Category Archives: home

2026, Automotive, home, Medicine, Uncategorized

Just Like That!

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I continue to be amazed by the speed at which we can access goods and services here. Our town in ND was 20,000 people. Our current town is about 4,900 people. You would think it would be easier to get things done in a bigger town, but that has not been the case.

A couple of weeks ago I finally had it with the front right tire on my van losing air with sudden temperature changes. This has been going on for a couple of years. No one in ND had offered a solution. We randomly chose a tire shop here to deal with the matter. The nice young mechanic/owner explained how he would fix it, and then told us he could probably squeeze it in that afternoon. What? I didn’t have to bring it in the following week? Well, he fixed it in a couple of hours. There was a leaky pressure sensor that needed to be replaced. I then figured out from his last name that his grandmother and my mother had been members of the same sewing club, that his parents lived across the street from us, and that I graduated from high school with his aunt. The tire has behaved admirably ever since.

Wednesday I was feeling awful with a flare-up of diverticulitis. I phoned the medical clinic at 9:50 am. They said they had an appointment for me at 10:15. I took it. This was the actual clinic, not Urgent Care. There is no Urgent Care here. The clinic is a 3 minute drive from our home. By afternoon I was feeling better.

The wired-in smoke detectors on our new home were all a faded, aged yellow. They looked original to the home, which was built in 1998. They should be replaced every 10 years. When our son tried to brown the Thanksgiving turkey at 500°, the upstairs was filled with smoke yet none of the smoke detectors went off. Yesterday at 12:15 pm I phoned an electrician to get them replaced. He told me he could come over that afternoon. He was at the house by 12:40 pm, and by 1:10 pm all seven of them had been replaced. They are white, not yellowed.

What are the wait times for you to get goods and services? How are your smoke detectors? What is the longest you had to wait for a medical appointment?

2026, Family, home, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

Touch The Sky

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In 1986-1987 Husband and I and our son lived in far southern Indiana in a place nicknamed “The Athens of the Prairie”. We were only there for a year while Husband did his 12 month psychology internship, We were at 624 feet above sea level there.

I flew to Luverne with my son in the summer of 1987 to leave him with my mother while my dad and I drove to western ND to find a house to rent. Husband had just secured a full time job there. Luverne is 1463 feet above sea level. Winnipeg, where we moved from to Indiana is at 700 feet above sea level. Dickinson, ND, where we eventually moved, is 2460 feet above sea level. I remember being amazed at how different the sky looked in Indiana compared to Dickinson. It was as though I could pluck the clouds out of the sky in ND. We lived there from 1987 until 2025.

Husband and I are noticing differences between living in a tallgrass prairie in Luverne as opposed to a mixed grass prairie in Dickinson 1000 feet higher. The weather, humidity, and vegetation are much different. Jim Brandenburg, our local celebrity nature photographer dedicated about 1000 acres of tallgrass prairie just north of town as a nature preserve. It is named “Touch The Sky”. Look it up. It is wonderful. Much of the Twin Cities, by the way, seems to be in an oak savannah. Look that up.

Where are the highest and lowest places you went to. Ever read Giants In The Earth? Look up The Athens of The Prairie.

2026, animals, home, Nature, Uncategorized

Hawk!

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Husband has installed five bird feeders just adjacent to our deck. He tries to entice fiches, cardinals, juncos, and other smallish birds. Late last week he exchanged one feeder that seemed to be too squirrel friendly, since the backyard furry thieves were emptying it daily. The dog is disappointed since he loved chasing the squirrels off the deck.

Over the past couple of weeks we have seen the little birds suddenly take flight from the feeders en masse, and the silhouette of a much larger bird flying over or else perching on the new fence. I finally got a good look at it, and it seems to be this one:

It was blue-grey with a pink breast. We determined it was a Coopers Hawk. I finally got a closeup view as it was standing in the yard devouring a small bird. The little birds eventually all return, especially when it is sunny..

There are hawks and other large birds here we didn’t see often in ND. It has been fun to try to identify them. There is at least one Bald Eagle that flies over our neighborhood. We also saw some ravens. I also think we saw a snowy owl fly out of a ditch as we were coming back from Sioux Falls.

