Scattered Thoughts . . .

I just spent a little bit of time cleaning up the comments section of this blog.  I used to check the comments weekly so I could respond to any questions that may have been asked of me but, since the pandemic, I have really been slipping when it comes to effectively managing and updating this blog.  This morning I found that there were a bunch of spam comments peppered throughout this blog but they have been now been deleted.  I certainly welcome civil comments that are related to the content, however, if any comment includes a link to a business, to a product, to anything remotely resembling spam, it will be deleted.  If the comment is unrelated to the content of this blog or the particular blog post, it will be deleted.  If I find myself spending too much time deleting comments, I will simply turn off the comment feature on this entire blog.   UPDATE - 17 February 2022:   I am tired of seeing two blog entries about Zenni Optical in my left hand...

Y esterday was our family Christmas celebration.  It was delayed due to some COVID-19 quarantining but we managed to get together yesterday for a nice belated celebration.  Although the kids needed to wait a couple of weeks for their Christmas gifts, we had a house full of laughing, happy and excited grandchildren yesterday. Sheila went over to her parents' house earlier in the morning to help her mom get ready for the day then Sheila drove her mom to our house to start the day.  Sheila is showing Sue some photos of the grandchildren in this photo... We have about eight sets of eyeglasses that turn bright Christmas lights into stars, Santas, Christmas trees, snowflakes, etc.  Ellie enjoyed viewing through all of these glasses over and over throughout the day... The older grandkids are now patiently waiting (mostly) for gift-time... Liza opened Ace's gifts while he was on her lap and he seemed to like playing with each gift.  He cried whenever the previous gift w...

B ack a little over four years ago, we installed a new quartz composite sink.  We really liked this sink because it was so large, very deep and we even liked the color.  Unfortunately and very obviously, it is not nearly as durable and heat resistant as claimed.   While I was prepping our Christmas dinner, the sink shattered while dumping the hot water from cooking the pasta.  It had chipped and cracked slightly about a year or so ago when Sheila dropped a big, heavy Dutch oven in it but it was not leaking nor was the chip noticeable.  The hot water from the other day, however, shattered it with a deafening pop.  This shattered crack is so pronounced that we can easily see light through the crack.  The sink was now leaking like a waterfall.  As a temporary solution, I used some duct tape to seal the sink as best as possible.  We now only use the smaller other sink basin for running water.  The duct tape should have no problems effec...