Yep, she made it. Stephanie turned 18 and it has been an eventful day. Her sleepover ended with breakfast this morning. Amanda had worked a long time on a quilt she was making Stephanie, and she gave it to her at the breakfast. It was a pretty great way to start the day.

Then, Stephanie, Scott, and I went to see my mom in the nursing home. She was incredibly depressed. It was the afternoon, but she was still in bed crying. She has Alzheimer’s and needs to be there, but she is certainly with it enough to know she doesn’t want to be. Her birthday was yesterday and she turned 70. She did not know it was her birthday and it depressed her even more to know she was 70. Visiting her is almost always hard and full of guilt. I always feel especially sorry for Stephanie. It’s always quite the contrast from celebrating her birthday. But the kids do great, and understand. I just hope they never have to deal with something like that with anyone else.

We ended the afternoon with a birthday dinner at Red Robin. There were 8 of us there and we enjoyed our time together. But now is just her time. Next year she will be away at school and there is perhaps the possibility that every year from now on we may just be making a call to her for the day.

But I cannot help but think what a wonderful daughter I have and how I have enjoyed the last 19 December fifths. Life changes and this is a big one. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to be in her life and she in mine. What a wonderful day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

Yep, tomorrow my daughter turns 18, and though I am oh so very proud of her, it is killing me. It is but yet another marker of my ever-changing life, and though I am quite ready for Ben to be potty-trained, I am not too sure about this one! She is technically an adult at midnight!

Of course tonight at lacrosse didn’t help things. We were playing Carmel and one of our captains had a diamond stud through the side of her nose! I asked her about it. All the players loved it, and Stephanie asked, “Daddy, do you think I should get one?” And I said, just like I always do, “You cannot do anything like that at all until you are 18!” It’s actually a law here in Indiana too! Katie, the one who had the diamond just laughed and said, “that’s exactly what my mom said!” Of course she just turned 18 herself!

So the rest of that conversation went downhill. They teasingly said they were going to get someones ID and get it done before midnight…..but I doubted that very much. I still have quite a bit of pull since I can still bench them.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big day and I am certain I will have a lot to report….I mean if I survive the night!

Keep me in your prayers. My daughter will confess that I am the real life version of the character that Steve Martin played in “The Father of the Bride.” I hope to make it that far!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

There’s a ride in one of the theme parks I went to as a kid called “Disaster Transport.” Somehow I feel as if I have been riding it all night too.

We have a room downstairs that needs to be drywalled and floored. I am pretty handy most days, and wanted to get a lot of it done this evening, seeing as Stephanie will be having some friends over to stay the night tomorrow night for her birthday (it’s on Saturday). We have the drywall and the flooring in the finished part of the basement though, in the same part they will all be sleeping tomorrow.

Not a hard job, eh? No, not usually. BUT tonight it was! I nicked a pipe in a wall, which though irritating, is really no big deal. I have all the equipment and knowledge to cut pipe, solder, and repair any trouble I can get into. But the nick was too close to the ceiling, so I had to rip out some of that…yep, that I had already finished! And THEN, to make matters all the worse, our main shut off for the water would not turn the supply all the way off. I had to go to the meter out by the street, just to get the lines clear to cut.

Oh sure, it gets worse! We had done so much work at Christ the King, that all my tools and supplies, like the plumbing ones, were back in their right place in the garage. I am glad that they were here, because they had not been here that long, BUT finding all the right parts and tools was pretty stressful. The good news is that the pipes are repaired, the room is all dried up (mostly) and I still have my religion.

The bad news is that I am way behind, my hands are bleeding, and I now have a ceiling to do too. It could be worse…..but certainly not too much!

But in truth, I love figuring things out, and when I need to think on my feet like tonight, I am happy to see I still can. Tomorrow will certainly be a challenge, but I will be up to it. No complaining, just looking ahead……all to finish a room that we will do nothing but store stuff in! Go figure!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yep, today represents my 500th post to this blog. It seems to me as if I just started, but 500 posts is a pretty good clip, particularly since there have been times I struggled to post.

