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Sign of the Week – July 11th

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It’s Friday and this week’s sign comes from the tunnel connecting terminal 1 at O”Hare International Airport to the C gates. It was at the bottom of the escalator after my wife and I descended. Yes, we fly for LOVE.

LOVE – pass it on. O’Hare International Airport, Tuesday, July 8, 2025, 3:16 PM

There was another at Pass It On billboard at the opposite end of the tunnel, buy I was already on the up escalator when I noticed it.

Our flight left a bit late, but we arrived on time Wednesday morning.

Other than the hiccup of losing my credit card in the taxi when we arrived at the hotel and then being re-united hours later when Roy came back to the hotel and returned my credit card our first two days in London have been great.

The rising moon as we get closer to Europe.

Wednesday
I remember traveling from the states to Europe when I was young. My dad always told me no naps, just do things and then go to bed early. Once we had the credit card sorted out, we were on the move.

We did mostly tourist stuff. The Tower of London and a boat ride on the Thames back to Westminster and the tube back to our hotel was what was on the itinerary for the day and dinner at Dishoom.

We started at the Underground station in South Kensington near our hotel.

Fifty years ago, when I was here with my stepmother, Juliana she took us to the Tower of London. She was so patient with us. I can’t imagine what it might have been like for her;  going from no kids to having three boys aged 13-12-10. I know we weren’t an easy group, but she handled us like a pro. We were blessed to have her.

When my wife and I were planning she asked me what I ‘wanted’ to see and the Tower of London and a picture with one of the Yeoman Warders as on my list.

the three of us – London 1975 – Warren, David, a Tower Guard, and me
Me, fifty years later and a different Yeoman Warder…

And I wanted the see the poppy exhibit. It was beautiful.

We finished with dinner at Dishoom, an amazing Indian restaurant my wife has raved about since her trip with her sister almost ten years ago. It was delicious.

Once we go home, I followed my dad’s advice. I was out.

Thursday
We had breakfast at the hotel and planned our day. We decided to visit the Westminster are and take in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, then walk to Buckingham Palace. We figured we would decide what was next, later.

The underground leaves the South Kensington station.
After many trips to England in the 70s and 80s I had never ridden in a double decker bus until today

We arrived a little bit past half past nine, but the sundial was off due to daily savings time. Nature knows the time, always.

Westminster was bustling with activity and we walked with the crowd to see Parliament and Big Ben, then set out to visit the Westminster Cathedral. But Big Ben must be taken in from afar.

Big Ben was cooperative for my ‘selfie’

Afterwards, we walked to the Buxton Memorial Fountain. But alas it was closed for renovations. However, we found a lovely bench along the Thames in the shade and discovered a New World import or hybrid. The leaves are similar to the maple and the tree had a spiny pod dangling from the branches. We were curious so we searched it on the internet. The source of the tree is unknown, but botanists believe it is a cross between the Oriental Plane and the American Sycamore and soured by the great Colombian Exchange. Click here to read more!

The London Plane trees provided lovely shade for us the entire afternoon.

We decided to forgo a walk and took a bus, my first ever trip on a double decker bus – we rode up top. However, up top is quite warm and there is little air flow on a warm summer day – temperatures in the late morning were already hovering in the upper 80d (30C+).

We arrived closer to Buckingham Palace and began walking toward the palace until we came to Royal Mews. My wife decided she wanted to go in and I passed and planted myself in the shade opposite the Royal Mews. It was fun people watching while she enjoyed the tour. We both enjoyed our time!

We were already very close to the palace and walked toward the Queen Victoria Memorial and fountain, alas it too was turned off.

It was lovely to walk around the in the sunshine and we found a lovely spot in the shade before I snapped an ‘Susie’ before we headed off on our next stop – shoe shopping.

 

You can deduce whom is who…

The roads were clogged and most of our trip was to the shoe shop, by we walked along a tree-lined road – yes, London Plane trees provided shade for entirety of our walk.

It took the two of us a while to arrive at the shoe store via bus and foot.

After the shoe store, my wife took me to a a place she and her sister had eaten for a late afternoon bite. It was delicious.

A shared plate – salmon with dill sauce, roasted cabbage, eggplant with yogurt, and a turmeric tossed roasted cauliflower
the view from my seat, a beautiful sunny day

After exploring and shopping (me patiently waiting) we were spent and returned to the hotel to regroup.

It was an easy ride home, though I panicked at one stop and thought i had misread the map, but I didn’t. London transport is as easy as I remember it.

After re-grouping and freshening up, we ventured out for a late night bite to eat, sorry no photos.

Yes, we fly for LOVE!

It’s Friday and our last full day in London. Today is going to be an amazing day, possibly a million and six times better than yesterday so, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, walking back in time in the present, and remembering why I am here.

Why do you fly?

Tuesday’s Tune – Leaving on a Jet Plane

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Tuesday’s here and shortly, we’ll be on our way.

I’ll be trading my summer office for a hotel room, park bench, or cafe somewhere or someplace.

