Pictures Of Lilies

Any fans of the Who from the 1960's out there???

Return To Cadillac

We spent the weekend on the run...his 'n' hers tattoos on Friday, dinner with friends on Friday night. Off to my parents' house on Saturday, to visit with them a little bit. Sunday saw us riding bicycles between thunderstorms. We made a quick trip to Hell, Michigan (kind of a tourist trap-surprise), and to a Polish fest at a church near my folks. The afternoon included an open house for ny niece, after her high school graduation. We then flew (not literally) over to Chelsea's cousin for a evening visit.

This weeks looks like it will be a little slower, which will be kind of nice after the last few busy weeks. I am still not complaining, though. Vacation is great. Hope I can remember how to go back to work after all is said and done...

We Spread The Mulch...

Two and a half yards of it, all around the house, today. Great help from my honey and Alexis-we were working for about six hours at it. The garden beds look much better for the effort. We need to do some more pruning, and there is the mess to dispose of, but things overall look very good.

I am still waiting to get my bike out of the shop for the weekend-it sounds like the nice folks here are going to loan me a spare wheel from one of their bikes until we can get a new wheel ordered and in. I understand that wheels break-maybe extras would be in order. We want to ride to Hell and back this weekend on our bikes. For those readers not familiar with Livingston County, Michigan, Hell is a little village not too far from Pinckney, where my parents live. I started to ride to Hell once, but only made it about 3/4 of the way to Hell and back. Mostly it was because someone apparently forgot to pave the road to Hell sufficently with good intentions.

More ink tomorrow! I am excited to see what ideas this new guy will come up with. He just did my sweetie's new stuff, and he is going to touch up her old stuff tomorrow as well. New ink at last! Of course, considering the red-haired pinup girl on my back, the previous statement seems a little silly. I just like good tattoos.

Busy day tomorrow, then off to my parents' house for the weekend. Open house for my oldest niece on Sunday.

Looks Like It Might Let Loose...

It has been cloudy and humid all day, and it looks as if the change is finally going to come. The radar is showing a nice thick line of weather all lit up in red. It looks as if it is actually becoming more intense as it comes off from Lake Michigan. I want the rain for my newly transplanted daylilies, so I am pretty ok with it.

I am getting comfortable with the pace of vacation, and I have to say that I find it pretty darn nice. It is one of the nice highlights in this summer of disaster. There are apparently new, and depressing develpoments in the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. That is an area that I have grown to love over the years, and it makes me sad to see the toll that this is taking on the people that live down there.

We have Alexis, my oldest granddaughter, here for a couple of days. I am trying to spend some time with all of the kids while I am here for the summer. We are going to do some exciting gardening and other fun activities tomorrow. I suspect we can find other, more entertaining things to do as well.

Last night, we had a reasonably impromptu beer tasting session in preparation for the selection of wedding beverages. When I watch my honey at work, I see how amazing she is and realize how lucky that I am. She can really put on a party, and it was nice to do some visiting with friends. More will come as the summer progresses.

Dancing, Weddings, and Yard Work

We had an absolute ball at the dance class we took on Friday night. Our instructors were great, and the time seemed to fly by. Best of all, we got better at dancing together.

We got to practice Saturday night at our the wedding of our friends, Andrea and Derick. A wonderful event with a truly beautiful bride and handsome groom. These guys have been together for a while now, and it is wonderful to see how beautifully they support one another through challenges (they have had a few).

Today, we began tackling some of the yard work which has piled up here in our absence. Our crack lawn-mowing expert, Anthony, has been all over that, but the garden beds around the house are in pretty sad shape. We need to remove some plants and move some others. Fortunately. we have LOTS of day lilies and we both like them. There will be some serious transplanting going on...

Two Beautiful Days...

Sunshine and summer temperatures have returned. We rode our bikes for 27 miles yesterday, up and down some rolling hills. I think that we will challenge a little bigger, steeper set of hills tomorrow, weather permitting.

Last night, we attended the section meeting party for the Worker's Compensation section of the State Bar. I got to see and spend time with a lot of old friends and acquaintances. It was great to hear what was going on in their lives and share some of what goes on in ours. Many questions were asked and answered. It made me realize again how lucky I have been to work with such a group of decent, honorable people during my former career. They seemed to be quite taken with Chelsea and very happy to see me happy. Nice. Very, very nice.

Tonight is a three-hour dance class which I think will be fun and helpful. I like to dance, but I am not going to say how wonderful I am at it. I could use some training.

Tomorrow is the first of the three weddings of the summer. Should be fun.

I hear that it sounds like the makings of a good and profitable summer fishing season on the Kuskokwim. Here is hoping for good fishing for all friends and families in Napas. I am looking forward to returning in about six weeks.

I live two very different lives, but I think that is a good thing...

Cloudy Tuesday

It has been overcast a lot around here for the past four or five days. It's kind of weird, but I won't complain, because it makes for good biking weather. I rode a couple of times today, into a pretty stiff easterly wind that we had all day. Good workout.

It is raining tonight, so I am curious to see what tomorrow's weather will bring. I kind of have the bug to ride some more, but riding in a steady downpour is not my idea of terribly safe.

The Worker's Compensation section of the State Bar will be meeting this weekend at the Crystal Mountain Resort up the road from here a bit. As a long time member, I am planning on hitting the cocktail party Thursday night for a little reunion with some of my former colleagues. Friday night we will be taking dance lessons, and Saturday is the wedding of my super stylist, Andrea.

Today was kind of lazy and fun, but things get busier from here...

Back To School (sort of)

It's Monday, so we're trying to make it a little more like a working week. We have had three weeks of goofing around, or at least running around so much that we didn't find time for school work or studying. That is changing today. We will be spending a set time every day working on preparation for the next school year. It feels good to get back into a little routine. Time off is fun, but I still like a little structure.

