story of me. the beginning.

beginning of a few stories about how i became who i am. i was born in "milwaukee" in the year 1980. my parents had already had two children by this point, my brother josh and sister anna. obviously i don't know anything about what happened at this point of my life, thus, i'm referring to stories i've been told over the years. when i was about the age of 6 months (?) my family packed up and moved to colorado on a train, in hopes of a new job for my father that didn't end up the way it was supposed to, and we had ended up moving back not too long after that. we moved from place to place when i was younger, milwuakee area, oconto falls area, and wisconsin rapids. some of my earliest memories are when we lived in oconto falls. memories of myself following my father on fishing trips...that i wasn't supposed to go on! i remember waking up really early one day, getting our fishing gear ready in dad's "workshop" and remember bits and pieces about that day, from the white bucket we used to put the fish in, to having corn flakes to eat? the only other memory i can remember in oconto falls was when i was attacked by a swarm of ground bees. josh, anna and i were on our way back to our house...when i noticed they were pretty far in front of me. i remember running to catch up with them down a trail, running over a log (?) and then got attacked. i don't remember being attacked, or anything that happened until i got to the door of the house. i remember waiting to get in. i remember something about a bath tub...but i'm not 100 % on that.


then comes rapids. we moved to rapids when i was 4. i vaguely remember the trip to rapids in "pudge's" (?) van. he was my dads friend. i remember arriving while it was dark out..i believe this was at our apartment on 21st avenue...which also the place where i broke my arm. i remember being told to "hey matt, climb up in the tree and take down that "no tresspassing" sign!" and falling down. i don't remember the hospital, but do remember coming home in our red car...and losing the marker that i was supposed to have so people could sign my cast. we had also lived in an old wood house acrossed the street from the east side pool, that had wooden floors. i remember it being cold, and i also remember that josh had a dog. sometime after that is when we moved into a house on 22nd street, from "housing"...the place in rapids where low income people rented houses. this is about the time where i begin remember most things that happened in my life. i remember sam being a baby, i remember going fishing at "the pond" which was 2 blocks away from our house. i also remember going to kindergarten at children's choice. for some reason, i went to this school, while josh and anna went to washington? i think that i took the bus there? this is when i had my first crush, i have no idea what her name was, but do remember that her father was a cop, and i used to go to her house and play on the swings. i can remember the first day of kindergarten when mom dropped me off, and gave me a kiss, which embarassed the heck out of me! mrs. pape was the name of the teacher. i remember going on a field trip to a zoo, it was either the one in baraboo, or the one in madison...although the zoo in baraboo does look familiar, unlike the vilas zoo here in madison. when we were on that field trip, i remember getting my hand stuck in a little gum ball machine! i remember bus rides, and singing "it's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring" song! i remember the neighbors we had...one crabby old man, and a couple houses down, josh had a friend who lived in a brown house. after we lived there for a year, we moved into the house on 21st avenue on the other side of town. we moved there in the summer, and went swimming all summer long because we had pool pins that my parents got at a reduced rate, if not free, because we were poor. most of my childhood through adolesconce occured at this house. i could go on and on with memories from this house, but i'll only share a few with you today! i remember making my first friends shortly after we moved, when my dad said he saw some kids on the street behind us. he brought me over there, and there i was introduced to jason garski, and chris martin...who were neighbors. i remember my dad telling me to ask one of them (i think it was jason) for a piece of gum! we spent a lot of time playing football/baseball etc in both chris's backyard, and also in the street! we used to have "homerun derbies" in chris's backyard..where we would have to hit the ball over the "fence" of railroad ties! most of our football playing occured in the street. i used to have quite an arm for throwing footballs and baseballs...pretty accurate, and could throw further than any person i played games with! through chris, i met adam morris. he lived in the green house on the other side of our block, also in one of the low income houses. we saw plenty of families come and go in those two houses. we used to have sleepovers at adams house, chris would have to bring extra clothes and blankets because he used to wet his bed. :) a couple years after we moved in, adam and his family moved to a white house on grand avenue in rapids. it wasn't too far away, but for a 8 year old, it was! before he moved though, i do remember one of the most terrible things myself and my brothers have ever done! one day, we went to adams house to play. we opened the door, and no one was home! i'm not sure which brother was with me...(i think it was zach) but we had ended up stealing a whole bunch of their stuff!! i brought over my grey backpack, and filled it up with various things, including a bunch of change which they kept in an old "cheese balls" container! jason's mom had called when they were gone, seeing if it was okay for him to come over and play...why we answered the phone, i don't know...but if we didn't, the police would have been called to their house for a robbery!!! jason's mom had ended up catching us while we were there, and brought us home. my dad had brought all of the stuff we took back to them...and we got one of the worst "spankings" i remembered getting! (it didn't happen that often) man-o-man were we in trouble!!!

it's time to go pick up my girls, i'll post more another day!!!!

my babies are sick.

