Where Have I Been & What Have I Been Up To?

Hello friends, it has been a while and it seems like I have missed a lot. Whether or not you noticed, I have been gone for a while. Last offseason and winter I disappeared for a while because of real life and I had to once again this spring as well, but for an entirely different set of reasons. Life is busy, work sucks, parenting can be challenging and there just isn’t enough hours in the day.

Recently at work a co-worker and friend of mine, Karen Wheeler, suffered a stroke while on the job. After the scary scene of the ambulances and such picking her up and carting her away there was a select few left to try and pick up the pieces and responsibilities left behind while she fought for her health and healed in the hospital. As of the time of this writing she is still in the hospital, but she could be getting out any day now. I don’t know how to gauge whether her stroke was minor or severe, as I have no experience with this fortunately, but she lost complete use of her left side (and she is left-handed, mind you) and has been in physical and speech therapy ever since. She is back to walking, albeit with the help of a cane or walker for now, and she is back to talking with just a few words that still trip her up from time to time. She is getting better every day, she has can feel and use her left arm, albeit minimally, and she hopes to be home from the hospital soon. If you all could please say a prayer for her, think about her, or whatever it is you choose to do it would be truly appreciated.

With that said I have been picking up the majority of her slack at work. I have been working my job, her job and helping another do their job who was helped by Karen. After weeks of doing multiple positions, and the grueling and extra hours that came along with it, I would find myself going home trying to muster up the energy to be a boyfriend, a father, a friend and whatever other responsibilities that I had, and unfortunately this responsibility tended to slack a little. For that, I truly apologize. I was so caught up in everything I even missed the blog surpassing 2,000,000 views overall AND our birthday. I will say this though, I just recently (which is what sparked me to push to actually take the time regardless of work to get this post out) received the email that the domain for this site was due… and I paid it in full for another year, and I will next year too… and every year after that as long as you all reading this will have us in your homes.

If there is a silver lining in this all it is this, Karen is alive, Karen is healthy and by all accounts Karen is going to beat this and make a full recovery. Work finally noticed that she may have had too much on her plate, or that she will have too much on her plate once she returns and they have decided to make her job into a two-person job. Your boy here, Daniel Burch, got a promotion and has been inserted into the new position. The new position has been demanding, grueling and frustrating at times but I am starting to chip away at the back-log stuff, I am starting to get caught back up and eventually this should actually give me more time to spend with you all here on the blog. None of the latter compares to the former, that Karen is okay, but I wanted to share that bit of me anyway. I hope that is okay!

I want to thank Scott Fiedler, Bryan Van Dusen and all my writers, everyone who reads and comments on the blog (even you little p patrick because I love you), all my Twitter followers, and everyone else I may have missed for your continued support and dedication to not only this blog, but to me as a person. Thank you for holding the fort down!!

Enjoy your day, don’t take anything for granted and hug the ones you love. Tell them every day you love them, because tomorrow is not promised. Technically, tomorrow can never come. It can only ever be today, so live for today. Kari Ann, Jacob, Brianna, Evan and Hayden… I love you. Live life to the fullest.