What is the rarest bird you ever saw in the Great Outdoors? What are your favorite wild birds?

2026, Baboon Achievers, home, Kids

Painting Heroics

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YA is my hero.

Backstory.  Two years ago, when we had the bathroom done, when it was time for our contractor to plaster in a few places, I convinced him to plaster a few spots in the upstairs hallway and the steps.  YA and I agreed on the new color we wanted and then did… nothing.  I look at this every day and hate it but not enough to actually do anything about it.  We talk about it every couple of months, but no changes.  And I certainly am not going to nag her about it when I’m not willing to put on my painting clothes.  I’ve even thought about hiring a painter.

Last week she decided she was ready.  We went to Home Depot and got a gallon of paint and a paintbrush and a roller and then she got to it.  Did a little sanding, wiped down all the walls, tape and more tape and even more tape.  She used up all the paint and sent me back to HD to get more.  No problem.   She asked me once if I wanted to paint.  I declined.

We talked about it further; while she is working on this project, I’ve stepped up in other areas.  Bringing up her laundry, doing all the dishes she leaves in the sink, not asking her to take out the recycling/trash.  It’s a good allocation of chores, because I suck at painting. I’m too impatient and I’m genetically unable to paint without making a mess.  YA has painted the whole hallway and halfway down the steps with her first gallon of paint.  There is NO paint on the floor anywhere.  And there has been NO paint on YA or her clothing.  I’m not sure how she manages this.  (I did a couple of cards using a stencil the day she was painting and I got blue ink on every single one of my finger tips.) 

She says she is going to finish tomorrow since she has the day off.  How did I get so lucky?

How do you allocate chores/work? 

2026, Art, Family, home, Uncategorized

Hanging It Up

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After three months in our new home we finally found enough energy to hang pictures.

Our “Boommate” will be moving in with us in a couple of months and we needed to get the pictures out of her space downstairs where they are all stacked against a wall. Our new home is bigger than our old home, but has less wall space for picture display since there are many more windows. Part of the hanging process involved deciding which ones we will continue to store in the furnace room. Husband decided he didn’t want any of his old family pictures hung. That made things a lot easier, as some of them are pretty big.

For some reason I make Husband anxious by my picture hanging method, which involves careful measuring and centering. He worries that the pictures will fall off the walls because the nails and/or fasteners will rip out of the drywall, and wondered why we didn’t secure them in the wall studs. I explained that the hangers pictured in the header photo are very secure and that none of our pictures is so heavy as to require securing in a stud. I think he believes me, but still is anxious about the whole process.

In a tribute to our famous local photographer Jim Brandenburg, we hung all his nature photos in the dining room A large John Coltrane poster graces the area with the piano and Husband’s guitar and cello. The house is really feeling like home.

What are your picture hanging methods? What makes your abode feel like home?

2026, home, Uncategorized, work

Handyman

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I am pretty good at fixing things around the house. Husband isn’t very handy, and repairs have usually been left to me. In the last few years, however, I have discovered that any repair involving a ladder is too much for me, as I have become increasingly scared of heights.

Yesterday we had a handyman service come to replace batteries in the garage door opener motor, program some new garage door opener remotes, and replace the closure in the garage ceiling that leads up to the attic. The old closure had fallen out and cracked. We also had them hang a large mirror in the livingroom. That involved heavier work than I was prepared for.

Everything went quickly and smoothly. Now that the mirror is up I think I can finally hang the pictures that have been stacked in the basement. I plan to have an electrician come to replace all the fairly aged wired-in smoke detectors in the bedrooms. I am thankful for all our helpers.

What repairs around the house do you leave for the experts? Post some working songs.

2026, Art, home, Uncategorized

Chunk Mess

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We have a new baby in the neighborhood; they came home on Saturday.  These are newish neighbors so I don’t know them super-well.  With folks you don’t know, and young to boot, it’s hard to gauge what kind of gift to get.  I wasn’t invited to any showers and these days new parents seem to want the types of stuff that I either have never heard of or is out of my price range.  I need a small, casual gift.  My go-to is the chunk journal.

