journal

I put an alarm clock in Ann’s room a while ago just because it was around and she seems interested in 1) the time and 2) the weather forecast.  (Not that the clock I put in her room would help with the latter, but she has several ways of getting that on her own now.  […]

On Labor Day, the kids were away and my parents and I decided to do a bike ride in the late afternoon.  It would be like the one I took with William recently and described in an earlier post—through Gallop Park and into Ann Arbor—although a little bit longer. I was busy cleaning the bathrooms

Ann had two birthday parties to attend yesterday; one of them being a sleep-over.  That left William and I to our own devices for several hours.  All of us hung out in the morning before Ann’s gatherings and ate lunch before dropping Ann off at her first engagement.  William and I ran a couple errands

I don’t seem to have much luck with rabbits. Several years ago at the old house, I was mindlessly mowing the lawn listening to music when all of a sudden something leaped out of the ground right in front of the lawnmower. After recovering from that jerk back to reality, I realized that I was

We just returned from a vacation to Washington D.C. First of all: a huge thanks to my Michigan parents for providing this as we would not have gone without them financing the whole thing! It was a great trip with several stories to tell, but I’ll try to stick with just an overview. Monday: It’s

We had her party before her actual birthday and all had a good time. For her party, she wanted to eat out with a small group of friends, go ice skating and then head back to the house for cake and general playing around. She insisted on making and frosting her own cake, although after

My neighbor has this ATV with a snowplow on it.   His brother lives on the other side of me.  Since brother 1, (the one with the ATV—the older one I think), clears brother 2’s driveway when it snows enough to break out the heavy equipment, I benefit because he leaves the plow down and clears

I wonder if there’s a “can’t feel what you’re carrying behind you” gene. Why do I wonder this? Well, this morning while herding the kids out the door for school I find William just standing in the hallway with a dazed look on his face.  “Time to go, bud”, I tell him. “I can’t find

Ann came into my office after bed asking if we could talk.  “Of course,” I said.  She couldn’t sleep and just wanted to talk to me about what she was thinking about and how she was feeling. We’ve had these sorts of chats before, but this time it was somehow different.  I’m not sure how

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to tame my office in my free time.  It’s not a large space, but somehow it’s turned into a monstrous project.  I’ve managed to put a lot of things in their appropriate places, (e.g. not “staging” piles), but you couldn’t tell now as it’s full again