Paper is small, so is my waist - kidding, a weekend with Gram cures everything

If you thought last week's paper was a tad bit small, you are reading probably (hopefully) our smallest paper of the year. With schools on break, no sports taking place, many people out of town, well, that truly limits what news gathering we can do. So please forgive us for being light this week, we will be back in the swing of things next week. And if there is no news happening, maybe I will make it up.

This weekend, my extended family did something we have not done in 20 years or more. We took Christmas to Iowa. We have faithfully been bringing my grandmother up each and every year for as long as I can remember. This year, we decided to make it easy on her. So on Friday, we all piled into our vehicles and headed south. My grandmother is, well, let's just say she is over 80, so we thought we would make it a little easier on her by bringing us to her. We brought 11 of us down and thankfully for her we stayed in a hotel. She needed a break from us every night. We had the most magical time in Iowa. Everyone got along great. The kids behaved wonderfully. We all brought food, so she didn't have to lift a finger. It was perfect. The only thing missing was Mom and Dad. I know they were there looking down on us, I could feel it. I made a point of watching my grandmother a little closer than normal, and to watch her face as she looked around the room at all of her siblings was worth a million dollars. To say she was happy would be the understatement of the century. I wanted the weekend to last forever. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but for a couple days, it was Heaven on Earth. Thanks Gram.

Speaking of Iowa, we decided to stay in a different hotel than we normally do. We found a decent one with a pool out on the edge of town. When we checked in on Friday afternoon, the front desk girl assigned us to room 121. I immediately cringed. I should have started this story explaining how we have the worst luck at hotels. We have stayed on lower floors in the past and been under rooms that have 30 children running and jumping all night long. Or other times we have been on lower floors and a wedding party will be staying in the same hotel. The room above us of course is the party room where everyone meets for drinks. Remembering all of this, I quickly pleaded with the front desk woman to please let us move to the top floor. She grimaced a little, I guess I was talking away from her valuable Suduko time that I saw her playing when we walked in. After a minute or two she gave us the keys to a room on the top floor. As she handed them to me, she said "I can't promise the room will be silent for you" What? What did that mean? Flares were going off like a light show in my head. We gathered our stuff and headed to the room. I gave the key to my son to open the door, and we went in. We just stood there all huddled together staring. On the table was a soda with the top off, the television was blaring, the bed recently had been laid in, and to top it off, there was a t-shirt on the bed. Not only was someone recently laying in our bed, they were probably naked. Did I tell you we have the best luck?

I am sitting here trying to wrap my head around our weather. We went from almost 50 degrees on Saturday to 19 below zero on Monday morning. That is close to a 70 degree swing in 30 hours or so. Unbelievable. We get our hopes and spirits up for a full day, then Mother Nature kicks us in the stomach. I am not sure about you, but our house was making some awful noises on Sunday night. Out of the blue, we would hear a super loud pop. It sounded like a bird the size of an eagle flew into the side of the house. I know it is just the cold temperatures expanding and contracting the siding on our house, but as loud as these were, it sounded like the house was going to fall over. Bring back the 50's, I will get the sun block.

New Year’s resolutions, everyone has one. Most people have them, some keep them. Lose weight - that has been mine for at least the last 13 years. Have you seen me? Obviously I don’t keep my resolutions. In fact, I am going as far away from weight related resolutions as I can get. I will let you know my resolution this year. Actually I have two of them. The first is to become more spiritual. (Oh boy, here we go) Wait, hear me out. For years and years I did everything on my own. Made my own decisions, made every life changing decision by myself. Everything was centered around me. Guess where that got me? Nowhere. In fact, my life was a mess. Every decision I made was a bad one. Every time I tried to self-satisfy, it would end horribly. A couple of years ago, I was at a real low place in my life. As I sat back and pondered how my life had gotten to this, there was one blaring omission. Faith. I am not writing this to force feed religion to you. I am simply telling you a story about a man that was lost in life and now has found a purpose. I am not telling you to go to church or pray in your home. That is your choice and I respect your decision whatever you choose. No, this is me telling you that my life has changed since I found faith. Are there still struggles?  Of course, everyday. But before, these struggles were the absolute end of the world for me. Now, they are not.

My second resolution is to help out more. Help our community more. Help those less fortunate more. Just help. When you donate your time, finances or skills, you have no idea how it affects you. Something inside just feels right. I would urge you to volunteer in our community. We have so many great organizations that are in need of volunteers. I hope to see you out there!