Going to Church No, I have not had a spiritual epiphany and reverted to being a good God-fearing Christian you all want me to be. As I have said many times, I do consider myself a good Christian already. I believe in Christian values (though my Jewish friends and Muslim friends,,,not to mention Buddhist and Hindu friends) would argue that the qualities that define goodness are more universal than those I choose to define as…
Masking as a Way of Life As we get to the short strokes on our household projects (the doors, the laundry room and the deck), the final steps involve painting. In the laundry room its all about waterfall blue on the walls, contrasting the white cabinets and sparkly white quartz countertops. The cabinet and drawer handles are a matching waterfall blue in frosted sea glass that Kim found on Etsy, one of her favorite online…
Basalt and Pepper Ever since those delivery guys from the patio furniture store broke my lovely, but apparently delicate, fountain and I had to replace it with something else they had on their lot (less because they refused to refund my money and more because I was anxious to install my fountain), I have been less than thrilled with my garden fountain situation. I had a wandering fountain eye right from the start and occasionally…
Searching for Andre When I arrived at college as a Freshman (attending Cornell University, my mother’s Alma Mater located in Ithaca, New York), I was seventeen and had arrived via a hitched ride from Cleveland, Ohio. I had been in Cleveland working for the summer as a sociology research assistant at Case Western Reserve University and my mother was on an extended business trip to Colombia from our regular home at the time in Rome,…
Trippin’ This week suddenly saw a flurry of travel activity in our lives. We decided several weeks ago that we would rebook our motorcycle group’s Silver Anniversary, which got postponed last year due to COVID. That is a May event, which the perfect time of year to see southern Utah. We also postponed a planned trip to Mendocino in the northern coast area with Frank and Loretta, which we have now rebooked for April. This…
Raining on My Parade I am forced to start meditating and chanting for lack of any other answers to my prayers. As I am within sight of the deck finish line I am suddenly encountering a rainy season that it killing my homestretch plan for completion. We are two rows into the tiling with the expectation that we can do several added rows each day. Remember, Handy Brad does nothing (ESPECIALLY tile) except in the…
History for History’s Sake We were just visited by my nephew Jason. Jason is my sister Barbara’s oldest child and he is now over forty years old though he always seems younger to me. Jason did not go to college where his younger sister attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and went on to get her veterinary degree at Kansas State. Jason has supported himself by being a specialized garage door guy who apprenticed with…
Lighting the Hillside When I first decided to light up the landscaping of my house, I got a specialized outdoor lighting company to come in and bid on the entire job as they envisioned it, understanding that I would likely phase the project rather than do it all at once. The two biggest reasons for that were the likely cost and the fact that I was just starting to deal with the renovation of my…
Moving the Spirit Do you remember Fridays? They used to be such happy days. They were the end of the week and the beginning of our weekly breaks. They signified that we had done the hard work of the week and were now deserving of some rest and relaxation. It was such a universal phenomenon that there is now an 870 store chain called Thank God It’s Friday, where people can gather to celebrate the…
Feet of Clay Back when I was in my thirties, I recall having a problem with my feet. Having always been big in the extreme, it did not surprise me that my feet might give me trouble. There are very few parts of the body that can directly connect on a cause and effect basis to something like size. When I was a freshman at prep school, specifically Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine, I was…