Scattered Thoughts . . .

The weather was rather miserable on Saturday this past weekend so we had to change plans.  We had planned to take the grandchildren on a cruise on the Spirit of Ethan Allen but not in this miserable weather we were experiencing on this day. The cruise would have to wait for another day... preferably a beautiful day of sunshine. Instead, we surprised the kids with a last minute change of plans and brought them to The Christmas Loft.  We visited The Christmas Loft with the kids last September and they loved it. Sheila and I knew we wanted to return before this Christmas too and the weather helped us choose to visit again this past Saturday. You can't sneak him past any trains... this particular one is hard to miss though... Kenzie is always drawn to anything pink... This airplane's prop spins and "Merry Christmas" is projected on the prop blades as the prop spins... Little Rodney Dangerfield... More trains

We had a busy weekend again with the grandchildren. It is always nice to have them around but this weekend my health did not cooperate. I screwed up a dose of medications on Saturday... and, other than a 15 minute snooze in the car on the way back from Burlington, I missed my usual 2 hour daily nap... and now my health is paying for these problems. I could barely keep my eyes open on Sunday (yesterday). I felt as though I had been heavily drugged and was fighting losing consciousness. I finally had a chance to lay on the couch in the afternoon to try to get some much needed rest. I slept for about two hours but I had a very difficult time waking myself up enough to even get up off the couch. I would try to awaken but my eyes wouldn't stay open and I would fall asleep again... and then again... and again.  As I was lying there, fighting falling asleep yet again, I was wondering if I might have experienced anaphylaxis in my sleep again.  The post anaphylaxis symptoms are very o

I've been focused on working on Lukey's train set (new scenery, new buildings, new trains) for some presents this coming Christmas. While I was looking for stuff for Lukey's train set, I ran across something which caused me to change gears briefly. For quite some time now, I've been reading about modelers who convert old S scale American Flyer freight cars to O scale narrow gauge. O scale is a larger scale than S scale but narrow gauge trains are purposefully smaller than their standard gauge counterparts so the smaller S scale trains often measure just right for O scale narrow gauge.  "Standard gauge" trains are the trains we see running around our real life world today... the rails are almost five feet apart (4'-8½", to be exact) and the trains are quite large. In smaller, tighter places, however, smaller trains were necessary (and a few are still running today) ... ie, winding through mountains, dense woods, around wharfs, in industrial comple

We had a really nice weekend and had an especially nice Sunday dinner with the grandchildren, Liza, and Sheila's parents, Will and Sue! Lukey arrived at the house with a golf club in hand which immediately reminded me of creating golf courses when I was a kid myself. We kept the course design simple on this day, however.  First, we dug one single hole, inserted a cup, and then we figured out where to place five different tee off areas... one straight-on... one off to the side... one which we called "down in the hole" which placed the tee off area lower than the green... one which was off to the side of "down in the hole" requiring chipping around tall brush and foliage... and one which required chipping over our firepit.  We took a little break for lunch... cheese quesadillas, tomato soup, apple sauce and berry jello for the kids... some leftover fried okra for me... and a cherry tomato medley salad for Gee... then back outside to play more go