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane, 

I remember when this song was popular. It was 1970 and we were living in Venezuela and preparing to move back to the states. I can remembering hearing this song playing on the record player in our home as my mom packed the house before  the movers arrived to load everything to return the states. We weren’t much help – me aged 8, and my two brothers aged 7, and 5; likely more in the way than a help.

Jet travel was new and novel, and probably very expensive. But for an eight year-old, it was a wonderful experience and lasting memory. It was a propellor plane to Caracas and jet plane to Miami, then another jet home to Houston. Even today, when I smell diesel exhaust which  smells similar to jet exhaust, it takes me back to those early days of jet travel.

my mom – 1966 Paris at Orly, watching planes with us

Funny, but I am not alone. Every year when I teach the unit on smells and particles, the students make a list of smells they like and don’t like and we compare as a class. Invariably, there is always at least one kiddo (or more) who says they like the smell of diesel exhaust for the same reason; it’s usually a boy.

‘Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane, 

Today is going to be a great day, it could be a million and six times better than yesterday. So, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Still need to finish packing and taking care of things around the house. Making the Days Count, one day at a time going back and forward all at the same time.

Do you remember travel  when you were a kid? Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune – Leaving on a Jet Plane →

Sign of the Week – Warning (part two)

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It’s Sunday morning and I am starting the day in the summer office. It’s cool for the moment, but today’s forecast calls for afternoon temperatures to reach a high of 93 (34C).

The Arizona weekend began with an early Saturday morning flight to Phoenix, renting a car, grabbing a bite to eat on the recommendation of a friend before finding the right spot for my ‘signature picture’ which I share with my brothers and a few friends. It’s a silly picture, but fun.

St. Louis – July ’23
the first ‘bad picture’ Seattle – May ’23
on the way to Sunday’s game, Phoenix October ’23
I had to find the ‘right’ cactus, Arizona September ’23

My hotel was within walking distance to the stadium, and I paced myself in the heat. Chase Field has a retractable roof, the first of its kind when it opened in 1998. The roof was closed because it was 100 degrees (38C) late in the afternoon before game time.

The Astros won Saturday night’s game 1-0 (nil) and clinched a playoff berth as did the Diamondbacks with a Chicago Cubs loss. I walked home and grabbed some tacos for dinner at the hotel.

Sunday morning, I woke early and planned the day. The hotel I was staying was architecturally cool. It was constructed in the 1930s and had been a bank before being converted into a hotel and legend had it that the penthouse was once inhabited by Alfred Hitchcock.

coffee Sunday morning in the hotel lobby…an impressive Art Deco building from the 1930s

I had a breakfast date with a fellow blogger, Ingrid from Live, Laugh RV: Our Next Chapter. She and her husband were originally from Chicagoland not far from where I love before moving west, then retiring and deciding to live the RV life. Ingrid’s posts left yearning for travelling in retired RV lifestyle from one location to another while exploring and enjoying being outdoors. Her photographs were always stunning. It was wonderful to meet Ingrid in person, and we were never at loss for something to say over breakfast. After breakfast, we took an ‘ussie’ and I headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for the last game of the season.

Ingrid and I after meeting for breakfast, October 1, 2023

On the final day of the season, all baseball games begin about the same time Sunday afternoon. I arrived when the gates opened found my seat behind the Astros dugout in hopes of seeking out my favorite player, Maurico Dubón.

Mauricio in the dugout

Continue reading Sign of the Week – Warning (part two) →

Sign of the Week – Warning (part one)

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Last week I jumped into the deep end of the pool and created a new feature for my blog. My decision might have been premature, on the way home Saturday I drove around searching for signs, I didn’t see any, but I haven’t past the church since last week and I decided to take a different path with the sign of the week post, so hang on this week’s sign is from 2023 and there is a story which goes along with it and I have been looking for a way to tell it. WARNING – this is likely to be a LONG READ and I am breaking the post into two parts.

This week’s sign comes from Arizona when I was there for MLB stadium number 28, in September 2023.

Every MLB stadium has signs like this posted around the stadium and smaller ones close to the field. In recent years, stadiums have put up netting along the infield to make being a spectator safer. It’s a good thing, but if you go to the stadium, you do have to be paying attention foul balls often make it over the net and baseballs are hard and there are no screens in the outfield to protect fans. Continue reading Sign of the Week – Warning (part one) →

W^2 – outdoor office

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Happy Wednesday! Our heat wave has broken and it is a bit cooler this morning. Last night thunderstorms rolled through dropping almost an inch (2.54 cm) of rain overnight.

Normally on summer morning, I’d be out at the ‘summer office’ listening to the birds and feeling the gentle breeze as the world around me awakens, but the ‘office’ is wet and damp, so I’ll wait for another morning, or late evening to enjoy the backyard.

Sadly these Dahlia’s went north to lake with my wife yesterday…..
…. But I am left with these kind’s of views… a house finch enjoys the sunflower seed feeder

I am going to enjoy the inside office of the breakfast table and my office desk in the basement for today and maybe the ‘summer office’ will be available tomorrow. Who knows? But today could possible be the best day ever, so I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the days COUNT, one day at a time, getting things done wherever I work.

Does your workspace vary? Where do you find yourself working today? 

