Purchase another 100# propane tank as a back up, back up...
Insure we have some gasoline for snowblower/ generator and a few empty 5 gallon cans for fresh gasoline...
These are the pleasures of autumn in the north-east...
I am O.K. with the winter. A warm and toasty beach, sand in my toes and a wet glass of fresh and dark iced tea in my hand would be preferable, but you can't have it all...
It would be way to much to keep track of, even if you could...
We had our first real round of flu like symptoms in our house.
It hit my Wonderful Wife.
It's very strange to see this extremely passionate woman about health and fitness, knocked down hard by a few thousand microbes...
She is a tough broad, this lady of mine. First real bout of sickness in 13 years.
She bounced back from all three of our children's birth, quicker than she did from this...
As I watched, it was an insanely crazy sight, to see her without... Passion...
My Wonderful Wife lives and breathes about her eating and work outs. Not that she would admit it, but she has become much like me, in the planning and preparation of her next meal. MaryAnne always joked that I will plan lunch and dinner, while eating breakfast.
I do have an unnatural attraction to burgers and bacon, I suppose....
But this woman times her breakfast to not interfere with her morning work outs.
She preps her lunches days ahead of time and debates quinoa and pasta choices, while I'm cooking dinner.
Her face lights up, as she speaks about the intensity and pain of the regiments of exercises she not only endures, but...enjoys?!?
Sometimes she even asks if I'll join her...
With a straight face...
Now, I am a different kind of character. My face and body would have both maintained much less skeletal fractures and better looks if I were either a better runner or was a much better or much worse fighter...
That middle ground tends to seriously stress your entire body, bruises and breaks and all...
I have asked myself over the years, exactly what are my own passions?
Seeing my Wonderful Wife prancing past my recliner in her work out tights does bring one to mind...
But this is a G rated blog, and anyway, that is not the kind of passion I was asking myself about...
What brightens my eyes and raises the volume of my speech? What distracts my brain from the everyday relentless routine and pumps adrenaline like a voltage surge, through my veins?!?
I feel somewhat ashamed to admit the boring truth...
Nothing really does...
It may sound sad or pathetic. It might seem like something this extremely important cannot be absent in someone as young as someone like me...
But it is absent...
Really.
I grew up in an excess of excitement. My entire life, from birth to marriage, was a constant and unyielding adventure of insanity, violence, depression and lusts masquerading as love.
If there was an insane and emotionally damaged woman in a ten mile vicinity, you could bet your mortgage payment and your first, second, third and fourth born that I would find her...
There was no semblance of peace, no quiet contentment. Moderation was just one of those quizzical terms that I could not even define, let alone recognize, as it sped by in an unexplainable blur...
I took every stupid dare and every impossible chance that came my way.
So maybe you can see why I don't get too excited anymore.
I have been graced by an incredibly sane and common sense filled better half. My three amazingly, reasonably calm children hear stories of my childhood from an un named uncle and ask me exactly why I did all those silly and foolish things?
They sit and ask the question " Why would you"? where every time in the story I ask " How could you not"?!?
I don't think that I am immaturely old. I just think that I have had my turn in the sun. I have ridden the rides and walked thru the doors that most dared not look at...
I'm not tired. Just finally content. Nothing left to chase and nothing behind me left to run from. Somehow, I have mistakenly and quite by accident, fallen into a spot where I can support the passions of a Wonderful Wife and children that I adore...
I had my shot and it was one hell of a ride. Aside from the Comet or the Sasquatch at The Great Escape, my adrenaline jolts are a thing of the past. I may jump into a frozen lake on January 1st,
But all my "insanity" now is an empty shadow...
I love to see the passions in my family and friends. It brings a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. There are moments that I wish I could momentarily join them in it...
But that was a different day, long since past.
So today my excitement is winterizing. Planning ahead, to out think the chaos that I once used to chase with a passion much like the kind my Wonderful Wife uses to chase the healthy and worthwhile things of life.
One moment, I did wonder what would have happened if I had focused those passions I had on things that mattered, " matters of consequence".
I guess we never will know...
My passion is my family. I'll take that. I cannot truly think of a greater one.
Maybe someday, when the kids are grown and living out their own " passions", raising there own family, I will walk the sands with that tea in my hand...
Maybe it will be an ice encrusted pier in northern Maine, dressed in workboots, an old Navy peacoat, winter watch cap and mug of hot coffee.
My Wonderful Wife would probably be watching from a nearby inn window, sipping her hot tea and smiling, as she peers at a quiet, unassuming passion in my eyes she cannot see, because they are focused on the Nor east storms slamming the sharp and icy rocks. She will know it is there, though, because she knows my heart and has held my soul...
Those are the only passions that are probably left, in me.
Those and my family...
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