Goals Update - Year End Review

Today is the last day of 2019, so that means it's time to see how I did on my goals for the year.  It wasn't the greatest, on most of them, but what can you do except focus and try harder next time. So here is a recap of 2019 on my goals.

Goal Number One - Read at least 55 books: I fell short on this one and ended at 47 books, which isn't that great. I mean it's a lot but 41 of them I read between January and April.  The other six I read between August and December. After the first half of the year, I didn' thave the drive to read anything. Though last year I only read 10, and only one of those books were for fun, so this year was far different with a lot more leisure reading, which is good.

Leisure Reading List (total 7)

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green
2. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
3. The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan (My students were reading it, so I did too)
4. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (My students were reading it, so I did too)
5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
6. Peak by Roland Smith (My students were reading it, so I did too)
7. Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini 

Graduate Class Reading List (total 40)

1. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina’s Plantation Society by Jack P. Greene
2. Red Ink: Native Americans Pick up the Pen in the Colonial Period by Drew Lopenzina
3. American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths by Thomas S. Kidd
4. Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775 by Jack M. Sosin
5. The Revolutionary Frontier 1763-1783 by Jack M. Sosin
6. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel W. Howe
7. The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution by Charles R. Morris
8. Beyond the Frontier: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley
9. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861by David M. Potter
10. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815by Gordon S. Wood,
11. Slavery, Law, & Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective by Donald E. Fehrenbacher
12. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil Warby Eric Foner
13. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael T. Landis
14. Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of the Civil Warby Bruce Levine
15. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and Slaveryby James B. Stewart
16. Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. Beringer
17. Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Herman Hattaway
18. Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War NorthMelinda Lawson
19. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret
20. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865by Russell F. Weigley
21. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877by Eric Foner
22. Reconstruction after the Civil Warby John H. Franklin,
23. Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction by William B. Hesseltine
24. In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Lawby Joseph A. Ranney
25. The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877by James E. Sefton
26. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany by Roger Chickering
27. The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
28. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War by Adrian Gregory
29. The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946 by Adrian Gregory
30. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War by Arthur Marwick
31. War, Law, and Labour: The munitions Acts, State Regulations, And the Unions 1915-1921 by Gerry Rubin
32. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter
33. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
34. Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan
35. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh
36. Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front by Konrad Jarausch
37. The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw
38. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner Jr.
39. Model Nazi by Catherine Epstein
40. The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

Goal Number Two - Lose 1 pound per week: So ultimately, I went the wrong way here and over the year gained 8.7 pounds.  That's not great at all, and a lot of it was because somewhere along the second half of the year I just stopped being diligent about tracking anything.  But, this has so far been an unattainable goal for like 15 years, so it's not exactly surprising.  I had some mini-goals that I did ok for some of and didn't do well on others. Some small improvement here, but it's because I'm being more focused on what I'm doing. For the mini-goals, here is how it's going:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings every day.  I missed 183 of 365 days this year on closing my rings.  A few of those were really close, but most of them, probably over half of the misses came in the last few months of the year when I fell off on my focus on it.  But, it's only one day about the 50% mark, so I suppose it could be worse.  So I guess my goal for next year is to do better than I did this year.
• Subgoal 2: Have at least two different activity style works out each week. Failed at this, no other commentary to go along with it.
• Subgoal 3: Log every meal, every day, and doing the day of.  A win on this one, I've actually kept this up the past 1,095 days (that was December 29, 2016).
• Subgoal 4: Complete a 5k race. COMPLETED! I ran my first 5K on September 28th. It was a fun run and a complete mess with mud, but I did it and it was a ton of fun!
• Subgoal 5: Keep under my calorie goal - which means avoiding snacking. Obviously, since I went up 8.7 pounds, I did not do this.

Goal Number Three - More Organized Social Calendar: This was a terrible goal because it was way too vague and wasn't something that could be tracked or measured in any way. About halfway through the year, I decided it was a stupid goal and stopped really caring about it too much.

Goal Number Four - Landscape the backyard: Moving this to next year since it didn't happen again.

Goal Number Five - Be more creative: So, over the past few weeks I've been working on drawing more, just doing some activities and practice stuff. Nothing that I'd show anyone, but it's been fun. So I did some, but not much, and it came at the very end, so not the best.

Goal Number Six - Be more expressive:  This is another goal that wasn't trackable and I stopped caring about halfway through the year, so yeah.

Goal Number Seven - Have Seven New Experiences:  I hit ten this year, which was fun.  It was some fun stuff that I got to do this year, and this is usually my favorite goal of the year.

1. Becky and I took Sal to see Daniel Tiger Live, which was a new experience for both of us. While the show and process had much to be desired, the excitement and engagement from Sal was splendid.
2. Jasmine got me tickets to see the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, they were performing music from Harry Potter and it was fantastic!
3. I completed my exams and graduated with a 4.0 with my master's degree in history!
4. Saw three new shows on broadway: Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that could be three new experiences, but that seems cheating (unless I don't make it to seven for the year, in which case it's not cheating, haha!)
5. Did the NBC Studio Tour - I've been wanting to do this for 20 years now.
6. New Disney Experiences - So, there were a bunch of new things, like taking Sal for the first time, doing a character meal (or two), stayed at a new resort (Art of Animation), and rode new rides. I'm only going to count it as one event instead of multiple.
7. Ride on a speedboat - So, I think this happened in September, though it could have been late August. Either way, we were invited out on Momwich and Chilly-Cheese-Doug's boat. Sadly, no animals with long ears were sitting along the side. I've only ever been on a pontoon boat, so this was a totally new experience. It also made me strongly want to live on a lake, or at least have a house on a lake - summers, ya know? 
8. Run a 5k - Jasmine, Sara, Tyler, and I ran the Great Pumpkin Run in Fenton at an orchard. It was a muddy mess due to the rain the night before, but it was a ton of fun!
9. Detroit Symphony Orchestra -  I've never been to the DSO, and I've only been to see one Symphony before. Becky got tickets to see The Empire Strikes Back, and the DSO played all the background music for it. It was really cool! There were moments when I forgot it wasn't just the soundtrack playing, that's how flawless they were!
10. I went through my first automatic car wash.  I've been in the passenger seat, but I've never done it myself.  It was a little stressful because it's something new and I wasn't sure how to make sure my car was in neutral. I also wasn't sure how they process the payment and all I had was a card, but they have this nice screen before you pull up that you order what you want and then away you go.  It wasn't bad, but it was a stupid new experience.

