Week in Review – We Need Two

After an almost 5 hour rain delay, my Tigers dropped game 3 of the ALDS. The Mariners beat them 8-4 yesterday. If they lose this afternoon, they are done. If they win, they still have to take game 5. I am still hopeful for them to advance to the ALCS. I doesn’t look good, though.

The stats are in Seattle’s favor. In all best-of-five postseason series tied 1-1, the Game 3 winner has advanced 47 out of 66 times (71.2%). Moreover, in Division Series with the current 2-2-1 format, teams playing Game 4 on the road with a 2-1 lead have advanced 23 out of 34 times (67.7%), closing the series in Game 4 on 19 of those occasions.

On Saturday, my daughter was out on the soccer field again. I had a talk with her beforehand. I told her that if the coach wanted her out on the field, she couldn’t say “I need a break” and not play. That being said, she played a lot this week.

She was so proud of herself. She scored two goals this week. Of course, she was very generous in that one of those goals was for the other team.

I felt so bad for her. They had her in goalie during one period. When they scored on her, she dropped to her knees and cried. She felt so bad that she let the ball get by her. The coach had to kneel down next to her and tell her it was ok. After holding up the game for about 5 minutes, she was up again and playing.

I love that Andrew’s school posts pictures on their app. I will often ask what he did at school and he’ll say, “I don’t remember.” Having the occasional picture helps to see what they are working on.

They are working on the letter A this week. He came home and had to practice on the white board.

The A on the top right is what we drew as a guide. He’s getting it.

Last week was my first week back on midnights. I did better than I thought. I didn’t feel tired until the last couple hours of my last night. This is week 2 and I hope it goes as well as last week.

That’s all to report.

Go Tigers!

What’s Been Going On

This past weekend was a busy one. Once again Ella had soccer. Watching these gals play is so fun. I’m not sure why they all want to be the goalie.

At one point over half the team was in front of the goal. Ella had her back to the other team because she was chatting up the goalie on the field behind them.

Later that evening, my niece was cheerleading for one of the youth football teams. The kids were like 5-7 years old and they were playing tackle football. That was really cool to watch.

The game was at the high school in our district, but my niece was cheering for the visiting team (who won). After watching her cousin, Ella wants to cheer, too.

On Sunday, we finally got out and “Falled up” the yard. Sam had me run up to get hay bales. I took her car and hay was everywhere. Needless to say, I went to the car wash to vacuum it out.

Sam put out the mums that she ordered, had me drag out the pumpkin inflatable, and moved her goose to the front porch. At some point we need to get some corn stalks, but it looks nice.

Our older cat, Maizey, has been scratching a lot. She’s also been licking herself. It’s been so bad that she’s missing hair on her back and the upper part of her tail. She’s also got scabs from where she was scratching.

Monday I took her to the vet. They were running behind because of a new computer system. She waited patiently for the doc.

They think it’s an allergy. They gave her steroids, an antibiotic and her rabies shot. Hopefully, it will get better in a day or two.

Andrew’s teachers are very good about posting pictures on their classroom page. Every now and then one will crack me up. Like this one…

I’m really not sure what he’s doing!

Yesterday, I was on my way to work and bumped into my old morning show partner, Steph. We chatted for about 45 minutes catching up and laughing. That was so nice. I hope it isn’t roo long before we see each other next. It’s always good to laugh!

Catching Up

I realize that it’s been a bit since I gave a life “update.” I feel like I haven’t had two minutes to even think about the past week or so. Here are some highlights…

The weather warmed up a bit last week and the kids were anxious to get outside. My wife bought them something to play with in the bathtub, but they wanted to play with it one morning outside. They were “mad scientists.”

It came with a beaker, droppers, tubes, a funnel, and a bunch of color tablets. Instead of the bathtub we grabbed a bunch of Tupperware bowls and filled them with water. They dissolved the color tablets in the water and then were able to mix colors to make new ones. I’m glad they chose to do it outside – it was quite messy.

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I had to take Friday off to get something done and wound up having a couple of hours with my wife – alone. This never happens! It was nice. We had a nice dinner together at our favorite steak house, we snuggled and watched TV together like we did when we were dating, and we went on a Goose Hunt.

My wife has been wanting one of those “porch gooses” for a while. She doesn’t want to pay for one of those stone ones because they are so expensive. She saw some ceramic ones on the internet that were available at Hobby Lobby. The closest one of those that had one in stock was 30 minutes north of us. So we took a road trip.

