I currently have sixteen benches on my property. Three of them are down in the play area for when we gather folks for a game of cornhole or croquet, three of them are around the upper driveway and are used for staging various activities (like building new benches!), two of them are in the Cecil Garden and are used for reflection while hand watering the garden, and the other eight are spread out strategically across…
Tomorrow we are doing something I can’t remember doing for a long time…we are going bowling with a group of neighborhood friends. Growing up in Wisconsin in my elementary school days, bowling was a regular activity. I recall it was 35 cents per game, a dime to rent shoes and free to use any of the bowling balls you could find to fit your fingers. We would regularly roll three games and try like hell…
After a run of very nice warm winter weather out here on the hilltop, while much of the rest of the country has undergone a particularly cold and brutal winter, we have momentarily reverted to the cold and wet that winter is generally thought to be about. It’s 50 degrees out and pouring rain today, but the good news seems to be that the rain will end some time this morning and the temperature will…
Our nearby neighbors have five kids. You don’t see that much these days. I have no idea if that’s a religiously driven situation or just a family plan preference. They are lovely people and we have a good relationship all up and down the age range, having employed each and every child except the youngest in one household chore or another. They have even hired my son, Tom, to do some business videos for the…
Today I am wearing a t-shirt given to me by my daughter Carolyn. It is a light blue shirt that simply says, Easy Breezy. I suppose that it might be a statement about the weather here on the hilltop. Today, a day in early February, it’s scheduled to be in the high 70s, which usually means it will end up being in the low 80s. Right now at 8am its sunny and 65. From the…
Today I took two sports jackets into my local tailor to have them significantly cut down to size. On Sunday, I went to put on one to wear to my sister’s 75th surprise birthday party and I felt like I was putting on a moo-moo. I was swimming in the jacket. That caused me to take that and another jacket in for the resizing. I have found a decent local tailor that is very reasonable…
I read an article yesterday about a speed painter that paints giant canvases of Christ. She has become a favorite of Donald Trump and her name is Vanessa Horabuena. It’s an interesting name because the name essentially means “at a good/fortunate hour”—a propitious moment or good timing—which when used as a surname likely expressed hopes for fortune and good luck for the family line. What is speed painting, you ask (or, at least, I asked)?…
I can’t see more than 100 feet this morning on account of a heavy and foreboding fog that has enveloped our hilltop. It’s a pretty normal January day here in San Diego with the high temperature expected to be about 60 with the morning starting out in the low 50s. There is really nothing to complain about weather wise. That’s not the case for most of the rest of the country, where the temperatures have…
On the spectrum of sociability, Kim and I probably rank at the higher end. There are certainly more social animals than us, but we like people and prefer to be around them rather than not. I have never understood people who prefer to travel alone. I’m not a fan of too big of a group when traveling, but it always seems like more fun to have a gang. For thirty years now, I’ve had a…
Sometimes you encounter a day when its not a weekend and yet there are absolutely no errands that are critically demanding attention. This is the case for both Kim and me today. Don’t get me wrong…there are always things that can be done to fill up the day, but sometimes there is nothing that is in desperate need of attention. In our case today, the Christmas decorations are all down. The repairmen have fixed or…