It’s the first FULL day of summer in the northern hemisphere. It’s where I live and where most of the world’s population lives also – it’s approximately a 90-10 spilt! It’s largely due to equity of land distribution – 68-32 spilt in favor of the northern hemisphere.
But this isn’t a geography lesson.
I saw something recently that explained one of the reasons for the decline in cognitive ability in aging adults (and that’s me) is when we stop creating.
MtDC is fifteen years old this summer going on sixteen and I’d like to see it continue to grow.
TRUE – a wonderful thought for the first day of summer, Wheaton, IL Friday, June 20, 2025
I have a blogger friend who ‘s Saturday post is always – Photos of the Week. Each week Wynne includes a sign she has come across in her travels during the week and it is always a good message. She peppers it with images from her family’s weekI look. I forward to her posts each Saturday morning.
During the annual canoe race in late July, the racers must navigate the Ausable River and ‘portage’ their canoes at several spots along the course. For the racers, it means they have reached a dam along the river, and they must climb out of the canoe, pull their canoe out of the river, and carry the canoe to the river below the dam. Then climb back in and continue paddling down river.
Portage is also used as a name for a city. There are five cities or towns named Portage in the United States – Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
the view from our daughters apartment – a great place to enjoy morning coffee
It also is our daughter’s new home. Last weekend we moved her from her college home to a new home in Portage, Michigan. She took a job and needed a place to live; she chose well. It’s a great apartment (much better than my first) and it has a nice patio for the dogs where they can sniff and explore. It’s also a nice place to sit and sip coffee while watching the dogs – Fern and Nova.
This morning finds us at the lake with our son and his family – the grandies. It’s their first visit and it’s the first time we’ve had three generations at the lake in long time. Our daughter will join us late Friday night or early Saturday morning for a full three generational photo. I can’t wait!
It’s going to be an exciting day with maybe a visit to the beach and hopefully some photos. So, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day or I’ll be left behind. Making the days Count, one day at a time, while watching the dogs, the grandies, or a sunset.
Summer break, my annual audition for retirement began yesterday after I finished getting my classroom cleaned, organized (that might be a stretch), and stored for the summer cleaning and learning season.
most of my work is done on my mobile device, but I had to work with this one on my desktop…. a color vision is posted at the end of the post
This year’s edition is seventy days long. It will be filled with family, grandies, travel, baseball, creativity, and dogs. I can’t wait.
TRAVEL and GRANDIES This summer my wife and I will be traveling to Europe for a two-week vacation starting in London, then Wales, back to London, then to Paris, and finishing in Amsterdam before returning home. I am excited and nervous all at the same time. This trip is similar to the one I took fifteen years ago to take my father’s cremains home, except this time we will return our step-mother’s cremains to where she wanted to spend eternity. Like that trip to honor my father, I plan to blog along the way.
seven months old and growing by the day… soon they will be crawling.
Summer would be summer without a few weeks as the lake. This year we will host our grandies for the first time. We are excited and looking forward to the summer with the family.
I am traveling this weekend. We are in Michigan for our daughter’s college graduation. I have a little extra time this morning and saw a post on another blogger’s page and thought perhaps I could dip my toe in the pool and join the party.
Since, I am on the road, I needed to write subplans. Teachers can’t leave without leaving some sort of plan behind.
my office desk, awaiting Thursday’s sub on Wednesday evening……
I stayed late Wednesday afternoon to make sure my kids were learning, challenged, and focused while I was gone. I was the last one out of the parking lot at 6 :15 PM. I’ll be back in the classroom making the last days of the school year count on Monday. Making the Days COUNT, one day at a time, learning every day and making each day count.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, October 23, 2024
looking straight up from the porch…. my favorite tree in the backyard Wednesday, October 23, 2024 3:46 PM
Yesterday, it rained for the first time in a couple of weeks. It didn’t rain much but our streak of clear skies came to a halt. it’s been a dry summer and early fall.
This morning it was overcast, and I couldn’t see the stars, or Jupiter, when I walked Ivy into the backyard for her morning business. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel well this morning and elected to use one of my sick days. By midday, the clouds had been replaced by a fabulous fall blue sky.
I was on the porch when I leaned back and looked up. This is what I saw.
Amazing, soon these leaves will carpet the backyard before being raked, bagged, and sent away.
The color this year has come late, but it is beautiful. I am going to appreciate the color before it gone for the season. It’s been a full day, even for a sick day. I am feeling much better, and I’ll be back in front of my kiddos tomorrow. It’ll be a great day, maybe a million and six times better than today, but who knows. In the meantime, I am going to proof, edit, upload, then head to bed. Making the Days Count, when I am sick, when I am well, and every time in between.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Tonight, my wife and I popped in the car to travel a little further west to see the early evening sky. We took off after sunset I’ve been excited about watching sunsets and looking up at the sky since I shared this month’s edition of the Jet Propulsion Lab’s What’s Up: Skywatching Tips from NASA with my kiddos. I’ve added the video below. We are learning about light, it’s that time in the school year.