So, there we have it for 2019. I'll have to think of some new goals for 2020, though a few are going to carry over.

UPDATE!
After Becky read this earlier today, she reminded me that I had a stupid new experience this year so I actually had 10, which has been added above.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 143

So, I hate Comcast so much. They are a-holes. They are sneaky with how they charge you. They make it difficult to compare product prices so they can swindle you.  I recently started looking into ways to get rid of them after a terrible experience with them that makes it impossible to do a number of things because they don't like Sony televisions apparently.  So, I recently went old school and bought an antenna to see if we could get the channels we want without having to deal with Comcast.  Turns out they found all the channels we wanted and then some, and that's just having it in the living room. So, I may be able to tell them to piss off and save like $100 a month.

Goals Update: December Edition

One more month to go, so lets see how it's going.

Goal Number One - Read at least 55 books: There were not any more books this month. I think it's possible that I can get two more books in here, but I think I'm going to fall below my goal on this, but hey, almost 50 books is pretty good. The list so far is:

Leisure Reading List (total so far 5)

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green
2. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
3. The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan (My students were reading it, so I did too)
4. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (My students were reading it, so I did too)
5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Graduate Class Reading List (total so far 40)

1. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina’s Plantation Society by Jack P. Greene
2. Red Ink: Native Americans Pick up the Pen in the Colonial Period by Drew Lopenzina
3. American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths by Thomas S. Kidd
4. Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775 by Jack M. Sosin
5. The Revolutionary Frontier 1763-1783 by Jack M. Sosin
6. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel W. Howe
7. The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution by Charles R. Morris
8. Beyond the Frontier: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley
9. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861by David M. Potter
10. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815by Gordon S. Wood,
11. Slavery, Law, & Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective by Donald E. Fehrenbacher
12. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil Warby Eric Foner
13. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael T. Landis
14. Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of the Civil Warby Bruce Levine
15. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and Slaveryby James B. Stewart
16. Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. Beringer
17. Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Herman Hattaway
18. Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War NorthMelinda Lawson
19. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret
20. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865by Russell F. Weigley
21. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877by Eric Foner
22. Reconstruction after the Civil Warby John H. Franklin,
23. Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction by William B. Hesseltine
24. In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Lawby Joseph A. Ranney
25. The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877by James E. Sefton
26. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany by Roger Chickering
27. The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
28. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War by Adrian Gregory
29. The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946 by Adrian Gregory
30. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War by Arthur Marwick
31. War, Law, and Labour: The munitions Acts, State Regulations, And the Unions 1915-1921 by Gerry Rubin
32. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter
33. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
34. Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan
35. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh
36. Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front by Konrad Jarausch
37. The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw
38. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner Jr.
39. Model Nazi by Catherine Epstein
40. The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

Goal Number Two - Lose 1 pound per week: Some small improvement here, but it's because I'm being more focused on what I'm doing. For the mini-goals, here is how it's going:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings every day.  It was horrible this month, I missed 28 days t, which sends me all the way up to 127.  
• Subgoal 2: Have at least two different activity style works out each week. This month I had about zero activities per day, so that's something.
• Subgoal 3: Log every meal, every day, and doing the day of.  I'm up over 1,000 days in a row on this one!
• Subgoal 4: Complete a 5k race. COMPLETED! I ran my first 5K on September 28th. It was a fun run and a complete mess with mud, but I did it and it was a ton of fun!
• Subgoal 5: Keep under my calorie goal - which means avoiding snacking. Started to pay more attention on this one, and it's resulted in some improvements.

Goal Number Three - More Organized Social Calendar: November has some built in events this month because of Thanksgiving and Blackout Friday. It's still not great, and I think I have a plan for 2020 to be a bit better.

Goal Number Four - Landscape the backyard: Moving this to next year since it didn't happen again.

Goal Number Five - Be more creative: This month was my birthday, and Becky got me some drawing materials, so I've got some drawing pads so that I can do some stuff.  Yay!

Goal Number Six - Be more expressive:  “Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.”
― Oscar Wilde.

Goal Number Seven - Have Seven New Experiences:  Nothing new in November, but I already made my goal of eight, so it's not a big deal.

1. Becky and I took Sal to see Daniel Tiger Live, which was a new experience for both of us. While the show and process had much to be desired, the excitement and engagement from Sal was splendid.
2. Jasmine got me tickets to see the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, they were performing music from Harry Potter and it was fantastic!
3. I completed my exams and graduated with a 4.0 with my master's degree in history!
4. Saw three new shows on broadway: Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that could be three new experiences, but that seems cheating (unless I don't make it to seven for the year, in which case it's not cheating, haha!)
5. Did the NBC Studio Tour - I've been wanting to do this for 20 years now.
6. New Disney Experiences - So, there were a bunch of new things, like taking Sal for the first time, doing a character meal (or two), stayed at a new resort (Art of Animation), and rode new rides. I'm only going to count it as one event instead of multiple.
7. Ride on a speedboat - So, I think this happened in September, though it could have been late August. Either way, we were invited out on Momwich and Chilly-Cheese-Doug's boat. Sadly, no animals with long ears were sitting along the side. I've only ever been on a pontoon boat, so this was a totally new experience. It also made me strongly want to live on a lake, or at least have a house on a lake - summers, ya know? 
8. Run a 5k - Jasmine, Sara, Tyler, and I ran the Great Pumpkin Run in Fenton at an orchard. It was a muddy mess due to the rain the night before, but it was a ton of fun!
9. Detroit Symphony Orchestra -  I've never been to the DSO, and I've only been to see one Symphony before. Becky got tickets to see The Empire Strikes Back, and the DSO played all the background music for it. It was really cool! There were moments when I forgot it wasn't just the soundtrack playing, that's how flawless they were!

So that's it for October!

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 140-142

Since I didn't post on Thanksgiving, here are some photos from our second year hosting Thanksgiving. This year was much better because we didn't have to rush to get enough serving items and so on. But, here we have the table set, the turkey brining, and the sad fact that there is not enough space on the stove to cook properly.

