GOD BLESS PAPA ED

It's been about 100 days since I felt the urge to blog. I lost my Dad and biggest fan on April 7th.  He was suffering from cancer and suffer he did. It was a relief to all when he passed at the age of 81. I was lucky enough to be at his side at the very moment he went to God.  It was the first immediate family member to die in my lifetime. May God bless him and keep him near me all the days of my life. 

I've fished a couple of times since I've been away but not for over a month now. I've got a friend and one of my grandsons coming in July, so we will certainly get out there. So much has happened in the last 100 days. 

My youngest of 4 graduated high school, ending a 27 year run of my paying child support to one or 2 ex-wives. 

My wife of 14 years had her youngest get married and bless us with our 8th grandchild (between our 7 combined kids)

We did a partial remodel of our home, knocking out 12' of block wall and 2 windows, replace it with 12' wide pocket sliding glass doors, equipped with hurricane resistant impact glass.  We're now on day 64 of a custom pool installation. The paver deck is being put in as I write this. 

My wife fell and broke her hip, undergoing a partial hip replacement surgery last Friday. I'm staying home to be the caretaker, while still being able to work in my home office.  After the 4th of July holiday I have to go back on the road, so our 14 year old grandson will come "Mimi-sit".

The company I've worked for for the past 8 years entered into a merger with another huge landscape company, making us a 21,000 employee company with over 2 billion in sales.  While this sounds great, I am nervous what the future will hold for me there. These types of mega mergers always come with staff changes and I'm hoping not to be one of them.  The good news is that I'm on the integration team so that likely means I'm in the long term plans.  I'm hoping Dad will put a good word into God and see that I'm taken care of.