onward and upward

I don't understand quite why but I am very very busy, and I am feeling more like my old self then I have in a long time. I want to play guitar and sing. I want to see old friends and I want to go for bike rides. Summer has been good to me so far. Mom and Dad will be back from Florida next week and I am looking forward to seeing them and spending some time with them so they get to see their grandchildren. it has been too long.

Have a great weekend Ill write more later about the work and nice things that have been happening to me

what if

What if you do get to work at what you like to do, and So what if others think that you should do more with your life. Should you care? I guess I don't, I like the world the way I have it set up I don't mind that I will be working hard for the rest of my days, I am happy. I just got the chance to play at a bar and sing, and tomorrow Ill be finishing a installation of a system for a nice person who wants a sound stage in his house. I don't know exactly what the next job will be but boy do I like the fact that what ever it is it will be different then what I did yesterday.

Ill get to go to a few festivals this year and see some old friends in Chicago maybe, Ill find time to build a few guitars this summer and if I am really lucky Ill get some nice weather days and ride my motorcycle. I wish you all a great summer. My kids get out of school the 18th so let the fun begin.

sad times

Well on the Sunday before memorial day we lost aunt dot, She was the best that we had and we will miss her a lot. Dot never had a bad thing to say about any one and even if she did we never knew it. At 89 years of age she just didn't want to deal with the pain or the tubes or the watching other people watch her die so after Marty told her she didn't have to stay for him she just let go. I will miss her I know that uncle Marty does as so the cousins.

On Wednesday night I spent most of the night at the pet hospital with our pet myrtle the turtle. She was very sick ad we tried some high powered antibiotics for her but it was not enough. This past Sunday we put her down and the family is feeling very empty, Turtles don't come and lick your face but it sure is sweet when you walk in a room and they put their head up out of the water to say hi. Or when they fall asleep in you shirt pocket. We all miss myrtle.

Needless to say I am not sorry to see may gone and June here. I hope that all of you are having a better spring the I am

a great loss

I am sad to report the loss of Howard Bell. He is now with so many of my other folk friends. Much of the folk community in Philadelphia knew Howard I first met him thru the first Friday sing and that was many years ago. I guess I was about 14. I wish that I was more eloquent but I will miss him. I just hope he is up there now playing "THE CAT CAME BACK" for god right now.

Easter

Well it is Easter again and Ill be off to my In laws soon. I'm still working on pulling all the tax info together for this year. If I'm lucky Ill have it done before the 15th or Ill still be working on it but come hell or high water it will be in the mail by midnight. I normally don't wait like this but my laptop died on April 2nd and because of that I have had to work real hard to recover all the data I need for the business. I will never have all my data in one place again. It used to be that I had it on the desktop at work and that unit has 2 HDs so I always had copies but I haven't been in the shop as much so I have been working with the laptop more.

The girls are always happy to see Easter come, Yes it is the candy but it is also the coming of spring. Suzi has just about had enough of the cold and wants to go for walks in the park with her friends. Hope is learning to roller blade, and I want to go out and ride the motorcycle. It is raining today but yesterday was quite nice as was Thursday and it has made us all itch to just get out and do something. Ill open up the chimnea and have a fir on Monday evening if it is nice and sit and play guitar for a while before getting back to the tax garbage.

I wish all my friends a happy Easter and a good passover.

Tommy and taxes

Ah well the show is over we did a week of rehearsals and a hard 3 shows and now it is done. So I will start the taxes today and see if I can get them, all done by wed or Thursday. Today is Moms birthday so I want to get home from work and call so we can all say happy birthday to her. I'm at work now and hope that Ill be able to pull all of the tax stuff together in the next few hours. Wednesday night we will all go to my sisters for passover and then my youngest will have a sleep over with one of her school friends as they are off all next week. I have been thinking a lot about summer. I have much work to do around the house to get the yard in shape. I want this summer to be more about having friends over to play music and sit and talk. The kids have been our main focus for so long that we have lost the knack for setting up a get together for our adult friends except when it is in conjunction with a PLAY DATE. Why is that and why cant kids just go out and play the way we did when we were young. (don't answer that I know things have changed) I just never figured that I would lose the chance to sit and play with friends because I had kids.

On a more serious note please keep my friend Mary in your prayers. Jane and my daughter Suzi came from china on the same adoption trip and now her mom Mary has cancer. She is responding to treatment but any and all prayers would be helpful. Thank you all.

going down the road

Well it is almost April and tax time is here, I know that the next 2 week will be very stressful so I thought I would update now. We had a wonderful vacation skiing and to top it off Hope who turned 8 yesterday, went to the top of killington in the gondola and then skied all the way down with her instructor and class. She skis very well and you can see it in her face just how much she loves it and the personal sense of accomplishment in her face is wonderful. On the down side vacation is that we all came home with some kind of cold and it is not going away. I have been working a lot and will just finish the bulk of what I need to do before I start taxes next week. I have been blessed with a lot of new work so I will be busy thru the next few months.

Enough about the family and me, Now on to the garbage at hand. Many of my friends are out of work right now and having a ruff time of it I would ask that we try to help one another along as much as we can. I know that things will be better when the concert and fest season comes and I hope that we all can find a way to make it till then. Yes frank I know that if we don't all spend a bit then we don't help out the economy and I have done my part. The question is have you. When you go out to dinner leave a little more and remember that if you pass it on it will come back to you.

Ill see you on the other side of tax day. a few thousand lighter but still here.