I was excited when I learned we might be able to see a comet this month if we looked at the western sky close to sunset. That’s what we were looking for, but all we could see was a pretty sunset, Venus and a couple of stars. If I looked the other way, I could see the waxing gibbous moon rising in the eastern sky.
the sunset look east
to rising moon looking west
This past weekend we were at the lake, but we arrived too late Friday night to look for the comet and Saturday and Sunday were cloudy, so I couldn’t look for the comet away from the light pollution of the big city. But I am not giving up. Tomorrow night I’ll be outside to see the setting sun and I am hauling along a pair of binoculars for tomorrow night’s volunteer shift at Loaves and Fishes. Continue reading W^2 – comet chasing→
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, September 25, 2024
This week’s photo isn’t a photo it’s a video of a squirrel with graphics.
A squirrel chirps away at me… Wheaton, IL Sunday, September 22, 2024 8:50 AM
Mr. Squirrel and I met Sunday morning, a little more than an hour after the autumnal equinox. I was sitting in the screened-in porch, the three-season room, minding my own business when Mr. Squirrel began chirping and chattering at me as if to say I was in the wrong place.
I took the video and sent it via text to O at college.
ME: Play this for Fern… let me know what happens
A couple of hours later….
O: She’s looking for a squirrel
I laughed, I figured right. Fern might not be able to recognize a photo or video, but she can hear and understand a mad squirrel.
My wife is doing better, and I am back at school. Three days in. It’s good to be back where I belong in September. Teaching kids and learning new things.
Today was an amazing day. I am hoping that tomorrow is a million and six times better. This morning, I started early and was out the door as the sun was rising. I am going to wrap up the day with this post and press publish. Making the Days Count, one day at a time making time, listening to the squirrel chirp making me smile.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, September 11, 2024
I am back at school, sort of.
It is good to be back at school. To be teaching and learning with kids and helping them see things from a new perspective. To have a schedule and do something productive. To be with colleagues who share your passion. To be growing with a purpose.
But sometimes you must be step back and take care of things at home. Since this past Monday, I’ve been at home taking care of things here. It’s my turn to be the caregiver. It’s hard. But it’s where I need to be. Forty years and almost thirty-three of them, married. I am thankful.
At school, my kiddos at school are in great hands. These are the same hands that took care of my kiddos when I had my second knee replaced in December 2018 and the same one who stepped up at 2 AM when my son had his motorcycle accident, five years ago. She’s been their countless times when I needed to be somewhere else, or when I was too sick to be at school. I am thankful.
I’ve been talking to her and hearing what my kiddos have been doing with her at school, while I am at home taking care of home. I am thankful.
This past summer was a whirlwind of sorts. heck, this past year!
summer’s last sunset (and a beer) Lake Margrethe, Michigan, August 31, 2024 8:03 PM
Summer finished at the lake with all of us – W, O, and B at the lake to close it down for the season. That’s the first picture. Continue reading W^2 – indecisive→
I could hear the gentle rain tapping on the roof this morning when I got up before Ivy. Yesterday the weather made a turn. It’s cooler today after several days of warm, sometimes hot, muggy stillness of the dog days of August.
Later this morning, we will be going home. It is both exciting and bittersweet.
Ivy was a puppy when I first started blogging, now she’s a senior dog, the senior dog. She doesn’t move like she once did, which is a blessing because I can remember many times trying to find her when she wandered away from the cottage and took off into the woods. We’ve learned a few things since those early days, but Fern is a lot like Ivy, but she will return when you call her. We have an Invisible Fence at home and both dogs know the boundary. At the lake we’ve been using a training collar, but that doesn’t contain either of them, especially Fern who has been known to return home with a deer leg, or two. It is bittersweet watching Ivy age, but it’s heartwarming seeing how Fern interacts with her. (NOTE – edited, last sentence added after publishing)
Fern and her deer leg from our trip here in April ’24
This morning, I woke up before Ivy and decided to go back to sleep, but before I could, I heard her stirring and quickly got up with her and got both she and Fern outside. When we were outside, I scanned the lake, and I noticed the heron was back. The heron was perched on the bow of Ely boat exactly where it was two days before. The heron didn’t seem fazed by the commotion of our morning routine and fortunately, Fern didn’t notice our visitor as she had Tuesday when the heron first appeared.
this morning’s phot, from the yard
Tuesday morning, I snapped a photo and sent it out on the family chat. Moments later W replied with a photo which he took the day before, on Monday.
Tuesday morning, my photo
Monday morning, W’s photo
Our Ohio friends are visiting this week. They arrived Monday afternoon well after our kids returned home after the race this past weekend. The race weekend was busy, and before our kids left, we took a family photo on the front steps. A family photo is something I have wanted to begin for a while, but I hadn’t done anything about it. There was a bit of grumbling, but we came together, and we have a family photo at the lake, the next time we take one it is going to include three generations, not two.
Tuesday afternoon, when we went out on the lake, we discovered evidence of the heron’s Monday visit to the Moomba on the tarp. Fortunately, it was a one-time visit.
This morning, after the dogs had finished their morning routine, I came inside and told my wife about the heron, and she got up to see it.
Normally, my morning routine is solitary – it’s just me and the dogs with my morning coffee. This morning, I had company.
It wasn’t long before H was down. I pointed to the heron, and we started talking about our visitor. While we deliberated, I remembered I had a copy of Sibley’s Guide to Birds. The guidebook was published in early 2020, and it helped us navigate the pandemic and I have a copy here and at home. It’s a great resource to have. Continue reading Day 60 – the great blue heron visits→
