By Your Side

This song - By Your Side - is one that I have been listening to a lot the past few weeks. I encourage you to listen to it on ITUNES or FB ILike. It is by Tenth Avenue North. The lyrics are very powerful is you listen closely and take them to heart. I agree that too many people fight God - they don't allow Him to guide them or His hands to hold them.

Today is my friend Paul's 40th birthday. He and I went to elementary school together in Southfield, MI ( a suburb of Detroit). I lived on Red Maple Lane and he lived on Oldstream..one street over. He was the only boy at my 7th bday party - which of course was a swim party in our backyard. He and I and our brothers and Tom Harm and many others would play kickball, kick the can, ghost in the graveyard and football. I wonder if he remembers this - our two homes had the same floor plan. I just realized and remembered that myself. We had so much fun in that neighborhood. We lived near a creek that would freeze in the winter and we would all go down there and ice skate and goof around. Danny had a cousin named Paul - he was tall, handsome, cool and fun to be around; and we would describe my friend Paul in the same manner. Danny's cousin Paul drowned at Lake Amistad in 1992. So in honor of him and my childhood friend--we named our son Paul.

Saturday morning I set out for Friendswood, TX - just a little south of Houston. Danny's brother's wife is having their third child in 4 weeks and there was a baby shower in her honor at 2pm. Hi Chris and Veronica! My bil mentioned he has never been written about in my blog. All went well with traffic and weather UNTIL - the dreaded 45 South (to Galveston) near Hobby Airport. It was a parking lot and I had a few more miles to go but could see it could take an hour or more. Chris called it the Bataan Death March and if you know history - you will get that comment! Good thing I have a good sense of direction and I knew I could go west.....then south and get to their house. I took an exit with Chris' help and made it to their home with about 20 min to change and get ready to leave for the shower. Three aunts from SA were stuck on I-45 and having a meltdown. So, we had to get them off the highway and east of I-45 to a landmark so we could go there and get them. We did so and they followed us to the baby shower. Whew! I had my 12 year old niece in my car with me - and we were jammin out to The PussyCat Dolls - I Hate This Part. The music was loud and we were dancing as we drove along Space Center......we listened to that song about 5 times on that trip! She kept saying.."play it again Aunt Susan." She told me..."you are still fun Aunt Susan!" Yeah, I know girl!

Oh, my brother in law has started is own business - Tejas IT Solutions..or TITS for short. lol His website is still in progress; his email address is chris.nino@tejasitsolutions.com

The shower was nice -a ton of people. I of course was the official picture taker. And given that hell on I-45, I had to have a cold beer! Below are a few pics from the event.

My Mother in Law, Veronica and her Mom Gloria (above).

Danny's cousin Liza and her little boy Will - they traveled from SA too and were stuck on I-45!

After the shower, we went back to Chris and Veronica's house to relax and visit. Then around 10 - Veronica, Marisa and I went to Friday's and had some appetizers. Back at the house later - I was in the study watching Daniel - my 7 year old nephew - play Clone Wars on the laptop. WOW - impressive! At midnight - we sent him to bed. I wanted to use the laptop to do some FB stuff. Chris was on his computer and we hung out for an hour I think. Chatting about music and FB stuff and work issues. My trip home on Sunday was not as crazy. Although it did rain some on I-10. I do have to write about the Sunday morning activity at the house and all its craziness..but another time.

Paul had been sick since Thursday with a fever and a bad cough. He still has the cough and probably will for another week, but the fever is finally gone. He went back to school yesterday!

I am headed to the gym in about an hour. And then home to make dinner for my boys!

My advice for today - It's not too late to be what you might have been! From Isaiah 43:18-19 - "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past...I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."