New Shoes in the Rain

Good morning and happy new year!  I hope that you and yours have had a wonderful holiday season! Hello to those who find this space through Threads or Instagram.  Appreciate everyone's visits here and thank you for stopping by! I don't have anything deep or philosophical to offer this morning.  Like you, I experienced some highs and semi-lows during 2025 but am optimistic about what 2026 will bring. So allow me to conclude this brief post with something I sent to a friend this morning: Happy new year!  Grateful to begin this year with old and new friends,  and looking forward to the other new experiences that we know it will bring!  Challenges, yes.  Rewards, of course.  Happiness and joy, we hope so!  As someone who had serious health issues in the past, I am grateful to still be here and look forward to continuing to embrace every day as another opportunity! I wish you and those close to you a very happy new year!  

Happy Friday, everyone!  And not only is the weekend upon us, but Christmas is now less than a week away!  Are you ready? Have you shopped for those you love, hoping to find the perfect gift? I am receiving a grand present again this year, as I will be off work from Christmas Eve until January 5.  I have no concrete plans other than to have fun, enjoy my family, and not travel for work!  I think I've earned it! I don't know about any of you who's stopped by to read today's comments, but I think we're actually doing a little more for Christmas than we sometimes do.  I keep telling my wife that when I finally retire from full-time work (whenever that will actually be) that we'll need to scale back a little at Christmas.  That's true, but for now, it's less of a concern.  So we're being as generous as our means allow in advance of that adjustment. And for those who've raised kids, as my wife and I have, the old adage remains true, that kids are hard...

Happy Monday, everyone.  Had a hectic weekend of hockey, yard work and a choral performance by our middle granddaughter last night.  I've been thinking a lot, as many others have, about the state of things in this country and where we can and should and must go from here.  The question is "how?" I say that because we're right at a year from the Congressional midterm elections, which will most likely shift the balance of power away from Republicans.  But that's a long time to keep stacking one misery onto another for that period. And remember, the end of the federal government shutdown is only temporary, we get to endure this same process in January! So I think the "how" has to be one thing: We the People! My granddaughter's chorale performance was with a youth orchestra and their finale was a premiere performance of a lengthy piece with that title.  Stirring and patriotic. But the answer was in that title.  We all keep saying that Congress needs to d...

Good Thursday morning to you.  In my case it’s getaway day, as I have been traveling overnight for the past few days.  Looking forward to getting home later today. As of last night, our federal government is now reopened.  Is everything fixed?  Not so much.  The bill that the Senate passed did not include any provision for extending the COVID-era subsidies that benefited many recipients of health insurance through the Affordable Care Act.  It also contained, hidden within the text, a separate provision for settlement payments of some astronomical money to senators whose were surveilled in an investigation of foreign influence on our lawmakers. That’s how it is now, you know.  If someone in government is investigated and that investigation leads to no criminal charges, people are entitled to some sort of compensation from the government.  Starting at the top, it seems. So, will SNAP benefits again be fully funded and available?  We don’t know ...

Good Monday afternoon, friends.  Appreciate you stopping by. Kind of an interesting point in the year where we are now.  Baseball is over until next spring, although the World Series and several of the playoff series were quite exciting.  And my Cincinnati Reds qualified for the first round, losing two in a row to the eventual World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers.  They have a great team, as do the Toronto Blue Jays.  Well done to both teams! Professional and college football are sort of hovering in place right now.  The postseason isn't here yet but the season is not at all new anymore for either level.  And yet it's still hard to tell which teams will identify themselves as the best in their particular divisions. Professional hockey is now underway for about a month, and so far there are defined "good" and "not good" teams.  Luckily the team I support, the Colorado Avalanche, are "good," at least for now! Basketball is just getting started profess...

Happy Friday, all!  We've almost made it! Big doings in our family this week.  Our middle granddaughter, who is the second oldest of our five grandchildren, celebrated her 16th birthday on Wednesday!  She's a great kid, plays soccer and sings in the chorus at her high school.  Is progressing in the process of learning to drive, too! That inspired me to once again share some impressions of all five of the grandkids, albeit without a lot of identifiers like their names and such (for privacy purposes).  Here's the rundown on who's who, and where they live, respectively: GC #1:  Lives in Colorado, female, 20 years old GC #2:  Lives in central Kentucky, female, now 16 years old GC #3:  Lives in Colorado, male, will be 16 on October 28 GC #4:  Lives in central Kentucky, male, now 14 years old GC #5:  Lives in central Kentucky, female, will be 8 on December 1 The Colorado kids are our daughter's and son-in-law's, the Kentucky kids are our son's...