the 49'ers - for no particular reason than we like San Francisco slightly better than Baltimore - although given our recent success in cheering on sporting teams (Illinois basketball, Wisconsin at the Rose Bowl) San Francisco fans might have preferred us to root for the other team.  We were both happy that it was an exciting game although the 30 minutes of CBS sports analysts trying to figure out what to talk about during the power outage wasn't exactly a highlight although it did provide us some entertaining moments as they struggled to fill the air time.

I decided posting pictures of our snow might get a bit old, although I reserve the right to do it later this season, so I'm opting for pictures of our deck renovation.  We are converting our screened in porch into a 3-season porch.  So far, we are at the open air concept which has been fun since with all the snow we now have something else we need to shovel.