a third time

For the third time in three years my beautiful daughter is off on an adventure.

Two August's ago she embarked on the Rotary Youth Exchange program and headed to Finland (yes Finland) for ten months. Upon returning home last summer she then went off to start her college life (freshman year) at Flagler College in St Augustine Florida. While both of those experiences were positive (and not so positive) in many ways, my daughter was craving something different . . . again.

Just the other day she left again, for Chicago, our old home town, to attend Columbia College and pursue her creative writing aspirations. I wish her the very best in everything, am so proud of her and look forward to visiting her and taking her to a Cubs game.

Below you will find a song sung by Winnie the Pooh to Piglet that I have now sent my daughter three years in a row. Maybe this year it will inspire her to be "big" !

You can be a guiding star,
If you make the most of Who You Are.
And the sensitivity,
That you are now discovering to see
Can be developed even more,
So you can find the hidden doors
To places no one’s been before.
And the pride you’ll feel inside
Is not the kind that makes you fall -
It’s the kind that recognizes
The bigness found in being Small
as Pooh sings about Piglet in The Te of Piglet pg 51

Trying again

Dear fellow bloggers, followers, baseball card junkies and baseball fans in general

I am attempting a comeback. Being that this is my first post in almost three months I will take it slow and do my due diligence in returning to your nightly reading lineup. It has been a "summer to forget" in my part of the woods and it is now time for me to get back on the playing field. Ok enough of the baseball analogies, I am going to give my blog another shot.

Just a bit of a recap of my personal life: my daughter returned from her year in Finland on May 24, and two weeks later my wife asked me for a divorce (and I agreed). We decided to put the house on the market and I would move out in 2 - 3 months (I thought we agreed). I packed up most of my "stuff" (including my baseball cards, binders, supplies etc) and within two weeks was "ready". Then my wife said she was "moving out" and out she went. I unpacked my "stuff" and she used my boxes and crates. She was gone by July 15 and I took the house off the market (never really had officially listed it). This past weekend I moved my beautiful daughter into her college dorm (she is attending Flagler College in St Augustine Florida and is an incoming freshman). My house is now empty, quiet and clean. No more dog, no more cat, no more wife, no more teenager. The house is too big for one so now I will try to sell it more vigorously. So that's my "brief" update of my summer . . .

Now for my baseball update: at the time of my last post in June the Cubs were 29-26 trying to find their groove. They never found it and now sit at 65 - 64. Another "summer to forget" as well. Quite coincidentally the day of my previous post the Cubs beat the Astros 7 - 1 (yesterday the Cubs lost to the Astros 5 - 3).

This past weekend I started reading a George Will book titled Bunts. In a rather poignant way Will concludes his introduction like this: ". . . baseball is a work in progress. If you dont believe me, just remember, and heed, the fans familiar cry, Wait til Next year".

A great big thank you to all of you who have expressed concern for me. I will try to get back to the basics of my blog (a personal salute to the Cubs of 1969 and baseball of that era), try to remember why I started this, try to get back into the trading mode and try to rekindle some blogger friendships I have ignored. I am going to try again . . .

Happy Mom's Day

An official Happy Mothers Day greeting to all the Mom's out there including my own Mom, step-mom and wife.

In honor of Mom's Day I thought I would write a post about children (more specifically two daughters) because without these two girls today would be very different.

To begin with, I present my own daughter, who for those of you who read my blog may remember that my Jennifer, graduated high school in May of 2008 and was accepted into the long-term Rotary Youth Exchange of Florida program that has sent her to Finland for this past year. If you want to read about her adventures please go here: Jenny's Journal from Finland Thankfully she gets her writing skills from her Mother.

"an american in Paris"

petting a real reindeer in Lapland Finland, in the arctic circle, during Christmas time

Jennifer will be returning to the USA on May 24th, it has been a looooong year without her and I do miss her terribly. She will be attending Flagler college (St Augustine Florida) in the fall to begin her "new" life as a college student. As Jenny has reminded me in many emails and IM's "Daddy, I am so much more grown up and independent now and so ready for college . . . but I will always be your little girl".

Jennifer was born in 1991 and as some of you may know (even have helped out) I am still putting together a binder of cards from 1991 as a surprise for her. She is still my little girl who hopefully will always be my little baseball partner. Thanks to my wife who is Jennifer's Mommy . . . today is for both of you.

While my daughter went off to Finland last summer, my wife and I "adopted" an exchange student as a replacement (that is one of the unwritten rules of the program) . We were blessed to be able to call Vivian our daughter this past fall. Vivian is from Taiwan and we now have two new countries we "must" visit. Today, I thank her Mom for allowing us to be "parents" to Vivian this past year. Of course I had to take her to a Rays game !

Today is a day to thank some very special Moms; especially Jennifers and Vivians.

Happy Mothers Day to all !