Hi Weblog!  How are you?  Have you missed me?  I’ve missed you…

I’m home, getting ready to cook turkey brats on the grill.  I’m missing my friend Matt Kerner and his wife Sarah.  They are super nice people with 25 hours worth of things to do and only 24 hours in a day.  I wish we could see them more often, but I have to follow their weblogs to really know what’s going on.  Matt’s been at a conference and if I read [Sarah’s weblog](http://beautyschooldropout.net) correctly then she’s been chasing yarn in Austin, TX.

My mother-in-law recently [snagged an iPhone](http://keckeley.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/igotta-iphone) and now she’s learning to use it. Her husband Burl just finished an upgrade from cable to Dish Network and is loving the DIY Channel. The two of them are in Des Moines for the long weekend, visiting Anne’s daughter Mary (Tammy’s sister) and our nieces. We got a phone call from the older niece Julia to let us know that Grammy was there safe and sound, that she missed us and most of all that she “loves Aunt Tammy”.

I always spend time thinking of my family during the month of May. I’ve been estranged from most of my family for several years and May is the worst month–my father’s birthday is the eighth, my brother’s was yesterday and Mother’s Day is thrown in for good measure. My birthday is traditional Memorial Day (look it up) and that means by the end of the month, I’m battling the blues. Celebrating holidays and birthdays without your family is hard because when you’re a history person like me, you look back to give you perspective as you move forward. When I look back, there are two lives I lived: my birth until I turned thirteen, then from thirteen until I married Tammy (25).

My early life is easily remembered and enjoyed. The rest is almost best forgotten. Buy me a Scotch and I’ll tell you some of the funnier stories.

Tammy’s family has had their share of problems, but somehow they have all come out better because of it. My family became bitter, divided, obsessed with everyone’s wealth and status and worse, indignant and passive aggressive. It’s best that I left that behind, but May is the month that it hurts the worst, I guess next to Christmas.

Here’s to all the wars we’ve fought (both real and imagined) to preserve the liberties we all sometimes take for granted. This weekend, raise a toast to Americans everywhere who’s lives were given in the name of this country.