Tuesday’s Tune – Heat Wave

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We’ve been through a heatwave. It began this past Friday and fortunately, it appears to have broken. The last few mornings the thermometer read temps in the upper seventies where a normal early summer reading might be in the low sixties, and possibly the mid-fifties. But while weather comes and goes, it’s the climate that is changing and I must find a way to adapt and change.

I woke early this morning, a bit before six am, made coffee and noticed this morning’s temperature was 74, five degrees lower Monday, an improvement and good signs. I decided to enjoy the ‘summer office’, to listen to the birds and begin the morning routine. Often, I skim though e-mails and read a blog or two and leave comments or lazily, press like. This morning beth from I Didn’t Have My Glasses On and Neil from Yeah, Another Blogger got me thinking. Before moving on my devotional and reflection, then Wordle.

photos I packed and sent to England, from the upper left clockwise are my dad and Juliana in early 2000s, Juliana’s baby photo, a photo of her mum (guessing), and Juliana in the 60s before she met my dad

But Neil’s story of music and his dad connected with me in an odd way. I had decided to write a Tuesday’s Tune post using the song ‘Heat Wave.’ The song was written in the early sixties and recorded by Matha and the Vandellas in 1963, it was a hit. I remember it being recorded by Linda Ronstadt and I found the video below. It is from the mid-seventies, and it was a late Friday night tv show, The Midnight Special. It aired at midnight, which was long past my bedtime, but sometimes I’d sneak out to watch it. I have no memory of watching this episode, but I do remember watching late night television when I was in high school with friends. When I located the YouTube video, I realized it was from an episode of the Midnight Special which aired two days after my dad had married my stepmother.

It was there wedding day – February 19, 1975. My brothers and I from left to right – David, Warren, and me. My other is on the right between Warren and I. Juliana is in the center. The pastor is in the back and I do not know who the couple on the left are.

All three of us had attended and I remember the after-wedding celebration of running the halls of the reception hall with another group of kids while our parents celebrated the newlyweds upstairs.
Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune – Heat Wave →

Sign of the Week – June 21st

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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.

Continue reading Sign of the Week – June 21st →

W^2 – peonies

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, June 18, 2025

This Wednesday finds me home in my summer office praying the birds I have neglected, return to my feeders. Yesterday, both my wife and I drove home from the lake after spending almost two weeks away. The yard needed mown, the feeders were empty, and there was a package waiting on the doorstep when I arrived.

A yellow peony bloom from the late, Grayling, MI, June 17, 2025 10:12 AM

Summer always finds my days full and it is difficult to wrap my mind around the idea that in three weeks I will be in London. When I traveled to Europe fifteen years ago, I carried my laptop and blogged from my hotel room at the end of the day or wrote at the beginning of the following day. In all I posted six times, with a seventh the day I returned. I think my mom and wife were the only readers at that point. When I go back to see what I wrote fifteen years ago, I cringe, and realize I have grown as a writer. I also realize that my posts have not ‘aged’ well. The photos need to be updated and refreshed and I’ll do that later – but I’ll be using my Mac.

This trip I plan to write and post, but I think I can use my iPad and I am giving it a whirl this morning. I was successful last summer with a post on the trip home from California and a post from 35,000 feet. So this post will be entirely produced with the iPad! Continue reading W^2 – peonies →

Three things for a Father’s Day morning

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It’s Father’s Day and I have already gotten my gifts. We are at the lake, my daughter is upstairs sleeping after, our son is home with his family after travelling home yesterday, and the dogs are curled up sleeping. It is a quiet Sunday morning, and the lake is still, cool, and overcast.

It’s been almost sixteen years since my father died. For me Father’s Day is a quiet day best spent with family. This year, it’s special as it is my son’s first Father’s Day.

Family at the lake
This past week my son and his family visited us at the lake. It was exciting, fun, and a whirlwind having twin grandies and their parents join us at the lake for several days. It was fun hearing them babble, cry, crawl, eat, and grow.

our first family photo from last summer….
Weston and Hudson!
Weston rides Archie with O’s help
Hudson and my wife….
already printed, framed, and on display…

I remember his first visit as an infant and our daughter’s a few years later. We enjoyed their visit and celebrated several firsts – especially our first three generations photo!

Father’s Day
My daughter gave me my Father’s Day gift a few weeks ago. It is a hummingbird feeder with a camera. I opened the box this past week, installed it, and have been enjoying the feeder and its images since.

I am thankful to my blogging friend Margaret for encouraging me to be a birder with her book’s post from April 2018. I did read the book Where the Poppies Blow, and I am excited to return to Europe this summer and travel through the battlefields of northern France and the Netherlands. Also, I am thankful to the COVID lockdown for accelerating my curiosity and wonder for birds.

Sometimes we simply need a gentle push and I’ve been enjoying since. Continue reading Three things for a Father’s Day morning →

W^2 – portage

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, June 12, 2025

Portage means to change from one waterway to another; more specifically it means to unload one boat and transfer the goods to another boat.

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.

 

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A post shared by Clay Watkins (@makingthedayscount)

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.

What are you going to watch today?