While I won’t go into great detail right now why I have that phrase or song “Remember Me” really stuck in my head (more on that Monday with my movie blog, hint-hint, nudge-nudge, wink-wink), it seemed like the perfect title for today’s blog. This past week was a big week of milestones for me or the Kuhn household. Last Monday marked the 12th anniversary since the hubs and I took our first golf lesson together. Now please don’t let this give you the impression we golf well. We don’t. And in fact, we haven’t golfed much recently due to me and a knee injury that shut me down about 5 years ago. But we hope to return to the links sometime soon.
It’s still fun when that date comes up and I think back to that first lesson and my fears of not making contact with the ball. I had reason to be skeptical of my ability to do this. Waaaaaaay back when, as a sophomore in high school, I had to take individual and team sports, and during the golf segment of the gym class, proved that you can swing at the ball, knock the tee out from under it and have the golf ball go absolutely nowhere. So when I stepped up to the ball during our first lesson 12 years ago, I expected some of the same, but I was surprised. With instruction, encouragement and a lot of patience, I not only hit that sucker on the first swing. I hit every subsequent teed-up ball for the rest of the lesson. Wow. I surprised myself. Now hitting off the green itself, that was another challenge altogether and took multiple lessons to move that ball with a single stroke.
It’s fun to look back on those milestone dates. I am old-fashioned. I have a planner. Yep, I’m one of those and it’s not even a small one. It’s one of those 9×12 or so, thick, leather folio planners that you couldn’t possibly sneak into a purse, and barely do in my work backpack. But I love seeing those dates and appointments in front of me, all laid out where I can piece together a plan whether it’s a day at a time, a week at a time or looking ahead to the whole year. I’m visual when it comes to organizing my thoughts and my time. I’ve always been that way since I can remember, though I don’t write out everything in long-hand anymore as I did in high school and college and THEN type it into an electric typewriter, word processor or eventually a computer. Nope, now I have trained my brain to compose at the laptop keyboard and I’m so relieved because it’s saved me so much time over the years.
But remembering birthdays, milestone events, special occasions or upcoming events, I like to see it laid out before me like this universe of memories – those that happened and those to come. It gives me a sense of peace and some bit of order at my fingertips.
This past week (Wednesday, to be exact), was also the anniversary of when we got our first dog together, Dexter. The year was 2000 and we had the opportunity to raise that cutie-patootie 2 year-old chiweenie for the next 13 1/2 years. What a privilege it was, and it prepared me for the crazy wookie who lives with us now.
Jax, our Shih Tzu will turn four this summer, and it’s been exciting to watch him grow into his body and personality which is rich, vibrant and so loving – though still, a little nutty, hence the nickname will remain given he still has a certain resemblance to Chewbacca when he’s past due on grooming time. But one thing that will always be certain with Jax. It’s never a dull moment with this one.
Next week will mark 15 years since we toured the home that we ended up making our own. Each year when I see the date in my calendar I reflect on that day. We had just seen several others over the past few days and I found this one myself perusing online listings. It was on the market only a few days. We scheduled an appointment to view it with our real estate agent and had two to see in the neighborhood – what became ours and the house next door. We toured ours, then the other and I remember as the real estate guy walked back to his car, we stopped him. “We’d like to go back and see that one again.” It was clear even to him, and he was completely clueless (believe me). We were already hooked. I spent the evening on the floor with financial paperwork, upcoming bills, account ledgers and a pad of paper in front of me drafting up various plans of attack to buy this house that was beyond our original price ceiling while Jack Bauer saved the world or pissed off his own government, whichever was happening at that part of the latest 24 season at the time. I didn’t see much of anything on the TV that night. My mind was engrossed in making this happen and whenever I set my mind to do something, the wheels start churning and it is difficult to stop the train.
The train left the station and within days, we were making an offer and closing a few months later (March 26, specifically…just looked that up, too).
Sigh. Yeah, I’m a total data nerd. Data, data, data. Give me dates, figures, information and let me record it and store it and organize it and analyze it. I will respect it and give it its due. And that’s a fact.
Anyone else still living in the age of DayRunners, Day Timers, Franklin Covey, journals and other paper data storage keepers? Call us foolish but hey, I don’t need wifi, apps or even power to know exactly what I was doing this time last year on February 3 — buying this blue Chevy beauty, Atlantis. Heh. Thanks for reading. ~ Chris K.
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