Next, we will be off to the gym for a workout. We have been pretty consistent about getting some form of exercise daily since we got back. Last night we took a medium-length (not quite 20 miles) bike ride around both Lake Cadillac, and Lake Mitchell. For folks not familiar with the layout around here, the two lakes sit roughly end-to-end, and they are pretty pleasant to ride around. Later this week, we will go over to the village of Boon and back, a hillier route that is about 25 miles long.

Wildlife sightings-we have seen bears crossing local roads twice in the past week. My understanding is that the local bear population is both healthy and active. I wonder when they will show up around here. I understand that they have in the past.

Friday Is Still Nice...

It is not as big a favorite as it was during the school year, but I still enjoy Friday. I guess that thirty years or so of looking forward to the weekend is a hard habit to break. It has been a busy week, with the little grandkids here, but it was a lot of fun. They are growing so quickly that it is fascinating to see how they progress. Thea will be in kindergarten in the fall, and Adi just turned four yesterday. Thea is confident to the point of bossiness, and is very talkative, much like someone else that I know. Adi is a funny, dreamy kind of kid, prone to reverie, and staring off in rapt concentration. She will often be focused intently on something without anyone else noticing, and will pop up with an observation that shows she was paying attention all along.

It makes it fun to play grandpa, even for a little while, and I think that we were able to show them a thing or two that they had not seen before. Like baby chicks. Chelsea's folks are raising chickens, and the girls got to gather eggs and see newly hatched chicks. Adi, in particular, seemes fascinated with an eggshell from which a chick had just emerged. She was explaining to her grandmother the next day that it was the chicken's house.

We will see them all again on Sunday, when we go to the grounds of the old State Hospital in Traverse City. The Hospital used to have a working dairy farm on the grounds, and there is apparently a commemorative dairy festival coming up this weekend. I am also aware now that the Blue Angels are coming here for Cherry Festival, to put on another of their air exhibitions. Much on the horizon for summer fun.

I am reading a book called Assassination Vacation right now that is pretty interesting. The author is a self-confessed assassination freak, who travels around to various locations on a sort of pilgrimage arising out of the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. Sounds strange, but I would recommend it to any with an interest in travel and history.

Tomorrow will find me a shopping widow. I think I will opt for an early workout, breakfast, and some yard work and bicycling, weather permitting. I will get tattoo pictures up when they are a little more healed.

It's Late...

..and we've been running for the past three days, but I do have to post at least one cute zoo picture...more to follow as I get more time for posting in the next day or so.

Back To Reality?

It is probably time to start thinking about training and study again. There is so much to try to know and do in this line of work. Of course, any rookie, no matter how old, has to learn a lot of new stuff if he/she is to try to be effective. It just comes with the territory.

We have several new initiatives in the district for this coming school year, and I plan to try to be a wholehearted participant in them. I don't think that I have any thing approaching the level of expertise to comment on some of the educational trends out there and whether they make sense or are the dumbest thing ever. I will adjust and accomodate. I may find that I tailor some of the material to my needs, but I will want to be sharp when the next school year starts in August.

In the meantime, there are granddaughters to pick up and baby chicks to see and zoos to visit, and tattoos to preview. It's going to be a busy week for us!

Shopping For New Ink

We spent a good part of the evening driving around Traverse City tonight checking out various tattoo shops, trying to assess the best place to get some new ink, and picking out designs for that new ink. We also got to see the kids, and hang out with Thea, my granddaughter. She and her little sister are going to come here for a couple of days this week. I am so enjoying vacation. It will be time this week to begin studying and reading, but I am going to take a full week off before I do any more school-related stuff. Even then, I plan on taking it nice and slow. I want to enjoy this one for a while yet.

SOME People May Have Overdone It...

12 miles in the morning, 38 in the afternoon...that much biking means that you have to drink water or your legs will cramp...SOME people fail to understand this.

But seriously, folks, it was a beautiful day yesterday here in Northern Michigan-sunny with temperatures in the 70's-a perfect day for riding a bike. And so we did, spinning over for a fine breakfast at the Blue Heron restaurant, and spending the afternoon exploring the beauty of Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties along the TART/Leelanau trail.

We capped it off with a visit with Chelsea's dad and dinner with my wonderful kids at a place called Poppycock's in downtown Traverse City.

The ultimate tourist experience, and as we walked back to our rental, it occurred to me how completely we could pass for that species of humans labelled the "fudgie"-an SUV with Illinois plates bearing two bicycles on the back...all those years of living through the winters here for naught-not even recognized as the long-suffering locals that we are. Pretty damn funny...

Walking The Greenway...

We explored the Clam River Greenway tonight. It runs through Cadillac from Lake Cadillac to the northeast side of town. It actually takes you out to where the Cadillac Area Sports Association facilities are located. Nice walk, and a girls' softball game at the end of it. Good healthy exercise, and we are discussing riding from Traverse City to Suttons Bay and back tomorrow-a thirty-eight mile round trip. I think that we are trying to catch up from our relatively sedentary state for much of the winter. Then again...we could always stay here and bike...so many decisions...

Just Keep Riding...

Back up on the bike today. What a grand way to travel, and how I have missed it over these months. The new frame is a joy to ride...can't get enough...

Just Another Beautiful Morning in Northern Michigan...

It is sunny and the birds are singing and at least two of the dogs have been out...the plan is to spend a quiet day after the last hectic week. The plants are green and lush looking after their drink of water yesterday-lush enough that they could use a trim. The grass has been getting cut, but the bushes are, well, bushy. The place looks kind of overgrown and neglected. The job of addressing that starts this morning. I need to fix a flat on the wheelbarrow, too. At least it is a nice day for that kind of thing...