Say What?

I made a deposit into Rachel's bank account Friday afternoon to cover her spring semester and the final installment of 4 years of college tuition. We're feeling very grateful to have been able to help her as we have. So many of her friends haven't been so fortunate and will graduate with a sizeable amount of debt to overcome. Up until now, she's been our priority but I think she's in a position where we can begin to pull back and shift our focus toward shoring up our savings accounts before we exit the working world. Plus, I get a sense that she's ready to take over.  I was telling her a few weeks ago that once we get our arms around our finances in our retirement, we'll see what we can do to continue to help her. She said she'd rather we didn't, that she wants to take it from here. I get that. She's off to a good start. Her plans are to take the next year off from school after graduation and continue working to add to her total of hours in the...

My special little guy Toby had a seizure Friday afternoon. He was slow to get up when I went to let him out and I thought that maybe he had pulled a muscle in his leg or had a cramp. He made his way outside but was struggling. After coming back inside a few minutes later it was obvious that something wasn't right. I called Tammy over and she said he was having a seizure. He was trembling and his eyes were fixed straight ahead. I held him and whispered softly to him telling him how much he's loved. This has never happened to him that we're aware of. He wasn't himself the rest of the day and night but he was content to sit in my lap or by my side. It's ridiculous how much I love that little guy! He looked to be his normal self Saturday morning, jumping up on me and giving me kisses, excited to eat. The only lasting effects from the day before being a little hesitancy coming down the stairs. He did fine but was just a little slower than usual. I spoke with the vet...

I was on a cycling forum last week and the title of one of the threads was "42 degrees, went for a ride, how do you guys do it?" Hah! I think we were down as low -23º f (-31º c) in Lakeville at one point during last week's bout with frigid temps. I'd loved to have taken Ralph from Florida out for a ride with me so he could see that his 42º was easily very doable. I had some use-or-lose vacation time I needed to burn up so I took last Monday off and headed for the river to spend a couple hours on the trails in the coldest air I've ever ridden in: -15º f (-26º c). It isn't often we get temps that cold during daylight hours and I wanted to take advantage of the conditions to improve on my personal all-time low riding temp, substantially improving on my old record of -4º f. I had to smile a little watching a guy on the news later that day with his dire warning to not go out unless absolutely necessary because of the dangerously cold temperature. If he'd only...

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." That quote by Mahatma Gandhi sums up so succinctly where I'm at today in my relationship with the church. Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son) weighed in on the Duck Dynasty controversy recently with this . After reading his words, all I can say is that I'm disappointed at the continued myopic focus on gays by Christians. It's disheartening to read the words that Robertson said and to see all of the support he received from Christians on forums and such in the wake of the interview. There is no war on Christians, just like there is no war on Christmas and from my perspective, the primary people undermining the message of Jesus are those who claim to be his followers. I considered going deep here but I'm not feeling up to it; perhaps another day. I do want to say just this: Jesus instructed his followers to love their enemies, not kill them. Jesus never spoke o...

We're still waiting for our Forester to be fixed. The service department at Miller Hill Subaru originally said we could expect it to be done this past Thursday but the motorhead they received from the parts dealer had a warped valve-something-or-other and they couldn't use it. Christmas week isn't a good week for ordering anything and expecting it to be expedited. And so we wait. Hopefully, sometime this coming week we'll have our car back. We had our quietest Christmas ever in the more than 14 years we've been married. Tammy was working in her office while Rachel was at her dad's house. I threw my bike in the back of my truck and headed down to the river for a few hours of fun  on the trails. I fell so many times trying to establish new tracks in the 3 inches of snow we'd gotten Christmas Eve. They were easy falls that mostly happened because I couldn't unclip from my pedals fast enough to get a foot down to keep from falling. After trading notes with...

I've stumbled onto a fun design I've been playing with in the glassblowing studio. They're simple tealight candle holders with a thick clear bottom done in various colors. There's nothing particularly difficult about them unless I'm trying to make a few the same size, then it takes a little more skill. I've posted a couple photos of them on my Facebook page and received some nice comments leading me to think about doing a bunch more before changing my focus. Tammy has been working on perfecting her smaller bud-vases . She's been having fun with them. I encourage her to work a little larger but this is what she enjoys. Our Christmas cards won't be going out until Monday and for a few of you, that means they'll be a little late. In keeping with our tradition of doing something original in our cards most years, Rachel came up with a New York theme based on our trip to move her out there last August for a semester of school. Rachel did the drawing an...

I've had my Droid Maxx for 4 months and it continues to impress me, especially its battery life. I'm on my phone a fair amount in a typical day, playing games, surfing and editing photos. In the 4 months I've had the phone, I've yet to need to recharge it during the day. I typically put it in its dock at night with more than 50% power still remaining. It's impressive how much better this phone is than my previous Droid. With my last Droid, after a system update, the phone would be noticeably more sluggish. I've had one upgrade so far with my Maxx and I haven't noticed anything diminished about its performance. Also, I'd gotten in the habit of rebooting my Droid Bionic every day to help it run smoother. I find that I'm going weeks without restarting my Maxx. Like I said, impressive! Speaking of editing photos with my phone: I've installed and uninstalled several free photo editing apps in the last couple of weeks and kept a few. They do an okay ...