After that she said we needed to go to Walmart so she could by a “fall” outfit for the Goose. I was stumped until she told me that we could get a pet costume for the Goose. So now, this is on our porch…

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Soccer for Ella started this weekend. It is very different than the soccer Andrew played in. His was just a bunch of silliness and “Red Light, Green Light” to learn skills. Ella is actually playing a game.

It is a long day for her though. They have an hour practice before the game. Then the game is about an hour. So she is running a lot. Her team is all kindergartners. When the game began, 4 out of the 6 girls were in front of the goal doing jumping jacks. I’m not sure what the rules are about having 4 goalies.

It was a hoot to watch her really going after the ball. Technically, they lost, but no one was really keeping score. At the end of the day, she loved every minute of it.

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You may remember I recently did a stress test. I passed with flying colors. However, I would venture a guess that if I had been hooked up for an EKG on Sunday they would have found some crazy arrhythmias! My second oldest and I were out driving and parallel parking.

Parallel parking still gives me a headache. I had set up spots in a parking lot that represented the front of one car and the back of another. His job was to park in between those spots. I’m glad that it was only cones he ran over, because if there had been real cars there, I’d be filing an insurance claim!

To be fair, he really got the hang of it after I made him do it over and over again. I remember my dad letting me drive his car around the neighborhood when I was 15 or 16. I was so grateful for that. I’m hoping to go out with him again this coming weekend.

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One more class and one more exam and I will have finished Year #2 in my Bible courses. I’m excited to get started on the third year which will feature classes on Ambassadorship and a deep dive into the book of Ephesians. There is so much to learn and I’m loving every minute of it.

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Those are the exciting highlights of the past week or so. Thanks for reading!

Shave and a Haircut ….

When I think about barber shops, I picture something like the photo above. It had the huge barber pole outside and the barbers wore those white coats/smocks. Inside there were the jars with funky blue liquid in them where combs and other tools of the trade might be. There are still a few of them around.

We took Andrew to get his haircut yesterday. My wife really liked the way this one place did it before, so we went back. I’d never heard of the place – Hair Mechanix.

“Man Maintenance!” I was wowed by the place when I walked in. It could be a man cave. On the walls were pictures of sportscars, motorcycles, Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, and other “guy stuff.” It was really nice.

The stylists are, of course, female, and they were all saying how cute Andrew was. As they cut his hair, I was offered something to drink. They had water, pop, and beer! Yeah, beer! Not wanting to spend any money on one I declined. Come to find out, they are complimentary. Go figure. Have a brew and get a trim.

I was looking at the big board with all their services and prices. They do pretty much everything. They will wax your eyebrows, your ears or your nose (ouch!). They will trim your beard and mustache and they will shave your head. I asked if they waxed heads, because a bald friend of mine swears by it. I was told they didn’t.

I walked back over to where Andrew was getting his cut and my wife asked what I was talking to the girl at the counter about. I told her about them not waxing heads and she said “Yeah, but they shave them. You should do that while we are here.” I told her I was ok, and didn’t want to spend the money, but she insisted. “I get my hair done every month or so. I also get a pedicure every so often. You don’t do anything for YOU. Do it.”

I asked the gal if she was expecting an appointment or if she had time to shave my head. She said yes and showed me to her chair. Can I tell you, as silly as I felt, I really felt “pampered.” She first put the cape on me and then put some (what I assumed was) shaving cream on my head. She came back with a hot towel and put it on my head. I’ve always heard about hot towels and such, but this was the first time having one on. It felt pretty good, actually.

After a bit, she took the towel off and all of the shaving cream that was on my head was gone, apparently soaked up by the towel – or my head. She then grabbed some sort of oil, applied that and then there was another how towel. By this time I was pretty relaxed. I never would have thought this would be so relaxing. She lifted part of the towel and folded it toward the back of my head.

Again she applied some shaving cream and began to shave my head. (I guess they will shave your face, too.) What surprised me was that she used a straight razor to shave me. I have never been able to shave with one of those. I always seem to cut myself up. My stylist, however, did a fantastic job. My head was overdue to be shaved, so there was a lot for her to shave. The razor did its thing and my wife said it looked great.

One thing I can never seem to get is the back of my neck at home. Sam always laughs at what I miss. Every once in a while it gets so long that she shaves the back of my neck for me. My stylist cleaned up my neck and trimmed my caterpillar eye brows as a bonus. After she was done she put on some nice smelling cream or oil and I was on my way.

I’m not going to lie, I felt really good afterward. How silly is that? It was simply 15-20 minutes of hair (bald) care and I loved it. My wife told me that I really need to take time to do this every month or so. You know what? I think I will!

