where I talk with my inside voice
We bought Minecraft for Noah in 2013, not knowing what an impact it would have on our lives. That first Christmas, I remember we spent an entire day playing it, and that eventually became an annual tradition that all four of us engaged in. Yesterday, we continued the tradition – although not for the entire day – with Josie, Noah...
It’s not the greatest photo, but I wanted some proof that we saw it, and all I had was my cell phone. It’s somewhat surprising I could get any image at all. If you have a telescope, you already know how unusual it is to be able to see two planets in the same field of view, but to have...
Two weeks ago we braved the pandemic to visit Jackson Pianos downtown and let the kids try out some of their refurbished instruments. Coincidentally, they had a 1988 Yamaha upright there that the kids both liked and it was big enough that Noah could actually fit under it. I wrote them a check and we headed home. A few days...
We had our oven go out last Friday and managed to get a repairman scheduled for Monday (before Thanksgiving) to come look at it. He tested the temperature sensor and concluded that it was our control board that needed replacing. A quick search revealed that they don’t make that part anymore, so it cost me $109 to find out that...
Needless to say, I have fallen behind in my blogging habits here. My last post was from our Virginia vacation in 2018. I want to say that I will go back and fill in some significant events since then, but I can’t promise anything. A lot has happened – it’s been too crazy – but starting in early June 2019,...
If I have to stay home, due to the pandemic, I should at least be productive around the house. Thankfully, between Amazon and curbside pick-up at Lowes, I can still get the materials I need to work on a few things I’ve been planning for a while. I installed some permanent landscape lights near the house and at the base...
This has been a rough month. It started with me having a disagreement with the chainsaw (the chainsaw won, by the way), and a trip to Urgent Care for five stitches. A few days later, the United States finally succumbed to the coronavirus pandemic that has been spreading across the globe. Despite what seemed to be ample warnings in Jan...
Pea Ridge National Park is a Civil War battlefield in northern Arkansas, not too far from Branson. We wound up taking Noah’s troop there for a weekend campout because our original plans fell through. I had agreed to organize the Feb campout, which is always scheduled over President’s Day weekend and usually includes a visit to some patriotic landmark like...
The kids wanted to make some extra money, so they asked me if they could go around asking the neighbors if they could rake their leaves. I said sure. I even drove them up to Ace Hardware to buy some equipment (a new rake and bear claws) and the paper bags for yard waste. They spent the day walking the...
Strangely enough, Jane was the person who told me that my aunt Marlene had passed away. She just happened to call my dad the day it happened, and she sent me a message on Facebook letting me know. So Dixie and I drove down to El Dorado for the funeral. We rented a trailer and hauled my dad’s Mercury down...
We have spent the last several weekends going over to my parents’ house in O’Fallon and going through everything we find there to see if there is anything worth keeping. Certainly there are plenty of things, like photo albums and books and other mementos, but I am somewhat surprised that there isn’t more. We have brought home three truckloads of...
This was a rough week. I got my dad moved down to El Dorado Springs. He has moved in with his sister Marlene, for which I am grateful because I’m not sure how much longer he can actually live on his own without help. So it’s nice knowing that he has someone else there in case of an emergency. He’s...
We are truly blessed. Sometimes it is easy forget that. So today I wanted to take some photos of Dixie and I with our new cars, so we don’t forget how lucky we are – and also so we could look back on these decades from now and remember that there was a time when we were still cool. The...
Last year, the poison ivy was a bit out of control in our yard, and Dixie wanted to move the garden away from the back fence so that we didn’t have so many vines growing through it into the garden. So we spent the weekend creating a new bed, by moving the rear bed to the front – leap-frogging the...
Our little girl had another birthday, and now she is officially a “tween.” She helped make her birthday cake this year, and I’m so proud of the young lady she has become.
The St. Louis Symphony’s annual Christmas Concert never fails to get me in the Christmas spirit. The choices of songs are always so festive and this year they had the entire audience sing along with a medley of carols. At last year’s concert, I saw several people wearing the LED light necklaces, so I had to order some for us...
