New Shoes in the Rain

Happy Monday, friends.   In keeping with my last post, wherein I mentioned some areas of improvement that we've made at our house, I wanted to share a few more. There's a new sheriff in town, so to speak, with a new President in office.  We're now treated to somewhat customary things like scheduled and uncontroversial press conferences, professional staff with capabilities and expertise in certain subject matter, and a sense of order in how things are being addressed.  Folks won't always agree on the politics, but the general demeanor is a welcome change after four years of absolute chaos.  During those years I dreaded looking at the news in the morning, fearing what had been done or said or decided or acted upon during the night that might affect me and my family.   I want to say something about social media here as well.  I respect anyone's choice to use various social media platforms as they see fit, as I don't know any Instagram influencers or people wh...

Since we’re a couple of weeks into the new year, I thought it would be a good time to identify some worthwhile improvements that I’ve made in our home and work from home setups.   I turned 60 last summer and I have to confess that the annual trips up and down the narrow, rickety ladder into our attic to retrieve and replace our Christmas decorations were getting harder and harder, and I was becoming more and more apprehensive that I might lose my balance and drop something of value.  Like my head!   Anyway, we hatched a plan through which we would revamp our garage storage and create space at ground level for our Christmas tree and other décor.  This began with the purchase of some additional resin cabinets for the back wall of the garage (two more to compliment the one we already had).  The new ones are not made nearly as well as the original, but I got them assembled and they function well as enclosed storage for our overflow small kitchen appli...

Happy Monday, friends.  I hope you were able to enjoy a good weekend. I don't think there's much doubt that this will be a significant week that we've started today.  We'll have the spectacle of the inauguration of a new president, a ceremony which was already significantly altered by the coronavirus pandemic but now with revised optics due to the unprecedented attack on the United States Capitol on January 6.  Per television news reports, Washington, DC looks like an armed camp right now, with some 25,000 National Guard troops and other personnel on site to provide protection and security. We also have the end of the presidency of the first and only President who's been impeached twice, and who still has not publicly acknowledged his loss in the election in November or even the name of the man who'll replace him at noon on Wednesday.  From all reports he is ensconced in the White House, preparing a third list of pardons he plans to issue (many of whom were pres...

Friends, I'm sure that you were as shocked and appalled as I was at the events that unfolded in Washington yesterday. Under ordinary conditions, Joe Biden's election would have been certified by a joint session of Congress in less than an hour.  And under similar conditions, the unexpected victory of two Democratic candidates for Senate in the state of Georgia would have been an equally big story. Our conditions right now are very far from ordinary. I won't replay what happened yesterday, whose fault it was or might have been, how the response to what happened could have been improved, etc. What I do want to make mention of is that there is a significant list of Republican Senators and Congressmen who persisted in their efforts to overturn the results of our Presidential election AFTER the United States Capitol was overrun by rioters bent on insurrection.  I have zero patience or appreciation for those staunch supporters of the President who denounced yesterday's events...