Kimi no Na wa - 君の名は

Tonight we decided that we were going to do a home movie night.  This is really because last week the local movie theater was doing a special showing of Spirited Away.  Sal is a big fan and wanted to go see it, even though she's seen it before and we own it on DVD.  This seemed like it was going to be fun, and back in September we went and saw My Neighbor Totoro. The problem was that when we saw Totoro we found out that these special events do not conform to the normal ticket prices, so for all of us to go was around $35 plus snacks.

At the same time, it's a lot of fun to see things in movie theaters with other people.  There's a different energy when there are lots of other people there experiencing it with you. However, when we got to the day of the movie we decided that we were kind of tired and wanted to just stay home.  Sal, on the other hand, was having none of it and insisted that we see the movie.  We decided to try and convince her to just stay home by offering to pop the movie in and bring up the popcorn machine and make it a home movie theater.  Being a child always happy to find a solution, she decided that we could do both and that we'd go see Spirited Away and then do our own movie theater at home the following Saturday.

As she also has a memory like a steel trap, she did not forget that she had said we were going to do an at-home movie tonight.  We pulled the popcorn machine out of the basement, popped up some delicious popcorn, and then tried to decide what movie she wanted to watch.  Our goal was that we'd get her to watch a movie that she hasn't seen yet, however she was set on the idea that we would watch My Neighbor Totoro for the 137th time.  Don't get me wrong, I do love the movie and I'm thrilled that she also love it (and Spirited Away) because Miyazaki films are some of my favorites and I love that we can share that. However, it's also not the most exciting of the movies as it is geared more toward kids with a story that isn't really all that fast-paced.  However, she won out and we ended up watching Totoro again.  She didn't have enough time to watch the entire movie before it was her bedtime, so we had to end it right after "her favorite part."

The thing is, her favorite part of the movie has to do with the music.  She has an ear for music that is somewhat similar to me. I love music, and that is one of the things that really stands out to me in Miyazaki films, they have fantastic soundtracks.  They are beautiful, often whimsical to match their story, enchanting as the plot is, and just all-around lovely.  I actually really enjoy that when we get dinner at Yotsuba, their regular music is a piano version of the Miyazaki films.  For Sal, her favorite part is a scene when they are taking a bath and a big storm is blowing the old house, and it's creaking and it sounds as if the house is going to fall down. As the storm ends, the soot sprites that inhabited the house before they moved in making the choice to move out now that humans live there.  As they leave, they play a piece of music called "Path of the Wind" as they float out of the house into the large and magical tree where Totoro lives.  It's actually one of my favorite pieces of music from the soundtrack as well.  For reference below, I have embedded a more orchestrated version of the piece from the film.  It's far more dramatic in this piece than it is in the movie, and is much longer.  Although I love this piece, I think the music from Spirited Away or the theme to Howl's Moving Castle is probably my absolute favorite.



After we watched a bit of Totoro and then heading off to bed I decided to pop in one of my favorite new, non-Miyazaki, films that have come out recently called Kimi no Na wa (Your Name).  The film is absolutely stunningly animated. The leaves on trees, light shining through them, the idyllic scenery of the Japanese countryside, and the bustling metropolis of Tokyo.  It's just beautifully drawn.  However, I also really enjoy the story. It's basically a kind of Freaky Friday situation where two teenagers who don't know each other find themselves switching bodies with each other.  At first, they think it's all a dream, and when they return to their bodies their memories of the other life are fuzzy as if they were in a dream.  However, after a few switches, they realize that it's not a dream and that they are actually living a day in someone else's life.  As time goes they realize they have feelings for each other even though they've never really met.  The switches abruptly end, leading the male lead to try and find this girl he's been trading lives with. It soon becomes clear why they have been switching bodies, why it's stopped, and that there is something bigger going on.  However, as the situation is resolved, both of them can not remember the name of the other and instead are left with a feeling that there is something missing but don't know what it is. A longing inside, a sort of melancholy,  an absence, and loneliness that can't be pinpointed. It's a great plot, and I really enjoy it.

However, one of the things that I love the most about it, is the soundtrack to the film.  The music is in collaboration with a Japanese band called the Radwimps. Their music brings both an exciting rock/pop style music to the story, but then at the same time is adapted to bring music that perfectly conveys that melancholy loneliness. The music is beautiful, sad, and yet hopeful all at once.  I feel like I really relate to that feeling of absence and loneliness a lot given that life that I've lived being uprooted so often.  There are so many people in my life that have moved on and I don't have here anymore.  There is always a distance that I feel with a lot of parts of my life, so that's why it probably speaks to me so much. Even when you aren't watching the film, listening to the soundtrack can pull you into that same feeling. For the actual songs performed by the Radwimps, the musicians perform both in English for the dubbed version, or in Japanese for the original version.  Both sound great, though I tend to prefer the Japanese version because the lyrics in Japanese tend to fit the beat and cadence of the music better than the English version of it.

Since I've been kind of gushing about the movie as well as the music, I thought I'd share some of my favorite pieces from the soundtrack. The first is the theme for the lead female character named Mitsuha. I love the piano of it, it's peaceful and rather lovely.


My second piece is for the Goshinti shrine, which plays an important role in the movie.  The music is used as the grandmother is conveying information to her granddaughter as they make their way through the forest and up the mountain to the shrine. I feel like this one has that kind of loneliness and sadness under it.



To change pace, this is one of the songs from the Radwimps. It's so upbeat and fun. There's actually a video of the band playing with a live orchestra in what appears to be a live concert version where they play the film and the band performs the music life with it.  I love how the conductor gets all into the music as he's leading the orchestra and the band plays at the front of the stage. It's a lot of fun.

The final piece is an alteration from one of the Radwimp songs done in a quiet piano with strings at times backing it up.  This takes place for the few moments that the two are able to finally find each other and talk for the first time. I feel like this one has a strange sadness, yet also a somewhat hopeful sound to it.  It perfectly matches the music because at last, they get to meet, yet their time is fleeting. I also love the way the music builds over the piece before reaching a sort of musical climax and then falling back to the beginning quiet, almost like a wave.

