T Minus 9 and 8 Days

T minus 9 and 8 Days, Sunday and Monday, August 5 and 6, 2012: "30 Letters to 30 People"

I'm calling this another two-fer. I came up with this idea today and then realized that I could get two days out of this idea!! I have a lot of siblings (5 brothers and a sister). The four youngest are half siblings, and I have an older brother (he's 32) and younger brother (he's 25) who are full brothers. Of course, I don't really divide them like that in my head...and I generally only call them all either my brother or my sister. I usually only clarify when people are shocked that my youngest brother is 6. That's right, my youngest brother is 6 and my oldest brother is 32. We span 26 years...

Anyhow, my older brother lives in Minnesota and my 25 year old brother lives in Florida. I don't get to see them nearly as often as I would like to and of course, these visits can be filled with some bickering. We don't fight nearly as much as we did when we were kids but we still do a little...that's how we show we care. We're that mature :)

One of the rare times we're in the same place at once...this was about three years ago. See how mature we look!

So, today, I was thinking that I don't think they realize how much I admire them. My older brother is an incredible mechanic. He's one of those people that could take a car apart and put it back together and it'll still work. I'd have half of the parts left and be wondering what the hell to do with them... I tend to call him when something is wrong with my car to see if I'm being lied to by my local mechanic and to see if what they're telling me is reasonable. My 25 year old brother is an incredibly talented musician. When we were younger, he just decided to teach himself how to play the guitar. And he did. And now, he can write his own music and has earned a scholarship for music at the college he goes to. I'm seriously jealous of them both.

So, they'll both be getting a letter (one to be written today and one tomorrow) telling them that. I think the letter will be better than doing it in person because mid-westerners (MN is in the mid-west...) aren't exactly emotionally demonstrative people. We'd all be embarrassed if I tried to do this in person! This way, they know and we're not embarrassed. And, everyone likes to get something good in the mail :)