You just know that’s what the kid is thinking. I thought this ‘I hate my parents’ stuff didn’t start until the teen years? Check out the angry lion:

Truth be told he was enjoying himself, including letting off the occasional roar, I just happened to catch this mug as I was snapping photos, it cracked me up, and I had to share. I’ll post a happier photo if I can find one amongst the ones we took today. This as Brady on his way to the campus Halloween parade today, in an impressive and elaborate costume his Nana put together for him.

We made it through relatively unscathed. Brady and I rode out the storm at home, playing with his toys and occasionally looking out the window to see the wind blow. Mid-afternoon I noticed some large piece had come off of the barn, so he and I suited up and went out to investigate. It turned out to be a panel of the tin roofing over the animal stalls – it got ripped off along with some pieces of the chipboard roofing that’s underneath it. I plopped Brady in the trailer of our tractor while I pulled the detritus into the barn as I didn’t want the sheet metal flying about. He was quite taken with the whole episode, and couldn’t stop chatting about the wind and the broken barn roof all morning this morning.

We also lost a tree, one which I had been considering taking down anyway, which fell over harmlessly in the middle of our yard. My neighbor lost a pretty large tree which fortunately fell parallel to his property instead of over into my yard, where it could have landed on one of our sheds.

Beyond that it was smooth sailing. We never lost power or internet, our new roof held without leaking (though once again water was coming in via the patio doors), and I even managed to watch the Monday Night Football game, though the Directv was stuttering now and then during the heaviest periods of rain.

I’ll try to post some pictures this weekend, but overall, boy am I glad that this wasn’t a repeat of last year’s week long October/November power outage.

… or you could hand the kid a broom, which he’s never seen before, and set him to sweeping the porch. Brady spent half the afternoon messing about with this pushbroom:

and I couldn’t be happier. I relaxed with my book and leapt up for the occasional ‘don’t fall down the stairs after it!’ moment. Thus is a relaxing holiday spent.

In the spring we bought a long coveted fire pit for our patio. Tonight weather, temperature, our schedule, and the approach of fall all combined into the first opportunity to use it. I guess I can look at it as the bright side of summer daylight receding 🙂

I had a wonderful exchange with my ~20 month old son Brady yesterday. I talk to him about everything I do when I’m watching him, to help him with language acquisition and to help provide context for the world. Yesterday I was making iced tea from a powdered mix. He’s aware that I drink iced tea a lot, and knows it’s called ‘tea’ He asks for some occasionally and knows he can’t have any. So anyway, yesterday I’m making it, and talking him through the steps – water into the bottle, tea mix into the water, shake shake shake, and viola, tea!. He asks ‘tea….water?’ Yes, I put the tea mix in the water, and it makes tea!’ He considers this, then plucks a curd of cottage cheese* from his dish, holds it out to me, and demands ‘Cheese Water! Cheese Water!’

😉

* (Cottage cheese is one of his favorite foods).

So here’s a sad yet amazing small world coincidence I was recently made aware of. The older generation of the Yule side of my family had some unusual customs. Neither of my Grandparents had a funeral, nor did my Uncle John. Now I’ve discovered my Grandmother never even picked up my Grandfather’s cremated remains when he died in the 80’s, and by pure happenstance I was in the graveyard a short while after he was buried there, completely unbeknownst to me (!!!)

I found out about the article linked to and excerpted below because a possible distant relative has been researching the Yules and found my site via the stories I posted here when my grandmother died. He emailed with questions and noted he had recently found out about Arthur Yule’s burial via this linked article. It struck me when reading it that I had happened to be on Long Island a short while after these ceremonies, and had accompanied the Lords on a volunteer trip to this graveyard to plant flags on veterans’ grave sites. A small section of the area we planted flags on was for new burials. I’d like to believe I planted one of my flags on Arthur’s grave, slim though the chances of that might be (the place is enormous). Many of the graves were of roughly the right generation for this to be the case anyway.

I can’t really decide how I should feel about this. One assumes how this was handled accorded with my Grandfather’s wishes, so who am I to find fault? I’m also not especially sentimental in this realm, but it’s a little unsettling all the same to imagine my Grandfather’s remains sitting in a funeral home storeroom for decades, forgotten, until Uncle Sam noticed and decided to take action. Thanks, I suppose, for that.

(this is excerpted from a piece that originally appeared in the FarmingDale Observer.)

Exclusive: Dozens More Veterans’ Names Released For Cremains Burial May 19

Written by Christy Hinko: chinko@antonnews.com Friday, 11 May 2012 00:00

(Editor’s Note: This is an extended list of the cremains to be interred on Saturday, May 19 at the Long Island National Cemetery. The original exclusive article appeared in the Friday, April 27 edition of the Farmingdale Observer and online at http://www.antonnews.com.)

On Saturday, May 19, Long Island veteran organizations and funeral homes are set to give proper military burials to more than 50 unclaimed veterans’ cremated remains.

The funeral procession will assemble near exit 49 on the Long Island Expressway at 8 a.m. on Armed Forces Day and travel to Long Island National Cemetery at 2040 Wellwood Avenue in Farmingdale, led by Patriot Guard and Legion Riders for a 9 a.m. military honors burial service.

The Nassau-Suffolk Funeral Directors Association (NSFDA) has led the project, representing all of the funeral homes that will participate since last spring. NSFDA has worked with the help of many veteran organizations, including Roseann Santore, director of Long Island National Cemetery to bring these veterans to their final resting on May 19.

The following is the complete list of names of veterans by custodial funeral home, as of May 4:

[excerpt with my Grandfather – Arthur Yule]

Brueggemann Funeral Home of East Northport:

William G. Sullivan, Army, Korea, and his wife Margaret
Arthur M. Yule, Navy, WWII