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 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→
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, August 14, 2024
It is Day 72 with four remaining before it’s back to school.
Time flies.
It’s six months with three more before my son’s twins arrive, we can bearly (sic) wait. Always making the days count.
This past week has been a flurry of activity, and the next four days will be, too. This past weekend was our daughter-in-law’s baby shower, and we helped our son get his yard and house ready. It was a beautiful day, the yard looked wonderful, and it was a great day to celebrate the coming arrival of our first grandchildren. Exciting.
Time flies.
Today we are back to Michigan and the lake to help our daughter move into the house she and some friends have rented for her senior year.
Time flies.
Today is going to be an amazing 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, one day at a time making time, because time flies.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 24, 2024
It is Wednesday, almost Thursday. Fern and I wrapped up our business in Illinois and we loaded the car and drove back to the lake this afternoon. She was a fabulous driving companion and slept most of the trip curled up in the front seat or laid out in the back seat.
Last Sunday, Fern and I met B (my wife) at Stephan Bridge several miles downstream on the Au Sable River to watch the canoe racers pass through on their trip down the river to McMaster’s Bridge. It is a timing station for the BIG canoe race this weekend. It is also a great place to watch the canoes approach from down river, and if you are hungry there is an amazing restaurant on the south bank. Continue reading W^2 – pretty girl→
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 17, 2024
It is Wednesday morning, and I have returned to the lake after a quick trip to Houston and back. The lilies are still blooming, and Fern and Ivy are enjoying their time here, just as we do.
I flew to Houston last Thursday morning and drove back over the weekend stopping Saturday night at my favorite bed and breakfast in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I had gone home to collect a cedar chest which had belonged to my paternal grandparents and had been sitting in storage since we had cleared my stepmother’s apartment this past January.
I arrived in the wake of Hurricane Beryl to find Houston reeling in power outages, downed trees, and sweltering heat and humidity. Though the latter is normal for summer in southeast Texas, the lack of power and air conditioning made conditions in the city much more unpleasant.
My trip was successful, and I was able to visit with my brothers and nephew, clear out the storage locker, collect the chest, and take in two baseball games at Minute Maid Park as well as collect more material, aka stories, to share through MakingtheDaysCOUNT.org.
I left after breakfast Saturday morning, and I took the long way home stopping in Vicksburg Saturday night. I had planned a side trip to Oxford to take one final look at Juliana’s home which sold in February ‘23 before finishing the drive home on Sunday.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 10, 2024
It’s been thirty years this summer that the cottage my kids and I know has been here. For my wife and her siblings, it goes back to their childhoods.
When we were first married, I visited the ‘old cottage’ a few times. It was a cozy two-bedroom log cabin with an open kitchen, dining, and gathering area with a large window gazing upon the lake. in the summer of ’93 my wife’s parents made the difficult decision to re-build with an eye on the future and the cottage I know was constructed in 1993-94. Since my first trip to move in and setup in July ’94, I’ve been here countless times. First without kids then one, and the other. Our kids learned to fish and ski , both water and snow, and they’ve found lifelong friends and we’ve been here in every season: summer, fall, winter, and spring.
When I see the lilies blooming in summer, I think of my mother-in-law and her passion for the summer day lilies. We planted and gardened those first few summers planting day lilies along the front facing the lake. One spring, fifteen years ago, she arrived to discover the deer had dug up the lilies and eaten them. We spent the summer of 2009 replacing them. While the deer still roam when we aren’t here (and even when we are), the lilies have remained undisturbed since.
It’s astonishing how our brains are wired to recall past events and how seemingly disconnected things are connected. Today is going be a great day. So, I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, one day at a time making time, remembering how I got here.
What does a day lily, or any flower, remind you of?
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, June 5, 2024
It’s summer again, this year it’ll be my 25th summer break as a teacher. I have four more summer breaks after this one, then it’ll be permanent summer break.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, May 8, 2024
NOTE: This post was originally titled “Baseball”, but after reflecting overnight, I changed it to “baseball is back.” Enjoy
It’s baseball season, again. Baseball season begins at the end of March and lasts until the final out in late October. Every team will play 162 games, the good ones will play more, and the best teams could play 173 or more. It all depends, because baseball is a funny game.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
“Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”
Terrance Mann in Field of Dreams
I made it to my first game of the 2024 season two weeks ago and I am just now making time to write about it. I’ve been to Wrigley Field more times than I can remember. My first game was in 1993. Wrigley Field opened with its first baseball game one hundred ten years ago in 1914. It’s the second oldest ballpark in the major leagues and there is something magic about watching a game there. Continue reading W^2 – baseball is back→
WARNING: it’s Wednesday so I titled the post W^2, but it’s hardly wordless.
It’s spring break and we’ve escaped then blustery chill of a midwestern early spring for the Florida Keys and sun, wind, and sand. Mostly sun.
I remember my first visit to the Keys with my in-laws in 2002. Our son had recently turned four and my wife was pregnant with our daughter. We arrived in Miami and were picked up by my in-laws at the airport.
Until then, my only experience with Florida had been passing through the airport on the way to somewhere else: Venezuela or England to spend the summer or Christmas with my dad and stepmother.
With my father-in-law at the wheel we wove our way through Miami traffic to Homestead and US1. US1 is the only road from the Florida mainland at the tip of the Florida peninsula to the Keys where it terminates at Key West.
US1 travels along the path of the defunct Miami to Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. Construction of the railroad began in 1903 and was completed in 1913. The railway operated until 1935 when the Labor Day hurricane washed out the rail bed in Islamorada and the railroad abandoned the railroad. Two years later the Florida Highway Commission purchased the right of way and began construction of a highway to Key West. They used the old railroad bridges constructing roadbeds atop the concrete viaducts and bridges built by the railroad. Over the years, the highway has replaced the original railway bridges with wider end more modern concrete bridges.
The first several miles of the two lane road travel along the path of the old railway. First through the thick mangrove swamps and across Lake Surprise before reaching Key Largo where the highway opens up to the Atlantic Ocean on the left and Florida Bay to the right.
As the highwaybridges were replaced, the original railroad bridges were left in place. Most have been repurposed as fishing platforms or observation decks and others have been left to decay and breakdown in the elements. The Seven Mile Bridge has a two mile extension from Knight’s Key Key to Pigeon Key open to walkers and bicycles with breathtaking sunset views.
Anyway, Tuesday afternoon my buddy and I (we are here with another couple) took off on an adventure stopping at the western approach to the Bahia Honda Bridge.
The old bridge has been abandoned since the present bridge was completed in 1977. The original railroad bridge is an iron trestle bridge which was only wide enough for a single railroad track and the passage of a single train. The highway engineers decided to construct a two lane road atop the railroad trestle to connect the two keys, or islands.
W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, March 6, 2024
It appears Spring has sprung, but the Spring Equinox is a little less than a fortnight away. This year, the vernal equinox is Tuesday, March 19, 2024, at 10:06 PM.
“The first blooms of spring always make my heart sing.” — S. Brown
According to the meteorologists, it is spring. We had a mild winter here in the upper Midwest. I read a report that this past winter was one of the five mildest winters on record for the Chicagoland area. We hardly had any snow and only a very brief cold snap where temperatures went below zero (Fahrenheit). We did however have two bad weather days where I could teach from home, some folks mike call that ‘good weather.’