For those of you who don’t know, I started this a few years ago to comment on quite a few different things, but mostly I wanted to talk about the happenings in the Church around the US and the world. April of 2008 however changed everything. My personal world was suddenly thrown into chaos as I worked to understand how a guy in great shape like I was could have a stroke, and more than that, how I could adjust to the effects of it.

My blog, this blog, became my therapy…..and in a very real sense it still is. At the beginning of my recovery my wife would read and help me edit before we would post. I often would just stare at the screen looking for words and trying to remember thoughts, and when I did get them, they often did not make too much sense. Paragraphs would be full of repeated words and sentences, and for a time seemed more of a testament to frustration than therapy.

What I could clearly see, amidst all the confusion, was that it may have been frustrating, but it was certainly not failure. If I were to do well, that was where my work was to be. And in some sense it is still often a barometer of how I am doing. My mind often still reels, and confusion still comes. Of course people tell me all the time they get confused too…..but in truth, and I am speaking quite sincerely here, the mind I lived with in March of 2008 and before is far different than the one that I deal with now. And the stark contrast is consuming.

What I do confess though is that it has been a gift from God. Does it bother me??? Sure it does, but the struggle I deal with has taken me deeper into life than I could have ever imagined. And though I stress to find my thoughts at times, I indeed have discovered that my life, my discovered thoughts and detours, and even my faith are far more meaningful, insightful, and rewarding than they were before. (yes, I know to not end a sentence with a preposition, but that is the way I talk)

Anyway, 500 with many more to go. Time flies when you are having fun, or when you are terminally confused…..I suppose I will happily admit to being a bit of both!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Though I am clearly on the mend, occasionally my damaged brain catches up with me, and today was such a day. I was the Celebrant at a gathering of The Order of St. Luke this afternoon in Indianapolis. I was to do a sermon, celebrate the Eucharist, and then give a short teaching at the lunch that followed. And as that old Meatloaf song goes…..”two out of three ain’t bad!”

I am sure recovering from strep had a bit to do with it, but after getting through the sermon with that finish line in sight, I found myself lost and talking in circles much of the time. Deacon Dan, our eternal optimist, said it was not all that bad….but I bet I probably could have made more sense speaking Russian….and I don’t know a word of it!

Ironically, the topic I chose for my teaching was the idea of making sure you are healthy (in all aspects – mentally, physically, spiritually) as a foundation to your ministry of healing. If I were a more persuasive teacher I suppose I would have told myself “you have strep throat and are exhausted….maybe you should stay in bed.” But the truth is I live in a house where no one listens to me anyway, so I though, “why should I?” And the rest of course is history.

But the good news is that my day is done, and in a few short minutes I will be resting in my bed! It has been a doozy though. I hope to have a better time of things tomorrow.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless. Thanks for checking in.

Tommy+

What a surprise……..strep throat. And it wouldn’t be so bad if I were not scheduled to celebrate at a service tomorrow in Indianapolis for The Order of St. Luke and deliver both a sermon and a teaching on healing of all things. I have been miserable all day and tonight as well, and tonight was when I was going to finalize my thoughts for tomorrow. It should be a very interesting day!

But how in the world do you live 48 years and not get strep, and then suddenly get it twice in two weeks? I suppose there are some things I will never understand, but if I never have it again I will be quite satisfied. These episodes have topped my previous sore throat record of having my tonsils taken out when I was 5…..you know, back when they did surgeries with flint and put you out you with whiskey or a swift rap to the head. At least that’s what my kids think. I grew up in the Dark Ages.

All that aside, I am interested, and highly motivated in fact, to get better. I will certainly be there to do this service tomorrow, but if I am not tons better I will leave the healing prayers for other people up to my staff. Not that they should be worried….after all these are the same guys who pray for me and I am doing terrible!! ha ha!! No no no….the guys on our staff are incredible and I am thankful they pray for me, and in truth they do a pretty great job.

