• Weekend Notes

    It is the last day of Christmas vacation in our house. It might hit 50 for the third-straight day, but no one seems real interested in getting outside and doing something. Probably has something to do with me telling everyone their rooms need to be cleaned up before anything else gets done today, and no one is moving all that…

  • Starting Off Strong (In Theory)

    Happy New Year! Hope your celebrations were safe, happy, and the headaches/stomaches that resulted have passed. Our New Year’s Eve went well. The Pacers game was good. Well, other than spending 15 minutes to travel three blocks right before our parking garage. Not sure what the hell was going on but traffic was a nightmare. The Pacers won by 8,…

  • Christmas ’18 Wrap Up

    After a busy week, things are finally slowing down enough to share some details from our Christmas celebrations. My in-laws came in from Florida last Wednesday. This is their second Christmas since going to Florida full-time, so Saturday my mother-in-law and the girls had their second annual baking day. They baked three kinds of cookies and a coffee cake for…

  • That Old Christmas Spirit

    As your kids get older there are dozens of trade offs as you leave old annoyances behind but also lose moments of joy that are unique to younger ages. Sadly the Christmas spirit is pretty much gone among our girls this year. Yeah, L still has some moments where she’s down. She’s the only kid who has wanted to sit…

  • Another View of Shepherd

    I’m in the midst of my annual re-reading of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. If I’m not mistaken, this is the 10th-straight December I’ve reviewed the collection of short stories that much of the movie was based on. Every year I think, “I should go back and listen to some of Shepherd’s radio shows or read a biography of him.”…

  • Song and Dance

    A couple Christmas entertainment links to share this morning. I had been kicking around the idea of writing about my least favorite Christmas songs. Alexandra Petri decided to take that to a whole other level and rank 100 Christmas songs. A few of these I’ve never heard of and I think she leaves out a few that get played a…

  • Thanksgiving Weekend Notes

    Our Thanksgiving weekend was, by one measure, perfect. We were intensely busy for parts of the weekend. At others we sat around and did nothing. Every long, holiday weekend should have that balance. C and I went to watch some of her classmates play for the CYO girls basketball city championship Tuesday night. They lost, handily, but C had fun…

  • The Most Wonderful Link of the Year

    A few days later than normal, but my annual public service announcement on where to find the most complete schedule of the holiday shows over the next month. 2018 Christmas TV Schedule

  • Holidays

    I mentioned some time after our move last summer that we were all having a hard time making the small adjustments that come with a new home. Where are the cooking pots? Where are the cutting boards? Where is our stash of paper towels? Etc, etc etc. The longer we’ve been in this house, the more all of that newness…

  • Holiday Weekend Wrap Up With More Big News

    Our summer is off to a very hot and hectic start. Remember back when I was bitching about how cold it was in April? Mother Nature was paying attention and has punished me, and others in Indiana, who complained about her April offerings. This month is almost certain to clinch the hottest May in Indianapolis history. Yesterday was the hottest…