Each Day Counts

Another perspective...

I just added 17 more photos to our wedding Flickr set.  These were taken by our friend, Adrian Mendoza.  His personal site is linked to in the description of each photo.  He does awesome work!

Click here to see our wedding set with the new photos.  Have a beautiful day!  I feel good today and will have the girls with me all weekend!  I can't wait for them to be here!  I always miss them so much!  I just hope that I can be less tired this weekend.  Fatigue is becoming quite an issue for me.  I'll keep you posted!

Smile today!

More photos have arrived...

Click here to see 29 wedding shots that were given to me yesterday by our photographer.  Many more will come soon!  Also, please click on his link in the picture description to see more of his work.  He is incredible!

Enjoy your day! Thank you kindly for stopping by!

Emotion

My daughter Lauren and Megan share a wedding moment.  Photo by Clark Miller.

It is about 9:20 here and I am listening to music (Ryan Adams) and trying to focus a bit.  I have been lost in an emotional whirlwind.  The wedding was incredible and it is difficult for me to express how I feel about it.

You all have been following my life for so long so you understand that everything that I deal with has a good side and a bad side.  I mean, when they told me that I had the liver disease and that I could be healed, they told me that I had Cancer the very next month and that a new liver was years and years away.  Every upside and break in the clouds usually brings the rain for me and that fact has been very hard for me to understand and deal with.

The funny thing about the wedding is that there does not appear to be a down side.  I have been lost in my own head for the last few days wondering when the truck will hit me from the side but that has yet to happen.

Everyday I wake up wearing this wedding band and I am thankful.  Inside the band it says, "Each Day Counts, 04/22/06."  That is what she had engraved for me because she understands that I have to live this way.  She knows that I have to love and appreciate every single day just as much as I love and appreciate her.  I don't have to think about ever having to live without her again.  For the rest of my life I will wake up knowing that the most beautiful woman in the world is my wife.

So life is good today.  The sun is shining and even if it wasn't her eyes would provide my guiding light.  I will update again soon and link to the Adam Sandler song.  I will also share the photos of our special day.  From what I have been told, nearly 1,000 photos were taken that day.  I will have over 1,000 pieces of evidence that my life is going to be just fine.  I will be reminded over 1,000 times that I am the luckiest man in the world.

We are all lucky to be alive and safe today.  Please do something today to make you feel alive inside.  Wear your heart on your sleeve today and let someone touch it.  If tears come, wipe them aside and just move forward.  I am grateful for every reader and every positive word.

Smile today.  Laugh today.  Play today.  Love today.  Live today!

More will follow....

Wednesday is here!

It is 9:30 here on a spring-like CA day and I feel good.  Meg is home today and it was nice to have her here when I woke up.  I am listening to my collection of 83 Elton John songs and I am at peace.  I have a few things to do today and I am confident that it will be a great day.  I have been able to manage the pain lately and that has helped me a great deal.

In other news...Melissa Etheridge and her partner are expecting twins!  That is a big deal for me.  A cancer survivor living without getting stuck in her past or the possibilities that the cancer will return is amazing!  You kick ass ladies!  May your love last forever!  We all deserve to be happy!

So, I will hop in the shower soon, head out into the sun and bask in the glory of my day.  I am alive today and I will do something to make today count.  A couple of days ago I bought a homeless man at Costco lunch because I felt like I needed to do something good with my day.  I hope that I helped him out a bit.  He was a nice man.

Have a great day today!  Take some time to stand in the sun and get recharged a bit.  Do something fun and exciting.  Laugh and play.  Carissa, hold that amazing little man.  Ginger, love that little angel!

Thank you for reading my words today!  I'll be back soon.

Elton quote of the day: "I thank the lord for the people I have found."

I am dancing!

Last night was our first real dancing practice and I did pretty well for a little fat man with no real sense of beat!  My friend Courtney is teaching us so Meg and I don't look like junior high schoolers during our first dance.  So far, we are working on a basic two-step with a few twirls mixed in.  It is actually quite fun and we will be at it again tonight.  By wedding time I should be ready to be on that show, "Dancing with the Stars!" 

Ok...I may not be good enough for that show but I might be able to audition for the next Richard Simmons work out tape!

Speaking of Richard Simmons, what is up with a little white man having that big ass afro?  That has always confused me.  I think there may be something very wrong with good ol' Mr. Simmons!  I mean look at him in that photo.  He is feeling up someones innocent Grandma!  I'd have to kick his ass if he touched my Grams!

Anyway, it is almost 10 here so I better fire up the cofee, hit the shower and head off to do my errands.  The wedding is so close!  Last night, I couldn't sleep real well so I stayed up for a bit and watched Megan sleep.  Have you ever watched a baby sleep?  It is the the same thing.  She is so beautiful lost in sleep and calm.  I am excited about sharing those moments with her forever.

Right now, my life is good and I am happy despite the bit of pain and sleepiness.  I hope to be like this for another 70 years or so.  At her age, Meg should live another 80 years or so.  That's a good thing because if she ever went first I would really be in trouble.  This whole love thing is great.

Love someone today with everything that you have the power to give.  I bet they will love you right back.  That love will make your whole day.  It could make your whole life!

Smile today!

Happy Easter All!

