morrowlife

Here are Shannon, Katie, and Belle striking an incredibly cute pose on my 46th birthday. Looks like Shannon was taking her usual birthday photos as they lavished gifts on me. Great Art courtesy of my old Minolta camera, taken in our family room in Virginia, and part of my famous Shannon and Event series.

Today was my mom’s last day here. We take her to the airport at about noon tomorrow. I’ve really enjoyed her visit, but she needs to get home so she can get ready to visit Tony in Florida in another week.

We went and visited downtown Boulder City and downtown Henderson this afternoon. Had lunch at a place in Boulder City that Guy Fieri had featured in his TV show. The food was good. The downtowns weren’t all that much.

Not a lot of other news. I haven’t forgotten about Shannon, of course. I think about her constantly. I still have frequent moments thinking “I can’t wait to show/tell this to Shannon!” Then, immediately: “Crap.” That’s my old life. I miss my old life. I miss my wife. I miss my love. I miss my happiness. But that life, that wife, that love, and that happiness are in the past. My new happiness is in the future.

I keep telling myself that. But it’s really hard to turn and face the future and start to move forward. I want to keep looking back and remembering and feeling, even if just for a brief moment, how I felt before. So much is unchanged – my surroundings, my possessions, my work, my feelings, my emotions, myself. But those things need to be the building blocks of my new life. I want my new life. I do. But I still want my old life even more, I think. That can’t be, so I must learn to let that go. How, Loyal Readers? How?

Shannon was in my dreams last night. It wasn’t anything unusual or significant – we were just living life. She was getting a new car and I was trying to decide whether to keep her old one for myself. It was nice. I suspect those dreams will fade with time. I don’t want them to.

And I need to quit for tonight. I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: diner chainsaw attack!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon, Mark, Andy, and Belle out for a walk during one of our fun, fun campouts somewhere in Virginia. Or possibly somewhere else, like Pennsylvania. I don’t remember much about that walk other than that it was kind of muddy and absolutely beautiful. Also that it was part of a beautiful, fun campout. Great Art courtesy of my good old Minolta camera and part of my famous Shannon and Camping series

We had another pleasant day. My mom and I went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory at about noon, for a walk through their cactus garden and a self-guided tour through the chocolate factory. They weren’t making any chocolates right at the moment, but we did get to watch a few people packing candy. We had a nice time.

Otherwise another quiet day. In fact, I can’t quite remember what we did. Oh, we went to Pei Wei for dinner tonight. Really enjoyed it, as usual. And now we’re watching an old episode of The Big Bang Theory. Fun!

No new insights today. I posted a notice to the Book Nook blog telling of Shannon’s loss, dedicating the blog to her memory, and announcing that Katy will be posting in the future. I included one of my favorite pictures of Shannon, which I just got printed at Costco and now have in a frame on my bookshelf. I also posted the same content to the Book Nook Facebook page. There have been lots of Likes and a few nice comments. She was really loved.

Don’t yet know exactly what we’ll do tomorrow. It’s my mom’s last day in Las Vegas. We are going for a brief visit in Boulder City. Otherwise, the plans are up in the air. She returns home on Friday. I need to have her at the airport by around noon that day.

And I’ll leave my Loyal Readers with this shocking food violence news: gelatin heist!

See you tomorrow.

Here’s my family – all of us together. I wish we had all been together more often as everybody grew up and left home. But this is what I have. Aren’t they all cute? Especially the beautiful woman to my left there. She was so pretty. And we were so happy. Great Art courtesy of my old Minolta camera (much better quality than the SiPix pictures, no?), taken in January 2003 in the family room of our house in Virginia, and part of my famous Shannon series.

What a beautiful family. I’m so lucky. I really am.

It was a pretty good day today. My new life has begun. Oh, how I wish I still had my old life. But that’s now a wonderful, happy memory. I still have that. But I also have my new life. Still don’t know what shape that will end up taking. But I do have it.

My mom and I went to the Bellagio casino today. We walked through their conservatory. Its size is a tiny fraction of the Longwood Gardens conservatory, but it was still nice. It’s attractively decorated for Chinese New Year right now. Recommended. We also looked around the rest of the facility and had lunch at their creperie. All in all, a pleasant visit.

Not much else happened today. We had barbecued chicken this evening and watched some TV. Then we all went to bed and I started writing in my blog. That about brings us up to date.

And it’s way late and I really should get to sleep. So I’ll make this short and end it here. I think I’m ready to get back to my regular blog features. So I’ll end today with this shocking food violence news: donut-fueled rage!

See you tomorrow.

