Howdy,

Today it has been a whole family kind of day for us 5 Haweses.

We’re often together doing family stuff, but today has felt more out and about. Relational, with activities. A good Saturday.

Following a wonderful late morning/early afternoon community outreach event as a family (where nine-month-old Riah was a hit), Sarah and I put everyone not named Riah to work vacuuming out our SUV.

That’s a good family activity.

Pull into a Prime Shine Car Wash and park between the multiple dangling suction hoses and put the boys to work vacuuming out their own seats. Their own crumbs and messes. Their areas. The things take make my ride and well-worn family car.

They loved it.

I said we should do that more often and as Sarah suggested, we’re thinking we should make it a habit while it’s still fun.

So it’s expected when they hate it. And it just gets done.

Family trip, then swing into the free vacuums upon returning home.

(Who doesn’t want to go to Disneyland, drive back six hours, and then head straight for the car wash vacuum cleaners? Okay, we probably won’t do that. Our boys have never been to Disneyland. Vacuums, yes. Disneyland, no. I told them the car wash was Disneyland, just a little smaller. So far, so good. We’ll spend their college funds on Disneyland some other fun family day.)

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Howdy,

“It’s always a mistake.”

You’re probably not thinking about what I’m going to write about.

What the mistake is …

It’s donuts.

You know it, they, aren’t good for you.

That’s what you know. But not what you think.

What you think is, that sounds delicious; that smells tasty; that looks amazing. Those look amazing.

It’s a mistake.

But it sounds so sweet …

“It’s always a mistake.”

The quotation marks have been used because that’s my wife’s line.

A line sometimes used to keep from eating a donut — or more likely to help keep me from eating a donut. Sometimes as a reminder for a better try next time, after the sweet turns hollow inside. Which tends to be quickly.

Nonetheless — and undeterred even knowing how we think about such things — I ventured, strayed, into a donut shop today. To treat the boys. Continue reading

Howdy,

Well, today would’ve been the day, the evening, I would have hit the road for Scottsdale, AZ.

Spring training trip.

A buddy or two, a caffeinated beverage (or two), and baseball on the brain.

(“A buddy or two” can also mean five of us crammed in a Corolla. Good times! Hey, we’ve kept going back!)

A drive through the night. A miserable, gritty-eyed morning squinting against the beauty of a glorious sunrise on I-10 E Fwy, stuck with Thursday-morning workers in Phoenix rush hour traffic, rolling into town slowly after the higher speeds of overnight, open-desert driving. For a beautiful day of baseball.

Beautiful days of baseball.

March Madness basketball on surrounding televisions all weekend long when inside recovering from the heat of 3, 4, 5 hours out at the yard: catching BP homers or live foul balls for souvenirs.

True story. Last year we got like seven baseballs in three games. Actually in two games because in one we came up empty.

Yes, I’d be on the road right now, maybe pulling into a gas station with our first empty gas tank. Looking for a Snicker’s in the snack aisle.

But I hadn’t hit a great consistency in the rehab exercises routine … so my back wasn’t in great shape either. Didn’t feel it was up for the trip. I could be locked up in my seat struggling to get out at that gas station, or out for a short walk to stretch my lower back but with serious doubts about getting into the car again for another eight or nine hours …

Humbling, but motivation and encouragement for working to regain strength, to build it back up, to make next year’s trip.

Hoping my friend still has a blast and enjoys the baseball and spring training sunshine, as I’m sure he will. I’d definitely put my money on him snagging a hardball headed into a crowd.

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Howdy,

The month of March has gone nothing like I expected.

Nothing like I expected when at the end of February I wondered at how fast 2017 was going  by and on the first day of March when I said I’d write fiction for NaNoWriMo-like posts this month.

Since my grandma, Isabel West, died on March 2^nd I’ve only posted twice. Once acknowledging that she had passed away unexpectedly. And the second being her obituary, that I helped draft.

It felt right to take a break. To take some time away.

I’ve dragged my feet about getting back to blogging and continuing the march to my year of 200K+ words. A mix of not wanting to restart as if this March were normal and feeling like if I did I’d have a lot of catching up to do.

As I’ve talked about it, my wife Sarah has encouraged me to write a post. And when I talk about sprinting to make up the (word count) ground to get back on pace, she says, “Just do one post.”

Rather than post, I push. “I’ll just double my word count for two or three weeks,” I say.

“Just one post, Babe,” Sarah says. “Just one post.”

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Howdy,

Took a break from posting to be with family and think about family, remembering Grammabel.

Thanks, again, for your prayers for my family as we grieve the loss of my maternal grandmother, Isabel West.

The only writing I’ve done for about the last week was composing the obituary with my mom, Teresa.

As submitted to the Mariposa Gazette, here is what we wrote for Grandma’s obituary:

On March 2, 2017, Isabel West passed away, her son and daughter-in-law at her side. She was 83.