To be honest, I love the entire soundtrack to this. I can listen to it from start to finish and there's not a piece on there that makes me want to skip and move to the next track.  Music can really get me, and this soundtrack is one of my favorites. Anyhow, I thought I'd share some music with everyone.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 139

Generally, I don't feel that marketing really affects me so much.  I'm very practical about the things that I like or want. I don't see a commercial and then have to go buy something. However, this week at Kroger I saw these retro-style Cheetos and decided that it was just too much fun to pass off. So, now I have this bag of Cheetos because they look like they did when I was a kid.  Also, they were delicious.

Goals Update: November Edition

Coming into the home stretch of 2019, and there are only another two months until we make it to 2020! So, with only one more check-in before the end of the year, here is how the goals are going after the end of October.

Goal Number One - Read at least 55 books: I had two new books this month, including the one that 1 that I've been reading since April. That puts me at 45 books for the year, I don't think I'll hit 55, because it's going to be 10 in the next two months which seems unlikely. The list so far is:

Leisure Reading List (total so far 5)

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green
2. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
3. The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan (My students were reading it, so I did too)
4. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (My students were reading it, so I did too)
5. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Graduate Class Reading List (total so far 40)

1. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina’s Plantation Society by Jack P. Greene
2. Red Ink: Native Americans Pick up the Pen in the Colonial Period by Drew Lopenzina
3. American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths by Thomas S. Kidd
4. Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775 by Jack M. Sosin
5. The Revolutionary Frontier 1763-1783 by Jack M. Sosin
6. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel W. Howe
7. The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution by Charles R. Morris
8. Beyond the Frontier: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley
9. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861by David M. Potter
10. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815by Gordon S. Wood,
11. Slavery, Law, & Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective by Donald E. Fehrenbacher
12. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil Warby Eric Foner
13. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael T. Landis
14. Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of the Civil Warby Bruce Levine
15. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and Slaveryby James B. Stewart
16. Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. Beringer
17. Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Herman Hattaway
18. Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War NorthMelinda Lawson
19. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret
20. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865by Russell F. Weigley
21. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877by Eric Foner
22. Reconstruction after the Civil Warby John H. Franklin,
23. Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction by William B. Hesseltine
24. In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Lawby Joseph A. Ranney
25. The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877by James E. Sefton
26. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany by Roger Chickering
27. The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
28. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War by Adrian Gregory
29. The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946 by Adrian Gregory
30. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War by Arthur Marwick
31. War, Law, and Labour: The munitions Acts, State Regulations, And the Unions 1915-1921 by Gerry Rubin
32. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter
33. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
34. Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan
35. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh
36. Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front by Konrad Jarausch
37. The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw
38. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner Jr.
39. Model Nazi by Catherine Epstein
40. The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

Goal Number Two - Lose 1 pound per week: I haven't had much going on here, I'm kind of in a plateau for things. For the mini-goals, here is how it's going:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings every day.  It was horrible this month, I missed 28 days t, which sends me all the way up to 127.  
• Subgoal 2: Have at least two different activity style works out each week. Most days I haven't been getting in any activity, so this is a big flop yet again.
• Subgoal 3: Log every meal, every day, and doing the day of.  Still keeping up on this!
• Subgoal 4: Complete a 5k race. COMPLETED! I ran my first 5K on September 28th. It was a fun run and a complete mess with mud, but I did it and it was a ton of fun!
• Subgoal 5: Keep under my calorie goal - which means avoiding snacking. This has mostly been good, but there are a few days where it's been over, so I've got to get that under control.

Goal Number Three - More Organized Social Calendar: Had a few activities this month including a pretty nice dinner party.  And there's a bunch of stuff coming up in November, so that is going to make the social calendar busy.

Goal Number Four - Landscape the backyard: Moving this to next year since it didn't happen again.

Goal Number Five - Be more creative: I want to start drawing again.  This was something that I did when I was younger and I just stopped for some reason. I also tried to do something a bit creative with carving the pumpkins this year. 

Goal Number Six - Be more expressive:  We didn't need words. We had faces.

Goal Number Seven - Have Seven New Experiences:  I'm already to eight for the year, which surpasses the goal.  Nothing new for this monthWe've reached seven! Actually, I've now gone beyond because I did two new things this month! Victory!

1. Becky and I took Sal to see Daniel Tiger Live, which was a new experience for both of us. While the show and process had much to be desired, the excitement and engagement from Sal was splendid.
2. Jasmine got me tickets to see the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, they were performing music from Harry Potter and it was fantastic!
3. I completed my exams and graduated with a 4.0 with my master's degree in history!
4. Saw three new shows on broadway: Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that could be three new experiences, but that seems cheating (unless I don't make it to seven for the year, in which case it's not cheating, haha!)
5. Did the NBC Studio Tour - I've been wanting to do this for 20 years now.
6. New Disney Experiences - So, there were a bunch of new things, like taking Sal for the first time, doing a character meal (or two), stayed at a new resort (Art of Animation), and rode new rides. I'm only going to count it as one event instead of multiple.
7. Ride on a speedboat - So, I think this happened in September, though it could have been late August. Either way, we were invited out on Momwich and Chilly-Cheese-Doug's boat. Sadly, no animals with long ears were sitting along the side. I've only ever been on a pontoon boat, so this was a totally new experience. It also made me strongly want to live on a lake, or at least have a house on a lake - summers, ya know? 
8. Run a 5k - Jasmine, Sara, Tyler, and I ran the Great Pumpkin Run in Fenton at an orchard. It was a muddy mess due to the rain the night before, but it was a ton of fun!
9. Detroit Symphony Orchestra -  I've never been to the DSO, and I've only been to see one Symphony before. Becky got tickets to see The Empire Strikes Back, and the DSO played all the background music for it. It was really cool! There were moments when I forgot it wasn't just the soundtrack playing, that's how flawless they were!

So that's it for October!

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 138

My pumpkin that didn't turn out quite right.  Whiskers broke, and the eyes didn't work out quite right. In the dark, it didn't quite look like Totoro in the same way that it looks when it's not dark. Also, carving is crazy difficult.  I always find sculptures so impressive, especially how realistic some look, like the Veiled Virgin by Giovanni Strazza. It's amazing the way Strazza makes it look as if fabric flows off her face. I love this one.

