--- date: 2020-02-23 weight: 3 --- 
Madison

What a nice surprise. Thank you so much for all of the information and insights as to how you have been and are doing. I loved it!

You happened to catch me down in Tucson. I come down here by myself when Maurine is working just to get used to working remotely with my work crew. It’s a bit clunky but the VPN and various tools make it doable. Hope one day in the not too distant future to be able to come down to Tucson for a few months over the winter months and work. I’d have to go back a week a month for meetings but otherwise I should be able to pull it off.

Without being maudlin, I will always love you and am proud of you and your life. There are no thoughts here but good ones and hope that you are comfortable with our relationship. I’d love to hear from you more but know how life can get in the way. Maurine and I both had a great time seeing you two over Thanksgiving. I know the dinner was a bit over the top but I still think about the visits then. I hope to get out to Seattle again later this year and visiting you was on the top of my wish list. I often think of the times we both went through while you were growing up and I have to smile at the fun we had. Hopefully there is more ahead. You will always be a part of me.

I know the burnout feeling. I can start to feel that creeping into my work routines. The clients seem to be more demanding and the work more of a grind. Luckily I have two employees that pick up a huge amount of the burden now. I hope to slowly turn much of the day to day stuff over to them. The problem is that Greg is still around and does little if any work. That salary stream keeps me from picking up the additional employee that I need to really step back and relax. Anyway, we have paid off both the Lakewood and Tucson houses so the slow retirement plan is starting to look like something that can be done. Now I just need to learn how to value my self-worth without it being tied to the company.

Overall I still am pretty healthy. I am getting over a stomach reflux problem that was probably related to stress and my getting high. Got both of those sources under control and picked up my exercise routine. That has helped quite a bit. Only smoke a couple of hits at night now and that’s it. The exercise also seems to help the hand tremors that I have at times. The doctor thinks it was related to anxiety but the drug they prescribed did not go with my life. So I continually to learn to relax and take things easier. You’d think I would have learned all of this by now. Life can be a squirrely thing.

Maurine is doing well and is probably closer to a retirement change than I am. They made her the shop teacher at the school so that has given her a new lease on work but she is getting tired of that also. The kids are not what they used to be. They talk back and argue with her constantly and many are really rude. She is lucky that she hasn’t lost her cool and slapped the shit out of one of them so far. As a result, she is going to let her teaching certificate expire next year so she has about a year and a few months left to work. I think she will probably become a substitute teacher and work part time. She will also be coming down to Tucson more. I told her that you wrote and she wanted to make sure that I let you know she says hi and is looking forward to seeing you again.

A publisher – Who’da thunk.

Love Dad