Here are Shannon, Andy, and Mark getting ready for Easter 2003. As I recall, I was in Baikonur at the time and they wanted to help me feel a part of things at home, so they took a bunch of pictures of their activities for a few days. I loved getting them. Great Art courtesy of my good old SiPix camera, taken in the breakfast nook of our home in Virginia, and featuring my beautiful wife Shannon and our amazing youngest children Andy and Mark.

Another kind of quiet day today. The only time we got out of the house was to go to dinner. Which was a Japanese steakhouse with delicious food and the typical fun chef. So that was great. Otherwise, we relaxed, talked with family on the phone, watched a little TV, and relaxed.

Had a tough night and several emotional moments during the day. I think reality is finally really setting in for me. My life has changed. Shannon has gone on ahead and she’s not coming back. I’ve known that, of course, but I think I finally feel it. I grieve and grieve, and that changes nothing. I need to make a new life for myself, looking forward to great things to come while allowing my heart to remember the wonderful life we’ve had and all the happiness Shannon brought me. I think I’ve mentioned before that she left me the very most important thing of all – our amazing children and a legacy of love and kindness that will live in our hearts. I can build on that and make a bright future for all of us.

It’s still early – she passed away just two weeks ago yesterday. So the kids and I are allowed to grieve still. But at the same time, I’m starting to be ready to follow Shannon’s example yet again and start moving forward again.

To that end, I worked for a couple hours today. John needed some changes made to the PhotoDoc website, so I sat down and got them done. There’s lots more to do on that front, as well as a bunch of work to be done on Common Core Classroom. And then there are a bunch of changes I want to make to Morse Trainer – maybe even a way to monetize it just a little bit. I’m thinking unobtrusive ads here, but I don’t know for sure. Plus, Mark and I are working together on an Android development class. He caught up to me today, so we can start working on it together tomorrow. Lots to do, and I really need to be busy.

I think they cremated Shannon’s body on Friday evening, so I should be receiving the cremains soon. I’m so grateful her pain is over. That last month was especially hard for her as more and more things started to go wrong. She lived through so much.

My mom and I went through a few more of Shannon’s personal things today. Pretty much the only things left that hadn’t been sorted through in our bedroom were the “junk” drawers in her dresser and nightstand. We went through those and also her purse. There are some credit cards I need to take care of, so I left those out, and the rest of her little treasures are in a shoebox in my closet.

I found a photo album from our wedding and reception out in the garage today. What a treasure! We looked so young – especially me. What on earth was Shannon thinking? I guess she saw possibilities. Lucky thing for me that she did. That album is yet another treasure for me to cherish. I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to digitize some or all of those pictures without destroying the album.

And that’s it for now. See you tomorrow.

Here’s Shannon doing what she perhaps most loved to do during a campout – reading. Great Art courtesy of my old SiPix camera, taken at Jellystone Park Resort near Luray, Virginia, and featuring my dear wife Shannon.

That was a fun campout. It was one of the few times we stayed at a commercial campground. Fortunately, this one wasn’t just a big RV parking lot like so many other commercial places. This one had some open space (see the background of this photo, for example), some trees (ditto!), and a pool with a nice, big waterslide.

Another quiet day. Mark started working today on the Android class I’ve been taking. I put it on hold after week one because of Shannon’s death, but it’s time to start it back up. I’m excited we’re going to be doing it together.

My mom and I made a quick trip to Costco today, just to get out of the house. I found a couple things I would like to have, including a TV wall mounting bracket and . . . umm . . . something else I can’t remember right now. We also looked at a whole bunch of food items but didn’t buy anything. The lines were just too long to buy nothing but milk and bread. So we went to (shudder) Walmart for milk and bread. Otherwise, we pretty much watched TV all day.

Starting tomorrow, we’re going to pick something to do every day and go do it. I know my mom wanted to go explore the strip & downtown a bit and so do I. So we need to just go do it. Mark will be invited too, of course. We’ll find some other things too.

I opened the valentine from Shannon this morning. It was beautiful and had a sweet message. I want to share it here:

“Will you be my valentine? I love you!

“Thanks for hanging in there with me right to the end. I couldn’t have done any of this without you!

“I’m going to miss you so much.

“All of my love, Shannon”

Not a huge treatise, but it’s precious to me. It’s her last message to me. A week or so ago, I found myself wondering whether she misses me. I miss her so much. I won’t know the answer to that question for the rest of my life, but I will choose to believe she misses me and continues to love me. I think I need that.

I made this year’s Valentine’s Day cherry cheesecake. It’s not as good as the ones Shannon made for me these past many years, but it’s good. It both comforted me and made me sad. That’s been a recurring theme lately.

And that’s it for tonight. See you on Monday.