Goals Update: October Edition

Another month down, another check-in to see how the goals are going.

Goal Number One - Read at least 55 books: I had one new book this month, though I wanted to have finished two. I've been reading a book since April and I don't have much left, but haven't been able to get it finished. The list so far is:

Leisure Reading List (total so far 3)

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green
2. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
3. The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan (My students were reading it, so I did too)

Graduate Class Reading List (total so far 40)

1. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina’s Plantation Society by Jack P. Greene
2. Red Ink: Native Americans Pick up the Pen in the Colonial Period by Drew Lopenzina
3. American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths by Thomas S. Kidd
4. Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775 by Jack M. Sosin
5. The Revolutionary Frontier 1763-1783 by Jack M. Sosin
6. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel W. Howe
7. The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution by Charles R. Morris
8. Beyond the Frontier: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley
9. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861by David M. Potter
10. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815by Gordon S. Wood,
11. Slavery, Law, & Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective by Donald E. Fehrenbacher
12. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil Warby Eric Foner
13. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael T. Landis
14. Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of the Civil Warby Bruce Levine
15. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and Slaveryby James B. Stewart
16. Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. Beringer
17. Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Herman Hattaway
18. Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War NorthMelinda Lawson
19. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret
20. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865by Russell F. Weigley
21. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877by Eric Foner
22. Reconstruction after the Civil Warby John H. Franklin,
23. Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction by William B. Hesseltine
24. In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Lawby Joseph A. Ranney
25. The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877by James E. Sefton
26. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany by Roger Chickering
27. The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
28. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War by Adrian Gregory
29. The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946 by Adrian Gregory
30. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War by Arthur Marwick
31. War, Law, and Labour: The munitions Acts, State Regulations, And the Unions 1915-1921 by Gerry Rubin
32. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter
33. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
34. Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan
35. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh
36. Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front by Konrad Jarausch
37. The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw
38. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner Jr.
39. Model Nazi by Catherine Epstein
40. The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

Goal Number Two - Lose 1 pound per week: I haven't had much going on here, I'm kind of in a plateau for things. For the mini-goals, here is how it's going:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings every day.  It wasn't a great month, I missed 21days this month, which sends me all the way up to 99.  
• Subgoal 2: Have at least two different activity style works out each week. Most days I haven't been getting in any activity, so this is a big flop again.
• Subgoal 3: Log every meal, every day, and doing the day of.  Still keeping up on this!
• Subgoal 4: Complete a 5k race. COMPLETED! I ran my first 5K on September 28th. It was a fun run and a complete mess with mud, but I did it and it was a ton of fun!
• Subgoal 5: Keep under my calorie goal - which means avoiding snacking. I've mostly been keeping it under, but snacking is too much, especially at the end of the day.

Goal Number Three - More Organized Social Calendar: Not much in September, but I have plans for October. I did get to go to see the DSO perform the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back while the move played which was a lot of fun. Tori accompanied me and it was a good time.

Goal Number Four - Landscape the backyard: Well, it's fall, so this didn't happen. I guess I'll have it on the list again next year.

Goal Number Five - Be more creative: I've done nothing creatively.

Goal Number Six - Be more expressive:  Meh.

Goal Number Seven - Have Seven New Experiences:  We've reached seven! Actually, I've now gone beyond because I did two new things this month! Victory!

1. Becky and I took Sal to see Daniel Tiger Live, which was a new experience for both of us. While the show and process had much to be desired, the excitement and engagement from Sal was splendid.
2. Jasmine got me tickets to see the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, they were performing music from Harry Potter and it was fantastic!
3. I completed my exams and graduated with a 4.0 with my master's degree in history!
4. Saw three new shows on broadway: Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that could be three new experiences, but that seems cheating (unless I don't make it to seven for the year, in which case it's not cheating, haha!)
5. Did the NBC Studio Tour - I've been wanting to do this for 20 years now.
6. New Disney Experiences - So, there were a bunch of new things, like taking Sal for the first time, doing a character meal (or two), stayed at a new resort (Art of Animation), and rode new rides. I'm only going to count it as one event instead of multiple.
7. Ride on a speedboat - So, I think this happened in September, though it could have been late August. Either way, we were invited out on Momwich and Chilly-Cheese-Doug's boat. Sadly, no animals with long ears were sitting along the side. I've only ever been on a pontoon boat, so this was a totally new experience. It also made me strongly want to live on a lake, or at least have a house on a lake - summers, ya know? 
8. Run a 5k - Jasmine, Sara, Tyler, and I ran the Great Pumpkin Run in Fenton at an orchard. It was a muddy mess due to the rain the night before, but it was a ton of fun!
9. Detroit Symphony Orchestra - I've never been to the DSO, and I've only been to see one Symphony before. Becky got tickets to see The Empire Strikes Back, and the DSO played all the background music for it. It was really cool! There were moments when I forgot it wasn't just the soundtrack playing, that's how flawless they were!

So that's it for September!

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 137

With a finished fireplace, the only thing left to do was decorate it. So, Happy Fall!

Goals Update: September Edition

Another month down, another check-in to see how the goals are going.

Goal Number One - Read at least 55 books: I had one new book this month, though I wanted to have finished two. I've been reading a book since April and I don't have much left, but haven't been able to get it finished. The list so far is:

Leisure Reading List (total so far 2)

1. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green
2. They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

Graduate Class Reading List (total so far 40)

1. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina’s Plantation Society by Jack P. Greene
2. Red Ink: Native Americans Pick up the Pen in the Colonial Period by Drew Lopenzina
3. American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths by Thomas S. Kidd
4. Agents and Merchants: British Colonial Policy and the Origins of the American Revolution, 1763-1775 by Jack M. Sosin
5. The Revolutionary Frontier 1763-1783 by Jack M. Sosin
6. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America 1815-1848 by Daniel W. Howe
7. The Dawn of Innovation: The First American Industrial Revolution by Charles R. Morris
8. Beyond the Frontier: New Approaches to the Political History of the Early American Republic by Jeffrey L. Pasley
9. The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861by David M. Potter
10. Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815by Gordon S. Wood,
11. Slavery, Law, & Politics: The Dred Scott Case in Historical Perspective by Donald E. Fehrenbacher
12. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil Warby Eric Foner
13. Northern Men with Southern Loyalties: The Democratic Party and the Sectional Crisis by Michael T. Landis
14. Half Slave & Half Free: The Roots of the Civil Warby Bruce Levine
15. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and Slaveryby James B. Stewart
16. Why the South Lost the Civil Warby Richard E. Beringer
17. Jefferson Davis: Confederate President by Herman Hattaway
18. Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War NorthMelinda Lawson
19. Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Greatest President as Commander in Chief by Geoffrey Perret
20. A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865by Russell F. Weigley
21. A Short History of Reconstruction, 1863-1877by Eric Foner
22. Reconstruction after the Civil Warby John H. Franklin,
23. Lincoln’s Plan of Reconstruction by William B. Hesseltine
24. In the Wake of Slavery: Civil War, Civil Rights, and the Reconstruction of Southern Lawby Joseph A. Ranney
25. The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865-1877by James E. Sefton
26. The Great War and Urban Life in Germany by Roger Chickering
27. The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
28. The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War by Adrian Gregory
29. The Silence of Memory: Armistice Day, 1919-1946 by Adrian Gregory
30. The Deluge: British Society and the First World War by Arthur Marwick
31. War, Law, and Labour: The munitions Acts, State Regulations, And the Unions 1915-1921 by Gerry Rubin
32. Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History by Jay Winter
33. The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 by William Sheridan Allen
34. Nazi Germany by Jane Caplan
35. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh
36. Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier’s Letters from the Eastern Front by Konrad Jarausch
37. The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich by Ian Kershaw
38. Hitler’s Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner Jr.
39. Model Nazi by Catherine Epstein
40. The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh

Goal Number Two - Lose 1 pound per week: After some bouncing around I've started a downward trajectory again. Not huge losses or anything, but it's slowly ticking down as of right now. l For the mini-goals, here is how it's going:

• Subgoal 1: Close my three rings every day.  I only missed 2 days this month, that means for the year I'm 78 days so far that I haven't closed all three rings. 
• Subgoal 2: Have at least two different activity style works out each week. Most days I haven't been getting in any activity, so this is a big flop again.
• Subgoal 3: Log every meal, every day, and doing the day of.  Still keeping up on this!
• Subgoal 4: Complete a 5k race. I've scheduled my first 5k and will be doing it later this month. It's a fun run at an orchard, so that'll be nice.
• Subgoal 5: Keep under my calorie goal - which means avoiding snacking. I've mostly been keeping it under, but snacking is too much, especially at the end of the day.

Goal Number Three - More Organized Social Calendar: Much of this month was in Florida, and then back to work when I got back, so the social calendar was pretty empty in August, but we'll see what we can do for September.

Goal Number Four - Landscape the backyard: So, it looked good on this one for a bit, but then it all stalled out, so I don't think the deck will be put in this year.

Goal Number Five - Be more creative: I've done nothing creatively.

Goal Number Six - Be more expressive:  I've been trying to express my opinion more, but I think this was a bad goal.

Goal Number Seven - Have Seven New Experiences:  We took Sal to Disney, which wasn't a new experience for me, but it was for her, but we did some stuff so that's six of seven!

1. Becky and I took Sal to see Daniel Tiger Live, which was a new experience for both of us. While the show and process had much to be desired, the excitement and engagement from Sal was splendid.
2. Jasmine got me tickets to see the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, they were performing music from Harry Potter and it was fantastic!
3. I completed my exams and graduated with a 4.0 with my master's degree in history!
4. Saw three new shows on broadway: Moulin Rouge, Tootsie, and To Kill A Mockingbird. I suppose that could be three new experiences, but that seems cheating (unless I don't make it to seven for the year, in which case it's not cheating, haha!)
5. Did the NBC Studio Tour - I've been wanting to do this for 20 years now.
6. New Disney Experiences - So, there were a bunch of new things, like taking Sal for the first time, doing a character meal (or two), stayed at a new resort (Art of Animation), and rode new rides. I'm only going to count it as one event instead of multiple

So that's it for August!


Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 136

What the frig is she doing? She's such a weirdo.

Milestones

This morning Sal went to her very first swim class.  It was a bit of a struggle to get her to go to it. She had no desire to go to swim classes and was completely content to swim with her life jacket forever. It took some negotiation to get her to agree and she was offered some incentives in order to finally settle on going.  Becky took her for a visit and they got a tour of the school and she got to see where she'd be learning, all the changing rooms, the cute aquarium. She seemed pretty excited about going, so it seems like we are finally good to go.  Her first class was this morning and she was very excited to take me in and show me where everything was. She said she was very excited about doing the class and was in a great mood about it.

The way it's set up they have the parents come in and drop their kids off at the lane that they are in, then they go back outside the pool area where they can watch the class through a giant wall. So, we got there a little early and got to look around. We sat and watched the classes that were finishing up their session, and then they called her class in. I took her in, she introduced herself to her instructor, and then I headed out to the parent area to watch the class. As I was watching she was very social with the two other girls in her class. She did a pretty good job in her first task, which was to swim with this floaty bar so that she can practice kicking. Later, she was far more hesitant when it came to jumping toward the instructor. She was not jumping like the other kids, and she was trying to almost reach the instructor before she left the jump place. It was clear that she wasn't comfortable with that, but she still seemed to be having a good time, so it seemed like this was going well.

When the class was almost over they had the parents come in to see the final thing they did and then collect their kids.  When I got in it was clear that she was not so happy. She was visibly upset and scared, and it was all because of the jumping in.  Despite how afraid she was, she was still doing it, which I was so proud of her for doing, but she was ready to cry and said she felt like crying because of it.  I think part of it may have been a hangry situation because the first thing she did when she got out was she had a snack of goldfish crackers and then asked for lunch. The upside is that she hasn't made any comments about not going back, but just that she didn't like it.  She even was talking about how "Ma" was going to be taking her next week.

