I am HOME for the weekend. Not the home where I live, but the HOME where I grew up, where my roots are, where my mom, brothers, and their families live. Texas. All of us are here: me, B, W, and O. Ivy stayed back and, I am told, is sulking: we’ll return Sunday evening and hopefully all will be forgiven. In the meantime, it’s a family reunion on both sides of our families.
great backdrop… perfect
The reunion is Three funerals and a wedding, sort of twist on the Hugh Grant movie from the 90s, Three Weddings and a Funeral.Continue reading Home→
Sunday was a beautiful day in the Midwest. Actually, Saturday was a beautiful day, too and I am not referring to the Chicago Cubs.
We’ve had a run of beautiful days. Warm sunny afternoons followed by cool nights. Tonight, the sky was clear again when I took Ivy outside. Since she and Mr. Skunk met in August, she gets an escort out in the evening. I looked up and I could see several stars. Living so close to a major city, my stargazing is limited by the light pollution. I am thankful for the stars that shine bright enough for me to see.
ivy leaves shine a brilliant red-orange
I spent most of my day hunkered down in the basement working on school and other things. I popped out of my cave to enjoy a slice of O’s birthday cake. It was O’s birthday and W was over to help celebrate.
It was that time in the afternoon when the sun’s angle illuminates and shines across the landscape in a special way. It makes the grass greener and the fall leaves redder, oranger, and yellower than they are in the midday sun or morning sun.
the leaves of the maple tree peak through the other trees lit by the sun
The backside of our home faces west and is surrounded by mature maple trees and a lonely ash tree. Among the maples is a maple tree that turns the brightest orange-yellow in early fall. It is so bright it appears to be afire. The other maple trees turn a pale yellow and drop almost simultaneously after the first heavy frost in mid-November. One of the maple trees has a vine that climbs the trunk and had turned a brilliant red-orange. Continue reading shine/sunshine: a photo challenge→
We (we Americans) are in the midst of a contentious presidential election. I’ve been blogging since 2010 and, so far, I’ve successfully avoided talking politics. AND, I am not going to break with tradition, I’ll keep my opinion on the presidential election to myself.
But, “all politics is local,” former Congressman and Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil is credited with the phrase, bit it’s a moot point.
I vote, or should vote, for the candidate that most closely aligns with my political, and economic, interests. That is what makes the election for a national leader local.
I teach 8th graders US History (and science) and my students are itching to know who I am voting for or planning to vote for this year. I am not telling them who I am planning to vote for, either.
I’ve had this weekend circled on my calendar since Labor Day. It’s been awhile since we’ve been up here, by the lake, in the early fall. The past few years, we’ve been able to come up only after football season was finished and even then it was for a short two-day weekend, not the longer three-day weekend that Columbus Day brings.
the sun lights up South Bay, the wind whips the lake, and we’re here… by the lake, Up North.
Last year, it was W, O, Ivy, and I for fall cleanup, the year before in ’14 we all of us left on early Saturday afternoon (after football practice) and only had Sunday to work, and in 13’ I came by myself.
I’ve been searching back in my memory and the cottage guest book and it’s been a long time since we’ve been Up North at this time in the year.
B and I reminisced on our way out of town Friday evening as the sunset in the rearview mirror about our trip in ’96. It was BK – before kids – her parents met us and we had a great time. We drove through the countryside looking at the fall color and we did some yard work, but I remember the deep breaths I was able take by the lake. It does that for me, the lake helps me relax and refocus. Continue reading water – a photo challenge→
25 years screams by in an instant. It seems like the other day, I was standing outside of a church in Versailles, Ohio nervously pacing….
Our wedding day – Warren, B, me, my mom and David
The post below is from 2013…
Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. 25 years ago, today was a great day and there have been many more in between. Today is gonna be a great day, I know it and I can feel it. So, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, every day, all day.
Thanks for stopping in….
Yesterday was our 22nd anniversary. I have known B for much longer, almost thirty years. The time has flown by. If I close my eyes, it seems like yesterday when we met, got married, and had kids. It was also my younger brother’s birthday. For a short time, we will be consecutive 51-50-49. I am the oldest, the smartest, the best looking, and the most humble, in case you didn’t know. Yesterday was also homecoming for W and it was a day full of activity finishing with a dance. Oh, the memories it brings back. It’s fall in the Midwest, again. It happens every year. The days get shorter and cooler, and the trees begin to turn and then leaves begin to fall. It happens, always. Continue reading 25 years ago…..→
Sunday morning, October 2 – it’s fall. Fall means cooler nights, shorter days, pumpkins, apples, Halloween, and Friday Night Lights – high school football.
Olivia and William root on their Tigers! State Championship game 2009
B and I have been going to high school football games since we were kids. We started taking W when he was young, then O came along. B and I would watch from the end zone along the fence and the kids would watch until they were old enough to hang out with their friends, then we ‘graduated’ to the stands when W reached high school. In ’14 and ’15, W was on the sidelines. He’d getting his playing time on Saturday, but he hung in there for four years as a high school football player. I admire him and have great respect for his stick-it-to-ed-ness. W graduated in May and is off testing his wings at the next step at the local community college, but we still go Friday night to watch and root on the Tigers.
Friday night, we were in the stands. It was the final home game of the season, and it was Homecoming. Tigers were winless in five starts. It’s been a tough couple of years for the Tigers – last year ended 2-7 after making it to the quarter-finals of the state playoffs in ’14.
Watching the game brought back memories from when the kids were younger. I remembered back to ’09. W was in sixth grade, his first year at middle school, and O was in first grade. The Tigers had made the playoffs and the first game was Friday, October 31 – Halloween. Continue reading Nostalgia – a photo challenge→