Anyway, I guess I should take some more medicine and head to bed. Tomorrow I am hoping will be a great day. Keep it in your prayers. I have a long way to go before I get there!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today has been a busy day, but one that is seeing me crash, or should I say re-crash, at the end of it. Though I endured and enjoyed a bit of traveling through the morning and afternoon, by 6pm not only were my beloved Chicago Bears being destroyed right before my eyes, but my throat became as sore as it was two weeks ago and my head is killing me! I have heard that lots of people who get strep get it again pretty quick, and with all I have going on, I will be sure to stop in at my doc’s for a quick swipe of the throat tomorrow. My voice was leaving me all day, but my throat never hurt. Somehow things have changed.

But the good part is that it slowed me down. I was able to not just watch the game with Ben, but also a Tinkerbell movie on Disney Channel and Balto. He like popcorn and ate a ton of it too. I kept asking him to give me some out of the great big bowl he had in font of him too, but clearly he was not looking to share. Two year olds crack me up.

But as for me, I am ready for a load of Motrin and warm bed. It will be good to get some sleep!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless! Thanks for checking in.

Tommy+

Well I am back at the house working on sermons and bulletins after a day of work up at Christ the King in Kokomo. I need to leave early in the morning because I am scheduled in Nashville at 9am, and then up here in Noblesville again at 1:15pm. Deacon Dan will be doing both services with me, but where I have the long drive there, he will have it going home…..he lives in Nashville!

The hard part is that I am trying to work with the game on. Notre Dame, God Bless them, got behind right at the start. My blood pressure is good, but it cannot take that! I hope and pray they do well too. No one will want to hear a sermon from me after a lousy game! The only hopeful thing I have is that tonight is probably the coach’s last game. He has had a miserable tenure at Notre Dame…..and I deserve to be a winner on every Saturday during the season.

Of course I love Notre Dame because I literally grew up there. My dad went there and taught there. We were on campus and at sporting events a lot. If we were not there it was on the TV. I grew up playing in the Irish Youth Hockey leagues, and even if I didn’t, everyone is an Irish fan up there….I believe it is an on the books law! (if not, it should be)

Of course when it came time for college, I never even considered ND. Leaving home seemed appealing, but I know now it was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. So now I just have to be a fan. It’s not a bad gig, okay, this year it has been. But most of the time it is pretty fun.

Anyway, we are getting close to a score, so I will close in order to cheer at the screen rather than yell at it. Every year it is the same, but it is my life and I love it!

I hope it is a good evening for us all!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy O’Tirman+

Okay, no more excuses…..Thanksgiving is over and I waited for it. My daughter’s 18th birthday is next week, and I just need to say no to the cake. It is best she has me to walk her down the aisle than to just eat cake with her next week.

Yep, my weight is back up higher than it ever has been, and to be honest I cannot stand it. And although I have blogged about it before, I really need to stop talking and start doing. I am so very disciplined in other areas of my life, but clearly my eating is not one of them. So I am committing myself to changing all that tonight. No more excuses. I am heading in a new direction.

As for you, I would ask that you pray for me. I did great a couple of years ago, losing 45 pounds, but of course then I HAD a stroke, and I know that hasn’t been helpful to say the least. Clearly being in great shape and having the biggest medical problem of my life was disheartening. But as they say where I come from, “you cannot cry over spilled milk.” I had a stroke….big whoop tee do. It doesn’t change today or tomorrow, although I do believe another, or a heart attack, or even dying would. I am a doctor, but the wrong kind to know, so I will just trust my gut on this one….things need to change.

I know the road ahead will be a difficult one, but where it heads is far better than my well-worn path. But I am committed. Pray and encourage me. I want to see my life change as I move ahead!

Thanks for checking in, and thanks for your support in advance…..Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

An early in the day post to say Happy Thanksgiving to you all! My hope is that your day is filled with many blessings and that you pause to give thanks to the One who has given you all things!

God Bless you on this day and always!

Tom+