lydia and maddie have been sick since lastnight. maddie woke up around midnight, and came in our room freaking out because her tummy hurt...low and behold, the gift of regurgitation. this lasted for about 3 or 4 hours, along with diahrea. i laid down with her for until we "woke" up at about 8 or so...after a total of about 1 or 2 hours of sleep for the night! :)she hadn't gone to the bathroom, nor throw up since about 4 am...although she's been pretty weak, crabby and has a fever. tlc was given, and helped most of the time. we also put up the christmas tree today with maddies "direction" on where to put the ornaments, while lydia and lily took a nap. it lifted her spirits a bit. after the tree was put up, she fell asleep for a good couple hours on the floor in front of it, curled up under a blanket. i used this time to go to woodmans to get our grocery shopping done with lily, while lydia and maddie relaxed and slept for a few hours. lily did really well! i haven't been out that long with lily by myself yet, but i used to do that with maddie daily when she was her age. lydia is doing much better now, luckily the bug hit her a little differently than it did with maddie, and although she was pretty sick...she didn't have to throw up at all...which she HATES. all in all, it's been an ok day all things considered. taking care of my babies always makes me feel special...knowing i'm there for them. now it's time to rest! good night!

chocolate chip cookies.

my mom made me some chocolate chip cookies for my birthday (which is tomorrow) and sent them to me along with a birthday card. my mom is awesome! love you mom!

dad, where are you?

as some may know, my father passed away from cancer (adenocarcinoma of an unknown primary) in august 2002. some of you may also know that a lot of things that happen to me get hidden deep inside of me, and rarely ever see the light of day. this is true in this situation. i, to this day have yet to face my father's death. i haven't accepted it, and have become emotionally numb in most parts inside of me because of it. every once in a while, i will catch myself off guard thinking about his death, and how much i miss him...but shove it back in. i have a hard time remembering what he was like to myself and to the other 6 members of our family (4 brothers, sister and my mother) i know that he was an amazing man, husband, father, and human being. no doubt. i just wish that i could remember him. the way my mother does, the way my siblings do...or the way my grandmas do. yet, everytime i try to think of him before he got sick...my mind goes empty. a few tidbits here and there, yet i don't really remember. i remember the last couple months of his life extremely clear. i remember the day when auntie marie called me while i was working over a year and a half earlier to let me know that he was sick. i remember the day that i knew that he wasn't going to be living for much longer...i remember how skinny he was, how i could feel his ribs when i hugged him...i didn't want to hug him too hard because i was afraid that i would hurt him. he told me everything was going to be alright, and not to worry about him. i remember how my family went camping that summer before he died, and regret that lydia and i did not go with them. i wasn't there to witness a lot of moments that i loved having with him. fishing was our favorite, and is my favorite memory of him. we went on a fishing trip the summer before he died up to oconto falls, and shawano. uncle tim, josh, jason andres, my uncle bob, as well as my two cousins. he brought us fishing where we learned how to fish as kids. we went fishing at the "indian steps" below the dam in oconto falls, which i don't think i was allowed on when i was younger. he had also loved his garage. sitting out there until late at night drinking his Old Style, and listening to Inna-Godda-Davida on full blast. i remember when he would bring me to softball games down at mead field. how he brought zach and myself to little league, buying us sunflower seeds, and yelling at me because i would pay more attention to putting sunflower seeds in my mouth, than to the game. i remember how poor we were as a family until a couple of years before he got sick. when they didn't have enough money to get me a birthday present, yet my dad would somehow be able to buy me a bag of sunflower seeds, or a candy bar. this made not getting a present on my birthday not so important. it was the little things he did for us that made him the best man in the world. these are the little things that i want to pass on to my daughters. it makes me sad that my daughters will grow up without my father as their grandfather. he would have adored them. they would have been his little princesses. my father, the self proclaimed man who would never have kids, yet had six, absolutely LOVED children. he always had a way of making them feel special. i hope that i can be half the man to my children, that he was for all of us. i hope that the little things my father did..that made him so special, can be reflected through me. i hope that my daughters can experience their grandfather through me. i hope that all of the memories of my father come back to me. i hope that some day i will be able to face his death, because i feel that until i do this, the people in my life will not be able to experience the person i was before his death.

blog

so today, my girls and i hung out pretty much all day. lydia made pancakes for herself and i like she does every sunday morning. we went shopping for a few things at target..copps..and shopko. we had lunch at noodles & company...haven't had that in a while...delicious! maddie helped me put some christmas lights up outside before it gets too cold and snowy outside...both of us disappointed that we couldn't find the lights that we got for outside last year...hmph! that brings us to now. working on laundry, dinner on the stove...and the start of bath rituals. excellent! i'm really excited for my brother zach coming to visit this week. i don't have any friends, except for people who are my family. it's always great visiting up there, and having some of my family visit from time to time. we're going to grill out on tuesday and amelia is cooking dinner for us on wednesday! then thursday is turkey day. woohoo! this is matt...signing off....



if i could the talent from any musician, i'd take it from warren haynes...vocals and guitar...great sound...dereks great too!




(you'll probably see me posting a lot of songs, etc...so you better get used to it!)

First Post.

hi, i'm matt. many of you know me as matt, or even matthew. i really don't know exactly why i started a blog, and am not sure if i will use it regularly or not, what the content will be...chance being extremley random topics about things that interest me at the time of the post. here's a song i've been enjoying recently. enjoy.