Ramblings on Father's Day

I've been using this blog almost exclusively to post my digital scrapbook layouts lately, but I also intended it originally to keep a sort of journal as well. So tonight that's what this entry is supposed to be.

I gave Glen the layout I worked on yesterday of him and his fishing buddy canoing our pond. He seemed to like it. I also gave him a card I made (digitally, of course). I told him he was the best dad a boy could have, and it's true.

Brian came over for dinner tonight, which I cooked (I don't do that very often, but since it was father's day, I couldn't very well expect Glen to cook his own dinner, now could I?). I fixed meatloaf, which is something that he doesn't cook, which is also why I fixed it. Plus we had fresh sweet corn from the garden (yum), new potatoes (also from the garden), fresh pineapple (from Walmart LOL!), and zucchini bread (yes, the zucchini was also from the garden - see a trend here?).

Then I asked Brian for some help with the journaling on my layout I did as a tribute to my father, because I thought it was a bit choppy (he's working on a master's degree in English). He read it and agreed, and suggested that it was "too general." He thought I might focus more and maybe give some anecdotes or more specific examples. When I said I liked the basic sentiments but just felt it didn't flow, he reread it and said I needed more active verbs. Well, I could change one sentence around from "He was warm and loving and put his family first." to "He loved his family very much and always put them first." But it's pretty hard to come up with any active verbs for "My father was a kind and gentle man." And this is when Brian went back to his original suggestion that this statement really didn't mean anything to him. The problem I'm having is that my father has been dead for over 30 years, and my memories of him are pretty dim, so I'm just not sure I can come up with anything much better than what I've written. So for now, I think I will change the one sentence and print it, then I may try to do another one later. It's not that I disagree with Brian - he's probably right. I'm just not sure how deep I can go right now. We'll see.