As I was sitting there watching her at her swim class it made me think about when I had swim lessons. They were at the local high school pool. I don't really remember much learning, but I remember being there, and I remember going home from there. I don't recall what the parents did, probably sat on the bleachers. It occurred to me that she's almost the same age I would have been when I learned to swim, and these probably are going to be lasting memories that she'll remember when she is older. I hope that she is making good memories. The school is pretty cool, and I'm happy that she's able to do things that I didn't get to when I was little, and even the things that we both got to experience, she's getting a much better experience.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 135

We decided that we were going to take a quick trip to visit GramGram and when we arrived there were four turkeys in the front yard at the neighbor's house and then they wandered into the back yard.

Run, Fat Boy! Run!

So, it's official, I'm going to run a 5K. It was on my goal list for the year, and actually, it's been on my goal list for a few years now. I've never really gotten to actually doing it, and I always start the training program and I never make it to the end and then I stop running.  Well, I have one more week left on the couch to 5K program that I've been using and figured I should actually run a 5k since I'm finally going to finish it.  I was looking around and I found a fun run at an orchard and figured that sounded like it would be a good time and registered. So, at the end of September, I'm going to run my first 5k.

That being said, I'm at the end of my program now so there aren't really any more intervals. It's just walking for 5 minutes for a warm-up and then run for 25 minutes. Next week it'll be run for 28 minutes, and then the last day it's a 30-minute run. If I'm able to run at a full pace that means 30 minutes will get me 3 miles. That means I have about a month to keep practicing and feeling good about doing it. I'd like to be able to do it without walking, but out of the three days, I run only about one of them I'm able to make it the entire way without walking for a bit.

Four weeks to go until the run!

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 134

Sal did some drawings today and said that I had to take a picture and send it to Becky for her to see.

One Week!

Tonight was the last official day of PD. We still can go in and take care of whatever it is that we need to take care of, but there is nothing structured for us to do for the rest of the week.  Essentially, that means that if we had all of our stuff taken care of, our rooms put together, and had nothing else to do we have the rest of the week off. It was a bit longer day today because we had our open house. Surprisingly we had a ton of people show up.  This year they did it on two separate days and I thought that would result in lower numbers because people wouldn't want to come up twice if they had little kids and middle school kids (little kid land did their open house yesterday).  I was way off and it was really busy, especially the first 45 minutes or so. The last 45 minutes were a bit slow, but still, there were people there up until it was time to go.

I've got some work to do at home over the next week to get prepared. It's mostly just organizing my stuff and planning out ahead so that I know what I'm doing for each unit. I want to start revising my notes and getting to work on them now before I actually need to use them in about two weeks. I think I've finally internalized that this year isn't going to be crazy busy like it's been during grad school because I feel very calm and little pressure. I know I have stuff to do but there's not that impending doom that I've felt even just a few weeks ago.  I'm actually a bit excited to get to teaching and getting into the material. I have some different approaches I'm going to try this year, and I'm really going to try and layer in more writing.  I still haven't figure out how to get current events incorporated the same way, but maybe when events take place we can look at the constitutional basis for it or things like that. I'll just have to keep my eyes open and see what I can do.

So, one week left before we start the 2019-2020 school year.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 133

 I made a terrible mistake, I meant to get the cinnamon maple pancake but grabbed the blueberry maple one right next to it.  There is nothing worse than the smell of fake blueberry, except maybe fake chocolate.

No Longer Green With Envy

Back in 2013 when we were still doing plays we did a production of As You Like It, and in the process of creating and painting the set, apparently a mishap occurred and an entire bucket of dark green paint was spilled on the driveways. Not knowing what to do, they just sort of left it.  The best choice would have been to get as much up as possible and then rinse and rinse it until it was all gone. However, instead, they just left it so when we got home there was a giant green patch on the driveway.  It's been an ugly eyesore for years now we've tried to get it up with a few different paint removers, but nothing has really done the job of getting it up and so it has remained there for the past six years.

Well, I've had enough of it and decided to try taking it up with a bit more power. Sure, that sentence was written by Tim Allen, but that is what was called for.  So, I decided to give a pressure washer a try and picked one up at the Home Depot. The first run over it didn't look promising, however that may have just been because the paint was thick, or that it wasn't fully pressured up.  However, the second round really started to show some progress and that was very exciting.  Then I remembered that Becky's dad had sent us over some spray remover stuff called Goof Off, and we still had it. I read the label and it said to spray it on and then scrub or power-wash the residue off. I gave it a try and that really started to take care of it.  It got a good part of it off, but then I had to spray it again and then power wash it again. I took probably four passes, but it's pretty much gone now.  There still seems to be a slight greenish tint to where it was at, but I'll take that over a dark forest green blob in the middle of the driveway.

Becky also mentioned that there was a place on the front porch that was pretty dirty that we should clean. I had never noticed it before but after I sprayed it was clear how dark and gross it was!  So far I'm quite happy with the power washer.  I'll have to try it on the windows with the cleaning attachment (which is safe for glass) and see if I can get the large window above the door cleaned up. it's not easy to reach, so it'd be nice to get it clean. So, I have to say the power washer was a nice investment so far!

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 132

As I said, you can still sort of see the green, but it's so much better and doesn't stand out so much anymore.

Our Neighbor

Today we got to take Sal to the movies, but it wasn't for a new movie. The theatre was doing its 2019 Studio Ghibli festival, and that means every month they show one of the movies. I'm a bit sad because we missed Kiki's Delivery Service because I forgot about it. However, this month was My Neighbor Totoro, which is one of Sal's favorites. It's funny because at one of her birthdays she received a stuffed Totoro from some of our friends, but she hadn't seen it yet so they were a bit bummed because they thought she had and would love it.  Well, she has seen it now and she does love it.

We ended up getting to the theatre a little later than I wanted to, and we walked in right as it was about to start. By the time we got popcorn and tickets, we could hear the opening credits. Luckily there is a long opening credits sequence so we didn't really miss much.  I was also surprised because when I bought the tickets it was very full, and we were much further toward the front than we usually like to sit.  It was a little weird watching this with a group of people and hearing them laugh as they watch the movie.  Usually, it's just me and Sal, so it was kind of weird to hear a crowd of people giggling or laughing at parts of the movie. Sometimes it was parts that I didn't feel were all that funny, but it was fun to see other people enjoy the movie.

