Say What?

Over the past several months I've become somewhat preoccupied with thoughts of how fast my life is passing by. It's kind of disturbing. Weeks, months, and years fly by like I'm in some sort of time warp. I think in terms now of how many more years of mobility I have left to live the active lifestyle I enjoy. It's not something I take for granted. Do I have 15 more years? 20? Maybe 25, tops? All I know for certain is that whatever amount of time remains in this active phase of my life, it's going to pass much too quickly. Now, more than ever, I have a difficult time sitting still for very long and watching my remaining time here slip away at a pace that saddens me. I've got at least a dozen books I'd like to read but I tell myself there will be plenty of time for reading in my next phase of life. We've been enjoying a mild winter in the Minneapolis area. I wouldn't mind some snow and cooler temps to make for decent trail riding. The temp inside our ...

If this mild weather continues, we may be back to a snowless landscape by the end of the week. I prefer the look of snow rather than the browns of the alternative during the winter months but I'm content either way. Not having to muck out the garage floor from the snow melting off our vehicles is a bonus. I took advantage of today's warm temps (40º f / 4.4º c) to put on my walking shoes and do my Orchard Lake loop . It's an 8.7-mile loop that I do in around 2 hours—a little longer if I'm stopping to take photos. It felt nice to have the sun on my face. I saw this little guy  working his way across the sidewalk and it had me wondering, what do caterpillars do during the harsh winter months? I looked online and came up with this: "They find a protected place to rest and enter a type of hibernation called diapause, where their body functions decrease and their growth pauses until they wake. Many wrap themselves in leaves or other organic matter, holding it in place ...

It was two years ago today that Allie left us. That was such a sad time. Toby (Allie's littermate) is coming up on 15 years 4 months. His hearing is mostly gone and his vision is very limited but he seems content. I know his time with us is short. He's reluctant to go walking in the colder temps but when I last had him out about 10 days ago with Charlie, he led us in a run most of the last tenth of a mile home. It's been nearly a year since we've done the Fleet Farm loop (as I refer to it) on our walks and I'm fairly certain he'll never do it again. It was a favorite walk of Toby's because the roads that took us by Fleet Farm added an extra mile to our walk. I always let Toby lead us and I would smile when he'd tug at his leash to take us across Jonquil Trail in the direction of the roads that would take us by Fleet Farm. He knew exactly what he was doing. He would come home, drink his fill from his water bowl then splay out on the wood floor, panting wi...

My blog has fallen in priority as I've been spending most of my time down in my shop working on stained glass projects. One would think that making an entry in a blog would be a quick 30-minute exercise but it's not. At least not for me—not usually, anyway. But here I am, determined to make an entry of some sort for future reference. I began a rather large stained glass project for Bryan and Sue last spring after we'd returned from visiting them  in Oregon. They had a decades-old, wood-framed stained glass panel hanging in the sidelight of their front entry which has a few cracked pieces of glass. I offered to remake the window, figuring it would be just as easy to simply redo the entire panel rather than repairing it. They told me it wasn't necessary to copy the existing panel and to feel free to do whatever my heart desired for the space. And so I did. I came up with plans for a 3-part panel but I didn't share the design with them, wanting it to be a surpris...

My day usually begins anywhere from 5:30 to 7:00 when Toby wakes up and lets me know it's time. His most effective method for waking me is a fake sneeze that sounds like the real deal, but I know it's not. We head downstairs and I let the pups out, standing with them in the front yard while they do their business. The occasional coyote or fox is enough of a threat that I don't like to leave them unattended. We go inside and I turn on the gas fireplace in the sunporch to take the chill out of the air so it's toasty warm when Tammy comes down a half-hour later. The pups prance at my feet while I fix their main meal of the day. I reach over and flip on the TV to Morning Joe to get a recap of the previous day's happenings. I like my news shows to offer a variety of opinions from people across the political spectrum, and Morning Joe does that. During commercial breaks, I'll switch to some of the other competing morning shows to see what they're discussing. Two ...

Today would've been Mom's 90th birthday. She died a few years ago, just shy of her 87th birthday, and on the same day that I retired—9/3/15. For years, she was so certain that each birthday, Christmas or Mother's Day, etc. would be her last. I would try and assure her that she still had many years left to live but of course, she'd eventually be right. She never found love again after my father died in 1995. I asked her about it once and I got the feeling that she felt a sense of loyalty to him and didn't want to betray their bond. She was only 66 and would live another 20 years, alone. I never mentioned it again to her. Here's thinking of you, Mom. I think I may be done with organized religion. I won't speak for Tammy. We joined a church in Lakeville two years ago but I've lost my desire to continue on as I question more than ever the faith I've been practicing ever since I can remember. I'm a spiritual person who believes in a higher power ...

In keeping with my strange obsession with tracking meaningless stuff, I'm up to 50 bags of leaves this year. That's important to know because once I get to 59 (the most I've ever filled), I'm pretty much home free when it comes to yard work, and I could use a break. I typically mow/vacuum up leaves once, maybe twice a week but I was out there 5 times in the last 7 days! I've never done that. It gets a bit overwhelming if I wait too long so I sorta like this new approach. With the exception of some major trimming of trees in our yard, I've done all of the landscaping work myself over the years, until now. I hired a guy to remove 3 Japanese Yews in front of our home rather than do the work myself. They'd become overgrown  from 26 years of growth in spite of my best efforts to keep them trimmed. I was reading online where they're a real pain to remove because of their root structure and I just didn't want the hassle, not with all of the other yard wo...