Friday Photo Flashback

Note: This blog is about my personal experience and is not intended to bash anyone’s religious beliefs. I am more than happy to share my faith with those who ask, but I also know that everyone has a right to what they believe. That being said, I will proceed.

I was born and raised Catholic. Isn’t that what all Italians are? When I was about 16 one of my coworkers and I were talking and he brought up the Bible. He was also raised Catholic. He questioned a lot of things in our shared religious background.

This led to more conversations. Over the course of the next few weeks we talked more and more about things that didn’t necessarily line up with what the Bible says. I already had questions about some things, and many of them were answered by our studies.

In the end, I found that I had enough information that I left the Catholic faith. I began to read my Bible more and found a lot of great studies online from a few pastors that helped clarify a lot of the confusion I was experiencing.

When I moved to the Flint area, I was searching for something in a local Christian book store. As I was looking through some commentaries, from the back of the store I thought I heard the voice of a pastor I was familiar with. It wasn’t him in person, but a recording of him.

I went to the cashier at the front of the store and asked about it. This led to being introduced to Al, a guy who shared my beliefs. He was also attending the same Bible School as I am in now (where the pastor I heard teaches). He would go on to graduate the school and become pastor of our local assembly.

Initially, we met in one of the classrooms at the Bible store. Over time we were able to buy a building, which he remodeled and became our meeting place. He really worked hard on it. I want to say that the building used to be a bank. He had done a ton of drywall work and when he was done we had a room for the main gathering place, a nursery, bathroom, and a small kitchen.

When we began our services there, Al asked me to teach the Sunday morning Sunday School class. At first I spoke on different topics every week. Then I began to do some series, which the members of our church really enjoyed. One of the series was on Manuscript Evidence and how the Bible came to be. That was a lot of fun to teach.

I tell you all of that because it leads me to today’s Photo Flashback.

The above picture is of me and my oldest son. It was taken in between Sunday School and Sunday Service. I would guess that this is around 2004. It very well may have been as Easter service because he is kind of dressed up.

He didn’t always stay still in the nursery and was often very loud. We had probably just gotten the diagnosis of Developmental Delay around this time. It wasn’t odd for him to walk up to me while I was teaching Sunday School. When he did that, I usually picked him up and continued teaching.

My ex (who is cropped out of this picture) had gotten to the point where she didn’t want to go anymore. I wound up going alone and teaching for a while. Then, my ex would plan things that made it hard for me to keep teaching. On top of that, I was working Saturday overnights and it was difficult to work 12 hours, drive an hour home, wait an hour or two before heading to church.

They stream online now, so I can watch him or other pastors all over the country from the comfort of my couch. The kids are not to the point where they will sit still long enough to listen, so they watch Paw Patrol or whatever while I listen to a message. I miss being there live and I certainly miss teaching. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do that again soon.

Celebrating 1800 – Cheers!

I’ve never been a tequila man, but the picture fit the blog. This week the Nostalgic Italian reached 1800 posts! 1800 posts about music, television, movies, books, my wife and kids, and ME. I’m grateful that you find the things I post interesting enough to come back for more. Thank you.

My blog doesn’t have 20,000 followers or get mentioned much by other blogs, and I am ok with that. I have come to know you through your posts and I consider you a friend. I again thank you for making this site a “reading stop” every so often.

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Over the weekend, I got to spend some time with the kids. On Sunday we went to the park, but they were the only kids at the playground. They played for a bit, but when no other kids came, they decided to take a walk on the trail that runs through the park.

It was a beautiful day with sunshine and nice temperatures. We walked down the trail looking for caterpillars, squirrels, birds, trees and flowers. Every once in a while, they’d walk ahead of me just talking about things. I love when they get along and treat each other good. Every once in a while, they get to a place that is perfect for a picture.

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Andrew started his Pre-K class this week. I feel bad for those teachers. There are 9 students and 6 of them are boys! I wasn’t sure how he would do with us leaving, but he actually has done really well. Many of the kids were all grabbing onto their parents screaming and crying. It was worse on the second day, which surprised me. Andrew, however, gave me a hug and said, “See ya later, Dad!” and walked right in.

All summer long he talked about not wanting to go to school. When my wife went to pick him up, he said he wanted to stay longer. Go figure.

One funny story: On the first day of school I was helping to get the kids dressed. I asked my wife if I should put Andrew in a collar shirt. He heard me and said, “A collar! I’m not a dog, Dad!”

Smart kid!

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I came across this on one of the social media pages this week. It is such an outlandish scenario that I truly wish that someone had made it happen! Ok, picture it with me:

Batman fighting crime with the aid of …… Columbo!

