Scattered Thoughts . . .

S heila's birthday was last weekend.  I've been a bit too distracted with other things to write here in the blog for the past couple of weeks so I'm just adding some photos from Sheila's birthday now.   Sheila received her birthday gifts before her birthday even arrived this year.  I bought her an updated Samsung Smart/Fitness Watch (updated two versions from her old watch) which arrived a week before her birthday.  She opened that gift when it arrived in case it needed to be returned.   I also gave her some jewelry for her birthday and she opened that a couple of evenings early while she was video chatting with Lukey and Kenzie.  I gave her the gift while the kids were chatting with her so they could see her open at least one gift.   It turns out that Liza and the kids stopped by the house for a short while on Sheila's birthday too so I shot a few photos and we had a birthday cake for Gee.   It was nice spending a little time with the kids again.  We haven't re

T oday is Sheila's birthday so, Happy Birthday to Sheila! She took a couple of days off from work so we started her birthday celebration a couple of days ago.   It has been a wet, damp and muddy weekend so far.  We have some fresh snow on the ridge of the Worcester Range just outside our living room window, which looks really nice, but our yard is a squishy swamp and the driveway is like quicksand which is typical silty Vermont mud.  This month has been brutally bitter with high winds whipping across the flats and rattling our roof all day and all night long.  Between the wind, the rain and the mud, this really is rather typical weather for Sheila's birthday. Anyway, Sheila opened her birthday gifts the other night.  One of the gifts was a nice app-controlled heated coffee mug.  She seems to be enjoying this gift so far this weekend so this turned out to be a nice gift and especially for someone who works from home. There is no need to be microwaving cool coffee anymore!  The m

We invited Will and Sue as well as Liza and the kids over this past weekend for another barbeque in the backyard.  It was a beautiful day and everyone enjoyed themselves.   I have to mention that it has become very clear to Sheila and me that the best home improvement project we have ever done was to build our outdoor kitchen and grill.  This improvement has made things so much easier even in the dead of winter.  That outdoor kitchen and grill is under cover away from rain, hail and snow.  In the summertime when inside the house is ridiculously hot and sticky, it is awesome having everything available outdoors.  We could still use a few small improvements in this convenient outdoor kitchen but it is already our most useful home improvement.  This kitchen worked out very well on this day too. When the kids arrived, they were pretty hot so we started off the day with fresh strawberry popsicles.  Because of the pandemic, we don't see the kids all that often anymore so I try to get

We had a small get-together here at the house this past weekend.  We had only nine people here but it seemed like a yard-full of people.  During the first six months of this pandemic, we missed six birthdays in the family.  Things in Vermont had settled down for a short bit as related to the virus so we made plans for a small gathering while keeping within recommended guidelines.  That was Saturday. Since we exposed ourselves to each other again, we are now back to checking temperatures everyday again for two weeks though.  Both Sheila and I already had this virus but we don't believe that this will make us completely immune to future infection so we're trying to play it as safely as possible.  Of course, we don't want anyone else to get infected either.  The first five months of this year were miserable for me because of this virus and I don't have any desire to go through that again.  This virus wiped me out and I am still recovering.  (Perhaps I'll write more a