Born November 18, 1933, in Vera, Spain, Isabel fled the turbulent Spanish Civil War as a young girl and immigrated with her parents, Gabino and Serapia Vinatena, to Coalinga, California, where her father was first a sheepherder in the Central California foothills.

Meeting at Fresno State, she and Charles “Chuck” West married in 1953. Chuck was an agricultural appraiser for Wells Fargo, a manager for Producers Cotton Oil and Firebaugh Cotton Gin, and a cattle rancher. The Wests raised their children in southern Arizona, Los Banos and Gridley, California. Isabel served as a Spanish translator for Head Start and the Census Bureau and volunteered in her children’s classrooms. The family enjoyed countless camping and fishing trips.

The couple joined the Mariposa community in 1993, establishing a 30-acre ostrich ranch way down a dirt road. Widowed in 1997, Isabel moved to another Mariposa property where she happily became a next-door neighbor to her daughter and four grandsons and, later, new son-in-law. Here she enjoyed the beauty of daily walks, Mariposa flowers and active wildlife, happiest when engaging with family outdoors, especially visiting great-grandchildren.

A lifelong musician, Isabel was a founding member violinist of the Fresno Philharmonic (1954), performed as the Concertmaster with the Mariposa Symphony Orchestra (2002-2014) and was part of the worship team at St. Joseph’s, her beloved church home.

In later years, Isabel volunteered with her church’s Ladies Guild and Manna House. She was very fond of spending time with her caregivers.

Her family is comforted knowing she is with her Savior Jesus Christ.

Isabel is survived by her children, Charles West and wife Kim of Carmichael, Teresa Hawes Prettol and husband Tom of Mariposa; eight grandchildren and their spouses: Brandon, Chad (Kim), Corey (Jenna), Sera (Jake), Billy (Sarah), Chris (Bethany), Casey (Corrie), and David (Melanie); nine great-grandchildren.

Memorial service with luncheon to follow to be held at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Saturday, March 11th, at 12:00 p.m. Remembrances may be made to Manna House and Helping Hands.

—Billy

Reading. Writing. Living.

Howdy,

Last night I wrote about February, about how today would already be March, and it got me thinking that some months have passed since our November immersion into my 550-word per day version of National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo, as it’s seen on social media).

As we’ve covered, officially NaNoWriMo is 50,000 words in a month, or roughly a pace of 1,700 words a day. My 550-word commitment, in a 31-day month like March, brings in about 17,000 words, which isn’t too shabby. It’s not a novel in a month, but it is a novella (again, as we discussed in November and saw play out with my Jake Jones basketball story [or pieces of a story — as my encouraging brother-in-law Matt Garman will let me know if I don’t finish my edit and publish it soon]).

Jake Jones novella NaNoWriMo in November ended up being over 18,000 words drafted, which was quick work on story for me.

As an experience and exercise, November was a great success, and I said at the time I’d do it again, maybe a couple of times a year, maybe quarterly.

Well, it’s a new month — and one threatening to close the first quarter if I’m going to chase quarterly — so I’m going to launch into #NaNoWriMo Hawes-o 2.0.

It’s spring. I’m going back to my Baseball Boys.

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Howdy,

Remember, Happy New Year’s!?

Doesn’t it seem like 2017 just started?

And tomorrow is … March.

And, obviously — so obvious that it’s hard here to even make a joke or try to go light like it’s cute — I’m not simply talking about the year marching on. It’s actually the month of March already. 2017.

Wow.

At least to me.

Now, as I started to think about it, at first, I was quickly coming to the conclusion that I’m totally okay with the morning being March. From the perspective that February would be over, that is.

If you’ve been following along on billyhawes.com, first, thank you, and, second, you may have had a guess that I wouldn’t be stretching and clawing to keep February around. I mean the way the month started and looked to be ending were bookends of a terrible month.

Highlights, um, more like notable points, springing to mind fastest mostly centered on doctor visits for the boys — in person (on multiple occasions) and via online video chat appointment — high fevers, missing events, and (a theme that’s received much too much run lately) runny noses.

Snot everywhere.

Speaking of snot. And everywhere …

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Howdy,

Oh, man. Here we go … again.

I wanted to write, Here we go!

Like I had a great topic and was ready to roll, ready to rock this laptop keyboard.

But it’s more like a pedestrian, a defeated, version that’s subdued and simply here we go again, because the kids — our wonderful boys — are sick again.

Not bad yet, but come on.

Jasper has had the cough hanging on, but working through it. Then the nose starts to run a bit more. Not enough to necessarily keep him from school again, but who knows which way it’ll go. Hopefully he stays okay — or more accurately goes the right direction, getting healthier.

The younger two, though, have had the water eyes, runny nose, and low-grade fever today. Hanging in there and having a pretty good attitude. (I was referring to them, not me, but I think I’m doing okay too. It’s been an okay day, and this post is just letting a little bit of the struggle out. We’ll see how far I get. Riah’s seeming a bit less happy at the moment.)

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