Winding things up

Our sidewalk woes have ended.
Between snow storms, the fellas finally finished up the job and everyone who came to our Christmas open house last week was very complimentary of our new walkway.
We’ve been to West Virginia to see the Ump’s parents and tomorrow we leave for Covington to see mine.
Christmastime is a whirlwind of travel, visits, parties and various other activities. It seems like we are constantly running from one place to the other.
It’s hard to believe another year is sliding off the calendar.
It seems like just yesterday I was filling out 05 on the year line of my checks so I wouldn’t write the wrong year on the January bills.
Can’t say I am sorry to see 2005 leave. It was a challenging year.
The Ump started it off on one leg. It wasn’t until March that he was able to get rid of the wheelchair and finally could sit up in the car instead of riding around flat on his back in the Pacifica.
Good thing we bought that big car. I would never have been able to haul him around in the Jeep and the truck didn’t have a cap at that time.
That was an interesting lesson for me. The Ump was the best patient he knew how to be, but there were many times I lost my patience with him and the situation in general.
Of course, in February we discovered that I had an impinged rotator cuff which meant, among other things, my range of motion was greatly reduced. Fortunately, it was my left arm, but it still made it hard for me to help the Ump.
Many nights I went into the kitchen and curled up in my favorite chair and just cried after getting him in bed and settled down for the evening. The smallest tasks seemed to require Herculean effort.
By June he was off his crutches. And by July football had started and he was spending much of his time at school with the kids and other coaches, preparing for the football season which continued through November.
In between, we did get to North Carolina to visit my brother and his family did come see us over the summer. My Dad retired from Westvaco after 46 years and we attended his retirement party.
It was the first year Olivia spent away from home too which was quite strange. She had to attend summer school and she worked two jobs. She moved into a house on Claytor Lake with her boyfriend, Webb, which was a big issue we dealt with this summer.
I think she was a little worried what her dad would say about the issue, but we had actually discussed it before and were kind of prepared. We want what is best for Olivia and Webb seems to want the same for her.
She called us yesterday with two good pieces of news. She made the dean’s list at Radford again – this time with a 3.56 average. And, Webb’s present to her this Christmas is a beautiful Golden Retriever they adopted from the Floyd County animal shelter. He’s 3 years old and his name is Cooper.
I’m so proud that they chose to adopt an animal who had no home rather than getting a puppy. From experience, I know that the gratitude and love of a rescued dog is like none other.
So we’ve had a year of ups and downs just like everyone else, I guess.
I’m not sad to see the door closing on 2005. I have a lot of hopes and dreams for 2006.
But I’ll save that for the next column.
Merry Christmas. And God Bless all creatures, great and small.