Taking Down The Lights

It was a quiet weekend. Nothing much to do except for the necessary: Take down the Christmas lights. Our wreath can stay on the door till April, but the lights must come down the first weekend after New Year’s Day. It might be a local ordinance.
“It’s going to be near fifty degrees,” I said. “I’ll [...]

A Golden Anniversary

My Mom and Dad were married 50 years ago on Labor Day.
Dad always considered their anniversary to be on Labor Day, though Labor Day is a moveable holiday. Mom always considered their anniversary to be on September 2. We now celebrate both days, except on the years when they fall on the same day.
We will [...]

An Expected Sadness

I wrote about my visit to my grandmother in the nursing home here.
She passed away last night. We got the call during the 11:00 o’clock news. I don’t remember much of what the newscaster said. I don’t even remember if the sound was turned down.
Sometimes, when I’ve gotten calls like this in the past, it [...]

Celebrating Life

How does life imitate art?
Over the weekend, I went with a few other family members to visit my grandmother who was recently admitted to a hospice program at a suburban Detroit nursing home.
…tears and sadness…
She is 97 years old and has gradually, over the past couple of years, lost touch with her faculties due to [...]

Father and Son

Some traditions are just worth perpetuating. Joe and I went to the Tigers game on Tuesday. The Tigers lost, but–in the bottom of the eighth when the Tigers scored three runs to tie the score and Joe and I were standing, waving our hats and screaming our throats raw with 39,707 other Tigers fans–well, those [...]

Travels in the Thumb 4

We packed up and left the state park just before lunch. Gale used the county map book to navigate us through back roads while I drove. Joe fell asleep in the back seat.
All roads in this part of the state are laid out into an almost perfect grid pattern. The roads run straight, for the [...]

Travels in the Thumb 3

We were sitting and drinking coffee in the morning. Gale was watching and listening to the birds over the swamp behind us. Joe was completing the first two pages of his summer vacation workbook. Joe said he heard a bird that sounded like “Pac Man dying.”
We were straining to hear the Pac Man bird when [...]

Travels in the Thumb 2

Flat farmland. That’s what we had to drive through to get to this year’s vacation spot on Saginaw Bay.
We arrived at the state park at a bit before three in the afternoon, checked in and unloaded our stuff into the cabin.
The cabin is rustic, has four bunks but has electricity and a full bathroom. It [...]

Travels in the Thumb 1

I attended an elder’s meeting at church this morning and then returned home to pack for our mini-vacation.
We stayed tonight at my Mom and Dad’s in Macomb County. Tomorrow we head north for a couple of days’ stay at a cabin in a state park on the tip of Michigan’s thumb.
We were caught in construction [...]

Don’t Take Me Shopping

Gale and I were at Bed, Bath & Beyond shopping for a birthday present. It’s a store that has never been on my radar. I can be found frequenting grocery stores, the Home Depot and various bookstores. I’ve always found it difficult to understand how a store like Bed, Bath & Beyond can even exist.
I [...]

Yes, it’s March…

And a little druid came and built snowhenge in our front yard.

After a bit of hot chocolate, memories of a more personal creation:

Four Years Ago Today

I’ll continue the Missional Code Breaking series in a couple of days. I needed to take a couple of days and do some other things.
Meanwhile…
I was reorganizing my file cabinet the other day and came across an old notebook. The notebooks were repositories for my writing before blogging.  For the entry dated Saturday, February 1, [...]

Just an Update Entry for December 4

Things really haven’t slowed down yet.
I have three major projects at work coming due at the same time. I thought I was done with two of them, but they refuse to be put to bed. There are always unplanned issues that need to be resolved.
Our lives at home are being hurtled into December with barely [...]

Waiting for the Snow

We’re waiting for the snow. Right now, late afternoon, it’s still too warm, though wet, very wet. Tonight, however, the rain will turn, and inches, maybe a foot or two of snow, will fall before tomorrow evening.
Always an exciting time of year.
Unless you have to drive in the stuff.
Even worse, unless your daughter has to [...]

Critical Regret

I think I did something today that I regret.
Gale and I were talking today about Joseph, specifically about a project he’s working on for school. During our conversation, I expressed my opinion about what is to be learned from this complex project, which goes a bit beyond the competencies of fifth graders. Most of the [...]

A General Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving:2006  
We gave thanks today using a short responsorial prayer borrowed from the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
I chose a pre-prayed prayer because it took a bit of pressure off me to make one up off the top-of-my-head. Choosing a written prayer also kept family members from having to think about that one special thing or [...]

Earliest Memories: 2

For a reason I’ve never known–nor have I ever asked–my parents were not able to have children biologically. They discovered this inability soon after they were married and subsequently set about to adopt a child.
As soon as I was old enough to understand, they told me about what happened during the time leading up to [...]

Earliest Memories: 1

For a variety of different reasons, I’ve been talking to people about their earliest conscious memories.
Psychologists tell us these memories are powerful, even if they’re nothing more than out-of focus images flitting quickly past our minds’ eye. I’m not sure if the memories are necessarily prophetic or even if they plant in us some irrevocable [...]

Sun Shines Down

I intended to get up early enough while we on vacation to at least see a sunrise, if not get a picture of one. I failed.
In my defence, however, this failure is not some earth shattering admission of weakness.
I’m not an early riser. I’ve never been an early riser. I’ve always used the the excuse [...]

Walking

A week ago today we were walking down this pathway to the falls at Tahquamenon. Gale and Joe were ahead of me. It’s not that I had a hard time keeping up; it’s that there was so much to look at, to hear and to smell. It was a glorious day.
Here the path is clearly [...]