9/25 - Birthday's Part II

It's been 5 months since Kathy was admitted to the hospital. And now nearly 3 months since she died. but it really seems like an eternity.

So as we really begin our year, September brought us the birthday challenges: Kathy's on the 19th and Alex and Barb's on the 20th.

Of course, Kathy was the chief party planner in our house. But we had a nice small party. Seems to have been OK. balloons, cards, cakes. All the regular kid stuff.

Today's we're going to Dave and Busters with a friend of Alex to celebrate some more. This should wrap it up.

Next month mark's our Wedding Anniversary. It just never ends.

Rodger

9/22 - Scleroderma Network Story

For those interested, I've posted a story about Kathleen on the Scleroderma Network.

You can read the story HERE

9/18 - Birthdays

It's Kathleen's birthday this weekend. Also Alex and Barb. It's not going to be easy.

Friday 9/17 - Firefox Browser

I enjoy using computers. it has been a great career choice for me over the past 25 years. I have always excelled at using Microsoft software. But not everything that Microsoft does is the best. One aspect is for web browsing. They were not first, but they knew how to win the race. Netscape had a better product at first but fumbled their software development and ended up selling out to AOL.

But part of their legacy lvies on. Before they sold, they started a project called Mozilla.org. this week they released a new, free browser called Firefox. it's available for downlaod at http://www.mozilla.org

It is fast and has a better polish than the current version of Internet Explorer. But best of all, it does not have the links to the MS Windows operating system system. This makes it less vulnerable to web attacks that have plagued the Net over the past two years. Don't be fooled tho, you still need virus protection on your PC at all times.

Saturday 9/11 - The Closet

We knew the time had come. Kathy's Closet.

It's just one of those things that had to be done. But actually doing it was a challenge.

Four of our friends came over last weekend and got to work. We decided that something good had to come from this disaster. So we picked two great organziations to benefit:

• Dress for Success - http://www.dressforsuccess.org/
  
• Feed my People - http://www.feed-my-people.org/
  

Most of the clothes were fall and winter. She hadn't had time in April to swap them out for the her spring collection. That's all still in the baseent for another day.

It was quite a mess sorting through all of the clothes. And it was bittersweet. After 15 years, there is a lot of memories in a women's wardrobe. Big events at work. evenings out at the Fox and the Muny. Anniversary dinners. Real "dates" without the kids.

We pulled aside many of her favorite T-shirts. especially those bought from our many trips around the country. We're going to make quilts with them to help keep us warm this winter.

We also saved the Cardinals and Rams shirts for the boys. They may be able to wear some of them soon. ;-)

My sincere thanks to Judy, Carol, Cheri and Cathy for your help.

Rodger

Friday 9/3 - Firsts

Just some random "firsts" over the past month...

- first vacation without her
- first time someone noticed I no longer wear my wedding ring
- first time I checked the box "single"
- first time "open house" at school
- first parent/teacher conference
- first time completing the Pupil Information Form for school. More sad in that her name was listed as a contact
- first time telling a telemarketer, Kathleen doesn't live here anymore
- first day at school
- first time walking though the Yankee Candle store thinking about which ones she'd like knowing that I really wouldn't be buying any.