My year in pictures … briefly

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My year in pictures … briefly

The end of 2023 has arrived, so time for an abundance of year in review pieces and posts all around the blogosphere and beyond.

Naturally, I have mine to add.

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Home Happenings: October 2022

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Home Happenings: October 2022

Looking back, October marks the most mellow month of the 2022 for me. At least in terms of getting out and about. Our typically wild and crazy Callie had ACL surgery — technically CCL in dogs — near the end of September, which meant she had to lay low and go slow, rendering us pretty much homebound for most of October.

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Safe entertaining tips for grandparents in a COVID-19 world

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Safe entertaining tips for grandparents in a COVID-19 world

Depending on where you live, restrictions on social gatherings may become less strict in the coming weeks and months. However, many experts caution that care should still be exercised when groups of people gather.

After an extended period without social contact, it’s only natural to crave some interaction …

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Rockin' PawDad's party

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Rockin' PawDad's party

The recent weekend in which my family was all together—a relatively uncommon occurrence even in the best of times—featured not only Robert’s baptism, as I previously shared, but a milestone birthday celebration, too. That milestone being Jim’s sixtieth birthday.

The birthday festivities, organized primarily by Megan, revolved around a rockin’ theme as …

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Backyard bliss 2020

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Backyard bliss 2020

The spectrum of fall colors in Colorado can range from brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows one hopes remain on tree branches all season to crunchy, crispy, brown disappointments offering satisfaction only once raked, bagged, and gone. It all depends on the when the first hard freeze arrives.

Despite most everything else about 2020 causing dismay and despondency, fall colors in Colorado this year are the best I recall in my forty-plus years in the state. Thanks to no hard freeze yet. (Knock wood!)

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Blooms and birds: Sights that soothe Covid chaos

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Blooms and birds: Sights that soothe Covid chaos

Here we are several months into the pandemic, and Colorado seems to be faring relatively well. We’re one of the few states with falling or stable cases of Covid-19, thanks to (most) folks wearing face masks, adhering to social distancing rules, and refraining from congregating in large groups.

Stay-at-home orders have been gradually relaxed in my state, though not yet completely ceased, and staying home as much as possible is still recommended.

Which suits me just fine, considering the chaos far and wide on pretty much every front imaginable. I’m more than happy being confined to the …

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Six blessings of my dog's senior status

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Six blessings of my dog's senior status

Our dog is getting old. Depending on the chart used, Mickey — the pit-pointer we rescued at six weeks old — has reached senior status, hovering anywhere around 80 years old to 93 or so.

Mickey’s advanced age is obvious in myriad ways. The bold brown coloring on his face has gone gray, he has trouble on stairs, he sleeps much of the time, he rarely gets excited about even his once most favorite things … including squirrels needing his exuberant escorting out of the yard and …

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School papers and similarly sentimental stuff

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School papers and similarly sentimental stuff

During my daughters’ school years, I kept all the papers and projects they brought home from school. Everything. Spelling tests, stories, handwriting practice (they did that back then), certificates earned for field day and perfect attendance, report cards for each quarter of each year.

I kept it all. Times three. All in cardboard boxes in a storage space beneath the house we lived in for the duration of the girls’ school years. Lots of …

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