Next month they are doing Spirited Away. Sal likes the movie, but she says that she doesn't want to see it because then she would have to watch the entire movie and she wouldn't be able to skip the part that she doesn't like to see with the witch. I'm hoping that she changes her mind. Though, at the same time, it's really expensive because they make the tickets full price even though it's at a matinee.  It's considered a special event, so it's twice expensive as it is when we just go see a regular movie, which is not ideal. However, it's a lot of fun.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 131

I'm really sad that I don't have a before picture, but this was basically black and green with algae. It's so clean now!

Autumnal

I've said many times on here that my favorite day of the year is Christmas Tree Day.  Part of the reason I love it so much is that the entire house is decked out and ready for the season. The mantle is probably the area of the house that is most decorated and beautiful.  A few years back we started buying stuff to decorate the house with, and it's really come together quite well. I've often wished that the rest of the year could have as much theming and make the house look so decorated and exciting.

Well, today we apparently decided that we were going to do something about it.  Becky has been discussing wanting to go to JoAnn because many of their fall decorations were on sale for 60% off. It seems a bit early to put such a big discount on that stuff because it's still the end of summer. However, we went in and sure enough everything was marked down. They also are pretty generous when it comes to coupons, so we had a good chance to spruces up the house for autumn at a much-discounted price.  While I like the idea, I also am not overly invested in picking things out. I'd like it to look nice and I don't like things with those tired slogans on them. I mean, if I see one more "Live, Laugh, Love" product I may explode into a suburban soccer mom with a Starbucks cup fighting with the manager because the sales flyer said that the $1.99 whatever was 10% off.

I gave what little opinion I had and told Becky that whatever else was fine with me, so she went browsing and grabbed a cart with and started picking out some stuff. She ended up getting a variety of things, but we didn't really know how much stuff we'd need or how much room we really had. It was just kind of our best guesses. When we got home she wanted to give it a try and see how it looked. We're not quite done with the fireplace refresh, so it can't stay there permanently, but for now, we can see how it looks, and I have to say it looks freaking awesome. It's as well themed and curated as our mantel for the holiday season. I guess that means we have to figure out something similar to do for winter, spring, and summer because I can't have a great mantle only 4 months out of the year. I also like it because it looks like it belongs to the house of adults rather than just some 20-year-olds who put whatever they could to fill the space. I've been much more focused on getting matching items and having set, and making it look like it's not just so slapdash.

So, while it's still a bit early for pumpkins and such, it looks friggin' awesome.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 130

Gutter cleaning on my Gran's house means that I had to go up on the roof. Got this nice shot of the hickory tree in the back yard. I love that tree.

My Beef

So, I've mentioned before that there have been a number of people who have pretty much ghosted me over the years. There are some that have been more dramatic, but the major thing that happens to me is the ghosting. They decide for some reason to just walk away. They don't explain themselves because they are too cowardly to face confrontation. They don't work to solve the issue because they are too lazy to actually put work in and realize that part of whatever issue maybe themselves. It's just easier to walk away like a deadbeat dad saying he's going to pick up some milk and then never coming back.

This has kind of come up in my mind because it seems that someone who did this to me is currently going through some shit, and one of the motivators, I believe, for the ghosting, has come back to haunt them. At first, I felt rather compassionate for that person and sorry to hear that things aren't going well. Though, I don't know the details, you can kind of piece things together from the information that is available.  However, then I kind of had a wave of rage and anger come over me. I'm not one to abandon people. I'm willing to talk and work things out. I'm willing to take the blame for the way I have reacted, and I understand that I'm not the easiest person to deal with sometimes. I forgive often and fully, and I'm always there for whatever people need. I mean, you don't have multiple people crash at your place and make it home if you're not willing to be there for people.

Well, that is the kind of person that I used to be. However, after the last round of bullshit, I'm not sure I'm that person anymore. I was pushed too far too many times and have become more of a "go fuck yourself" kind of person. Maybe if you had your life together you wouldn't have these problems, so I guess you should go figure it out. I half-joke about how I hate all people, but it's only half a joke because I have very little trust in just about anybody anymore. A friend once gave me a hard time about how I'm slow to trust people. That friend went on to drop me as if I never mattered. So, I guess maybe the problem listening to what they had to say in the first place and trusting them with my friendship.

Sometimes I feel like people think I'm being irrational. That I shouldn't think the way I do, as if the lifetime of evidence and examples somehow should make me think any other way.  As if I should have faith when the overwhelming evidence is to the contrary. I'm not talking close election 48-49 sort of a thing, I'm talking 98% of climate scientists agree that it's happening and man-made (and the other 2% think it's probably true but feel like more data points are needed).  Even people who have no reason to have faded away. I am an isolated island and I'm sort of done trying to be anything else.

This leads back to the spark of this line of thought, the ghost I shall call Casper. Well, Casper abruptly ended interactions with no discussion, no explanation. I'm pretty sure it was due to severe weather that was blowing everything over. Well, it seems that a high-pressure system has come in and the weather has moved east, as the weather tends to do. I don't find that it's surprising that the weather would act the way that it does, because that is the nature of it. However, it pisses me off. It pisses me off that our picnic got rained on by some stupid clouds when we were having a good time. I'm pissed off that people treat me as if I don't matter all the time. That they are fine with me when I provide something to them, and they're more than willing to use me for as long as it suits them but then walks off as if I was nothing that whole time. And that's why a few years ago I said I was done. I'm done being used. I'm done being the one that has to put all the effort in. I'm done with the disequilibrium. I'm done being the one to plan the events and never be invited anywhere else unless as an afterthought. I'm done being the one to say, "Hey have you seen this" only to be told "yeah" and never have anyone think to tell me about it when they see it. I'm done with people. I've moved to become like a mirror, that reflects what is put in front of it. I will return what I get, and nothing more.

I had some compassion, but instead I hope it hurts. I hope it's hard. I hope that when it's the hardest the response is that it's too much to deal with, and that instead of complaining one should be happy for the struggle. I hope that you are visited by the ghosts. I hope that you receive what you gave and that the fragile facade of loyalty and friendship that you exhibit is returned to you. I have no compassion left, my sympathy is gone.

Picture(s) of the Day: 
Picture 129
Sal got my phone again. I didn't see her take this one. I call it, the average day.