This is a small photo album, just 4 x 4, with lots of pretty paper and embellishments.  The front and back cover is made with corkboard – I get the 4 x 4 coasters online.  It’s easy to make and I get to use up stuff from my way-too-big craft stash.  Papers, ribbons, stickers, bling.  The only problem with the chunk journal is the mess:

I don’t have a plan when I start a chunk journal except the number of pages (I usually do 24 pieces, so places for 48 photos.  As I cut paper and take out various embellishments, I don’t put them back right away, as I may want to use them again on later pages.  This means my desk is covered in all kinds of stuff that I’m not willing to return to its home until I’m all done with the journal.  As I get closer and closer to the end, I get a little more ruffled about the mess.  I start to put stuff away in my head.  That means I get two endorphin kicks at the end.  I’ve finished the gift and I get to start the clean-up.  Unfortunately, this is the only time I get all excited about cleaning up in my studio.  Rats.

Do you have any go-to gifts (any occasion)?  Do you purchase gifts off folks’ registries?

2025, animals, gardening, holidays, home, pets, Uncategorized

The New Year

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I can’t say I regret the end of 2025. This has been the most disturbing and disruptive year in my memory.

Moving and politics have taken their toll. We are very happy where we are in terms of location. I have hopes the political situation will improve.

Our goals are modest. We want to install raised vegetable beds in the back yard. We want to plant Boyne raspberries. Husband wants to improve his guitar skills. We are not traveling.

We plan to have best friend relocate here in the spring, and get a Cesky sibling for our pup. All these things are potentially exhausting, but change that is in our control is far more manageable than unexpected change.

What are your goals for the new year? Garden and travel plans?

2025, animals, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Christmas And Pets

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As you can see from the photos below, our cat has claimed the Christmas tree for her own. Ever since we put it up she has been sleeping under it and drinking the tasty water in the tree holder. She walks around it as though she owns it.

This is first Christmas tree we have had for about three years. Other years we were traveling to Brookings and didn’t want to have a fully decorated tree sitting around unattended for days. Luna the tabby has been known to to climb the tree and/or knock down and play with ornaments. She also chewed the straw beards off the Julebukke. I am happy to report that the dog has ignored the tree entirely. Our previous Welsh Terriers were famous for unwrapping presents and stealing ornaments.

We bought the current Frasier fir at the local farm store. It is fairly small. We put a string of lights on it, and plan to decorate it today. We shall see if Kyrill can resist plucking ornaments off the tree. This is a pretty low key holiday for us even with the tree. Best friend is coming down. This is the first Christmas in decades we aren’t doing any Christmas music in church. We will celebrate with our son and his family January 3rd. His cat and dog leave their tree alone. Luna will probably give us heck for taking down the tree after Christmas. It is her tree, after all.

How have your pets treated your Christmas tree, decorations, and presents? Do your pets have Christmas stockings?

2025, Food, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Giving In

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One disadvantage of our subscription to the NYT cooking app is that we end up cooking things we hadn’t initially planned to cook. Some of those recipes are hard to resist.

We start the week out with a good plan for meals. Last week, for example, Husband decided to make chili ala Penzeys, and I thought that the chili and a North German fischgulash would take us through all week and weekend, and we made both. Then I saw a NYT recipe for braised pork shoulder. We told each other that would have to wait until the following week. We had all the ingredients for all three dishes except two large leeks for the pork shoulder. Wouldn’t you know, I spied two large and beautiful leeks in our local grocery store on Saturday. They rarely have such lovely leeks there. Well, of course I had to buy them, and I spent yesterday making the pork shoulder, since we couldn’t let those lovely leeks get funky in the fridge. Husband justified the purchase by conceding there was pork shoulder in the freezer that just had to be used up.

This is sort of a family problem. Daughter lamented her inability to resist the urge for buying things she doesn’t need from young children at markets and booths. Saturday she ended up with earrings, a knitted hat, bracelets, and origami. She said “How do you resist buying a hat from a 7 year old boy who loves to knit?”

What are you finding hard to resist these days? What kind of excuses do you make for giving in?