That would be priceless!!!

Thanks again for reading!!!

Life’s Little Moments

The past few weeks have been crazy. It seems like every one of us has had doctor appointments for various things. Then Ella starting Kindergarten began an entirely new schedule for us. Andrew will start preschool after the holiday, so there are yet more changes coming.

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My father-in-law is the best! As you know, he has helped me with every project I have had to do at home. He is always bringing over tools to work on things because I don’t have them. Well, they sadly had to sell their place up north. When they went up to clean out their stuff, he found some things for me.

My brothers-in-law and my father-in-law each have just about every tool at home. So when they were cleaning stuff, they brought some tools to me.

I was super surprised when he brought home a couple saws (including a chain saw), an oscillating tool, a drill and an impact drill. It was like Christmas came early. I’ll have to rearrange the garage, or better yet, get a nice big tool box to put them in. Thanks, Dad.

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Sunday I took the kids to the Children’s Zoo. The weather was perfect. The high was only in the low 70’s and there was plenty of sunshine.

We’re zoo members, so we can ride the train and carousel as many times as we want. We certainly did!

The animals were plenty active that day. The monkeys were bouncing all over the place, the penguins were swimming, and the prairie dogs seemed extra crazy. What thrilled the kids (and me) was the otter. They usually swim around and ignore folks, but Sunday one was putting on a show! He kept swimming by the glass, doing flips in the water, and following kids back and forth on the other side of the glass. He seemed to come right up to the glass to everyone who was there.

The kids loved every second.

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Monday was weird weather wise. It went from sunny to cloudy and back to sunny. Every once in a while there was a small shower, but nothing big. My wife wanted me to grill burgers for dinner. So I went out, started the grill (as the sun was shining) and put the patties on the grill. within 5 minutes there was crazy rainfall. It was coming down pretty hard along with some good thunder. Me neighbors must have thought I was crazy!

Thank goodness my wife’s car was unlocked so I could grab her umbrella!

A Simple Request

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be taking a 2-3 hour trip to a children’s hospital on the west side of the state. Andrew is having an MRI.

We’re hoping that this will finally give us some answers. The neurologist suggested that we get this done to rule out some of the possible issues. If it is a normal MRI, we’re not any closer to figuring things out.

Can I ask that you keep Andrew in your thoughts or prayers? I pray for safe travels and a few answers.

Thank you. I will be sure to keep you posted.

“You’ve Got Mail!”

You may remember me mentioning my kids painting with colored ice recently. I was surprised this week when a “postcard” arrived for me.

He had a bit of help from mommy, but his message warmed my heart.

He calls me “Big Fella” all the time now. The kids on Bluey called their dad that once and it has stuck with him. I started calling him “Little Fella” now, which makes him laugh.

One morning he had crawled into bed next to me and said, “Time to get up, Daddio!” That had me cracking up! All of a sudden he’s a 50’s hipster!

Now, to be clear – I’m not necessarily sharing my tools. Recently I went out to the garage looking for a pair of pliers and they were gone. They were in HIS tool box. Also in his tool box was a hammer, my crescent wrench, about 6 screwdrivers and my box of drill bits!

So if you wanna call that “sharing” …..

Fourth – Family – Fireworks

As the holiday weekend draws to a close, I hope you got the chance to enjoy it. We certainly enjoyed it, though it was toned down from previous years.

We didn’t have the entire family with us this year. Some of the family was sick and some were invited elsewhere or had something else going on. We tossed a few burgers and dogs on the grill and enjoyed a bonfire.

It’s been awhile since we have been able to enjoy a bonfire, so this was really nice.

The fireflies were plentiful and beautiful that night. Ella and Andrew loved catching them.

They had a little Tupperware container they were trying to put them in, but I think the lid wasn’t on right. Every time they came back to drop one in, the others were gone.

Sam bought us all matching shirts to wear. July is National Hot Dog Month, and she’s been thinking a lot about her sister Grace who passed away. The shirts have Mickey Mouse on them and say Hot Diggity Dog on them. Grace loved Mickey Mouse.

We were missing some of the cousins, but quite a few were with us and they had a blast.

We get to watch the fireworks right from our backyard every year. This year they were not too bad. They had some new ones, but I felt other years were better. For what it is worth, the town raises ,money every year to do them. Maybe they were short on donations this year. You still can’t beat a decent show…

Oh, and incidentally, I was able to get my yearly flag photos. Six Fourths of July for Ella and four for Andrew.

These two are growing too fast!