Sunday, February 10, 2013

SURPRISE!!!!

Is he really posting something for the first time in over a year-and-a-half???

In fact, the last time I posted something, people actually still said O-M-G!!!

I'm going to try to recap the major events of the past 20 months in a couple minutes or less. Ok, here it goes...




Home: We hired an architect/designer and a contractor and began a MAJOR home renovation in September 2011. What started as an idea to tweak our house basically turned into a complete gut. The final inspection for Phase I will finally happen this week, and then we'll begin Phase II which will be much less involved (basically remodeling). The renovation involved not being able to live in our house for about 5 months, lots of stress, and LOTS of money!! We're happy with the results, but I'll be ecstatic when "The Beast" (that's what I call our house now) is finally done. I won't bore your with a zillion before, during, and after pictures. Here are a couple of pictures of The Beast as it looked yesterday, the day after a major snowstorm.

Mrs. TBF: Healthy, happy, beautiful, and working hard. Her job - while managing to be stressful, aggravating, and rewarding at the same time - is going well. She's in London on business through Wednesday. Hmmmmmmmm... maybe I'm blogging because she's not here, there's no more football on TV, and there's not much else for me to do right now? We celebrated 25 years of marriage with a trip to Barbados this past November. The traveling has definitely slowed down since moving back to the U.S. 2.5 years ago, but it'll pick up again after we're done with the house.

Family: My parents are doing well living in Florida full-time. They are warm, tan, healthy, and happy. Jo Mama - Mrs. TBF's mom - is feisty as ever in Chicago, and doing well. My sister, brother-in-law, and their four kids moved to New Jersey for his job last year. They live about a 90-minute drive from us now, which is nice.


Me: Other than the all-consuming renovation of The Beast, my day-to-day life is pretty much the same as it was in Switzerland. OK, minus the German lessons, taking public transportation everywhere, being treated as "the foreigner", not being able to make any noise after 10 p.m. Ummmm.... OK.... I take it back. My life is nothing like it was in Switzerland. I turned the big 5-0 last September. What else? Nothing much, I guess. I'm still retired (4,525 days, and counting) other than my "job" making sure that all Mrs. TBF does is work and relax, and that's about it.

I'm not going to make any promises about blogging in the future (you see how well that has gone over the past couple of years), but I may surprise you.

I pretty much did this one because I wanted to see if I still knew how to access my blog.

Is anybody still out there? Let me know if you are.

13 comments:

oskyldig said...
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Michael Lehet said...

You ARE full of surprises aren't you TBF?

Glad to hear that you're finally getting settled back into the US. I can just imagine you sitting on the couch watching TV late at night and deciding that you need to vacuum the floors....and you do!!!

oskyldig said...

It's lovely to see renovation photos and see your blog pop up in my feed after quite a long time. I'm glad that the stressful time is nearly over and that when moving into Phase II, it will be much more calming effect on you.

Happy Belated Birthday, by the way! =)

Matthew said...

Most of the blogs I followed when we moved to Switzerland in 2007 have gone dark. It was definitely a surprise to randomly check google reader and see a new post from TBF.
Good luck with the continuing renovation.
All the Best from Basel,
Matthew (SwissCoffee, i think?)

Unknown said...

it must be very cold there ...i hope someday go to this places

AllAmericanGrl said...

Welcome back TBF and Mrs. TBF! :)

AllAmericanGrl said...

Welcome back TBF and Mrs. TBF!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Well blow me down. Was thinking about ya and Mrs. TBF and thought I am just going to see if he is actually on after all this time and WOW you posted!!! Nice house, not nice snow, good luck with phase ll of house, Happy belated b'day, joining the rest of us, how does it feel. Hi to Mrs. TBF and look forward to checking the blog in another 1 1/2 years for new pics!!! HAHA

TobsonHelsinki said...

Lovely to see a blog post from someone I used to follow back in the day when blogging as TobsonHelsinki. Good to see you are doing well and greetings from the old world. :)

AllAmericanGrl said...

Happy 2014 Finn Family! :)

Unknown said...

snow ! I love winter !

Unknown said...

Hello Big Finn!

I was introduced to your blog by Harri Hirsimaki... I work with Harri at Joy Global (previously Mining Technologies) here in Sudbury.

Have enjoyed reading of your adventures - thanks!

Olli Matikainen