I woke up holding Meg this morning.  This is the last Sunday in my life that I will wake up next to Megan Rene Harter.  Next Sunday I will wake up holding Megan Rene Porras and we will probably look at each other is disbelief thinking about the day before.  Next week I will make love to my wife.  It has been almost four years and my dreams are finally coming true.

We will spend the afternoon with her family today and help kids find eggs.  I don't have my babies today but  they are in my heart.  They are somewhere right now in little dresses and tights and I bet that they look just perfect.  They are such good little people.  I miss them today.  Hopefully our niece Trinity will be with us today.  She is a beautiful little girl.  I really care about her.

Have fun today looking for eggs, eating chocolate attending church if that is what you do.  No matter what, take the people in your life and hold them as close as possible.  Holidays are always hard for me.  I need to see another Easter.  I will see another Easter.

Thank you for reading today.  You are all here with me today and you will all be at my wedding next weekend.  It will be a beautiful day.  There will be so many photos that I can't wait to share.  I'll be the dumbstruck looking guy in the photos standing next to the prettiest girl in the world and wondering how all the rocks and potholes on my road of life just sort of moved out the way for one day.

Maybe I should stop by a church today and just say thank you.  I am truly blessed in my life.  I wish that I could attend this church!  Click the link.  That place looks like a real party!

Take care today folks.  Laugh.  Love.  Live.  Learn.  Play.  And always, always smile!

Friday Night

Tonight I am home alone with Tinkerbell and it feels pretty damn good to just relax and have some down time.  I have really been on the go lately with everything that is happening around here.  But tonight it will just be me, the Chihuahua and Ryan Adams (pictured above) whose amazing and beautiful words will be filling the house all night. 

He is seriously the best songwriter/singer that I have ever experienced.  I say "experienced," because you actually feel his music.  His music is not just something to listen to.  It is like tasting wine. 

You take it in, swish it around and see where your senses take you.  That is music to me.  That is life to me.

So, I am off now to brew some coffee.  Maybe I will curl up with a good book.  Maybe I will just sit and think.  Maybe I will do some writing.  No matter what though, I will keep my thoughts open and let the music soak in a bit.

Life is good here.  I feel quiet and at peace and I don't hurt all that bad although I can feel that damn aching on my right side that forever haunts me.  But even that won't bother me tonight.

I hope that everyone out there has a beautiful weekend!  Do something to make you think. 

Take in a little life, swish it around and see where your senses take you. 

Wednesday/10:42 AM

So here I am sitting and listening to music by a band that I just heard about called The Fray.  I am eating a bagel with cream cheese and sipping on some delicious coffee that I bought at Trader Joes.  In the coffee is their organic sugar (take that C & H) and their delicious half and half.

So, life is good today.  Wedding plans are coming together and I believe that we may have even found a song for our first dance.  For two people so in love with music like we are, that was a daunting task. 

Maybe I will link to the song here soon so you all can hear it.  It is by a band called The Mike McClure Band and it is called. "Hotel Band."  It is about a couple that is visiting Mexico and laying in bed soaked in Mexican Moonlight while listening to the hotel band downstairs play "Hotel California."  It sounds odd in a way, but it just fits us.

It is so odd to me that in just a matter of days I will hold Megan and she will be introduced as my wife.  Not my partner, good friend, girlfriend or fiance.  She will be Mrs. Megan Rene Porras. 

Wait a minute! That is the first time that I ever typed that!  It looks so strange!

I know that I need to spice this blog up a bit.  It needs humor.  But lately all that is on my mind is this wedding thing so that is what comes across.  But I will be back to being goofy soon enough! I promise you that.

Have a great day today.  Do something insane and tell me all about it. Smile today folks!

The Third Year

Yesterday marked the anniversary of the day that I was told that I was sick.  It has been three years.  So, three years ago yesterday I was told that I had two to three years left to live.  Living on borrowed time in a sense is odd but I have always worked better at crunch time.  I guess this is crunch time folks.  I won't have another shot to get this life thing right.

I spent the day with my babies and that was amazing.  I wonder if I will always call them my babies.  There are no more diapers or ointments or powders but I still see those things when I hold them in my arms.  I probably always will.

When I met Carolyn (my ex-wife) last night to drop off the girls we all walked around Target a bit together and it was surreal in a way.  It was just the four of us.  I am sure that Grace does not recall us spending time together as a family but I caught Lauren looking at us.  I think she knows though that we are all in a better place now.  I think that she understands that Daddy in his funky shirts and ripped jeans and Momma in her soccer mom gear just don't quite fit together.  But does she know that we never did quite fit together?  It took me a long time to see that.

So, I am alive today and I am living on borrowed time in a sense but I can't focus on that.  I need to use the "glass half full approach."  I need to see that in less than two weeks I will hold Megan and take her into my life forever.  Meg and I fit.  We always have.  But it took me a long time to see that also.  Maybe I am just slow!

It is raining here and I am listening to slow songs and sipping on a Starbuck's coffee.  I am a lucky, lucky man.  I have so much love and so much hope and those things are constantly wrapped up in pretty packages and handed to me by my family, my friends and every person that reads this blog.

Have a great day today.  Something might come crashing down on your life but if it does, kick it to the side, find someone to hold and just breathe.  You will be ok.  If I can be ok, anyone can be ok.

Bless you all my dear friends!