Rough day today.

Today was the funeral of one of my coworkers. I have worked with him for about 8 years. A few days after Christmas, he collapsed at home. His wife brought him to the ER, and they found out he had a brain tumor. He was in surger the next day, but never recovered from the surgery. They also found that the tumor was malignant, and he had malignant tumors in his liver and one remaining kidney. (He lost one kidney to cancer 10 years ago). The last few weeks at work have been hard, at first hopefully waiting for updates and then later fearfully waiting for updates. It seems like it happened so fast out of the blue. I’m still not sure it’s sunk in that we won’t be seeing him again.

He was just 54.

Strangely, about 4 years ago we had another coworker die from a brain tumor.

Putting aside the emotional aspect of losing him, there is the very practical aspect of work that needs to be done. I now have a new direct report (who used to report to Rick) and a third company’s financial statements to produce. I might pick up other duties along the way but those are the major ones. I’ll be extremely busy until March.

Other happier things:

We had a great Christmas. We spent a few days in Oklahoma with my family. There were 2 days when everyone was there: my parents, me, my siblings & spouses (10) and all the kids (14). Chaos! But really precious times.

Basketball season has started. All 3 kids are playing. That knocks out 3 evenings a week and all day Saturdays. Why, again, am I doing this? I really don’t know. I need to rethink this when the next sport season rolls around.

We’ve done some painting and rearranging in our house. It started with David wanting an office (or "study" as he wants to call it.) We have determined we cannot share a space. I like all my papers spread out on my desk. If I can’t see it, I forget about it. He is the exact opposite and hates to see my messy desk. So we had done me in the office, him upstairs and him in the office and me upstairs. Neither of those was ideal. Then he decided he wanted a wall painted with whiteboard paint. So he started working on one of the walls in the gameroom, sanding all the texture off and priming it. Before he got to actually using the whiteboard paint, he decided he didn’t want his study space to be upstairs. (sigh). BUT. He had a projector from work that was set to go to storage that he brought home and hooked up to the TV receiver. So we are using the stark white wall of the gameroom as a screen to project the TV on. That is actually pretty cool. We have another idea about that space that will take some construction, but will make the room ideal (I think). Adjacent to the gameroom is a large closet that is right now embarassingly full of toys, to the point that there is no visible floor space (embarassing). I’d like to create a pass-through into the game room and turn the closet into a desk/study area. It’s big enough to have one long desk along the wall and room for chairs. I think the pass-through would keep it from feeling like you are stuck in a closet. Anyway, that is down the road. Right now my desk is in the gameroom, which I don’t really like but I don’t sit at it that much anyway.

He still loved the idea of whiteboard walls, so he painted the entire study downstairs with whiteboard paint. We also put in new flooring in that room, since he didn’t think carpet would be good with dry erase marker detrius. He has no furniture in the room except a round bar-height table and a couple of chairs. It actually looks sort of like a conference room, but it is a nice workspace for him.

While we were in the painting mood, we painted Rebecca’s room a nice apple green color. Her rrom was not a terrible color, just a boring builder beige. Ben’s room is next on the to-do list – it has a black ceiling that must go. Then the guest room which is a very strong peach color that makes me feel ill when I am in the room. Eventually we’ll make the time to take care of these things!

Here are some recent pictures:

Rebecca & my nephew Maddox on the 4-wheeler

Rebecca with my nieces Brynn & Hadley

Kids running on hay bales – I think this is Reilly, Hadley, Jacob & Rebecca

These three nieces are all about 4 years old & are so cute together. Ava, Reese & Lizzie. (Lizzie is my brother’s fiancee’s daughter).

David playing Headbandz – a game Ben got for Christmas.

Rebecca’s room