I am home again today, taking another sick day. I am doing this for two reasons. 1. So I don’t spread my illness those around me, particularly my coworkers. 2. In recent years, I have found that despite being able to work when I am sick, I get well faster when I stay home. Thought…
Continue reading →No one will deny that A Charlie Brown Christmas, which Abby and I watched last night, was right on the money about Christmas being trivialized and commercialized. It’s easy to imagine the corruption of this beloved holiday as a latter-day event, A Charlie Brown Christmas was first broadcast in 1965. Commercialization of things we loved as…
Continue reading →I took yesterday, the day before Thanksgiving, off so I could cook. Last week I found a nice light+dark boneless turkey for Abby, and bought two Tofurkys®, one for the office potluck and one for me for the actual holiday. I baked Abby an apple pie at her request. We also had asparagus, stuffing (the…
Continue reading →It’s fall on the Patch, and the weather goes between stormy and sunny, cooling off day by day. I plastered Abby’s truck with mud at the family reunion two weeks ago, on the improvised road between Aunt Judy’s and her son Donald’s place. I personally think four-wheel-drive trucks are happiest covered in mud, but Abby…
Continue reading →I told my wife Abby I wanted a picture of me playing tug-of-war with Hawken the Irish Wolfhound, since it’s his favorite thing to do with me, and since he has grown some since our last photo session. Before we could photograph us, Abby asked me to put a bandana on him, and we chose…
Continue reading →Most of us know that 13 is often regarded as a lucky number, or conversely, as a cursed number. Some people bet on 13 in gambling, for example, while some hotels don’t even have a 13th floor. Fear of the number 13 is triskaidekaphobia. I don’t consider any of this significant because, aside from an…
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Abby and I spent Sunday at the 2017 Oklahoma State Fair. Readers might remember that she and I did this last in 2014. Abby loves the fair, particularly the draft horses, so we attended again. In the morning, we watched the llama show, then the donkey show. The llamas were surprisingly beautiful. The donkey show…
Continue reading →With just a few days of summer remaining, the patch is starting to change. After a very rainy June and July, it’s been a dry late summer, and the grass is turning brown. The trees, though, are healthy and huge, and the pasture is high. I walk Hawken the Irish Wolfhound every evening. He weighed…
Continue reading →[stextbox id=’download’ caption=’Pet Peeve…’]”Drownded.” The past tense of drown is drowned. You’re grownups. Figure it out.[/stextbox] With a three-day weekend, my wife Abby and I are concentrating on rest and relaxation, but also are not neglecting our responsibilities. I’ve taken Hawken the Irish Wolfhound puppy for extra-long walks, and I bathed the Chihuahuas this morning….
Continue reading →A buddy asked me the other day if I had posted anything on my site. He hadn’t seen anything. The answer was that yes, I had, but just a couple of items. I expect that he hadn’t seen them because, like a lot of us, we use social media as site readers, expecting to see…
Continue reading →Readers will recall that for much of 2016, I had a physical epiphany of sorts: working hard outside became one of the most productive activities in my life. I chopped, cut, shoveled, hammered, sawed, dug, moved, built, painted, sanded, carried, and assembled something every day I could. It was good. I got a lot done….
Continue reading →I have returned from a Christmas trip to Baltimore. Abby and I flew there to see her daughter Chele, husband Tom, and our grandson Paul, who is about to turn six. The first couple of days were a little rough, as both Chele and I were nursing head colds, and Paul brought home a stomach…
Continue reading →Monday was sunny and beautiful out, so Abby and I spent some time on the range getting the red dot sight zeroed on her new NRA Ruger Mk III 22/45. Afterwards I drove to town to pick up foods to cook out on the Brinkmann grill: mushrooms, squash, red potatoes, onions, veggie chicken patties for…
Continue reading →Lately I’ve been feeling a powerful nostalgia for October. In addition to October being a lovely month, typically Abby and I take our anniversary trip in October. And while we love being married to each other all the time, those trips are the very most fun times of our lives. Last September Abby asked, “Are…
Continue reading →For more than a month, I have been duking it out with a ball hitch on the back of our lawn mower. The trailer/cart we have, which Abby’s father made for her, has a pin instead of a hitch, so I wanted to remove the ball from the mower. The nut holding it on unscrewed some…
Continue reading →Until a couple of days ago, it’s been unseasonably warm here in our corner of Oklahoma. It’s been so warm, in fact, that two of my plum trees have lost their minds and blossomed, presumably “thinking” it’s springtime. That’s not all that’s delusional. Many of my friends and I are still in dismay over politics,…
Continue reading →Yesterday’s entry ended with me needing to finish painting the back deck, which I did as the sun set last night. Abby seems very pleased with my work, which used entirely items left over from building the front porch and deck. When I told a friend that I finished what was in progress just yesterday, he…
Continue reading →The Summer of Antennas has given way to the Autumn of Construction. As I put the finishing touches on our new front porch and deck and begin work to restore the back deck, sand and paint the various accessories, and ponder building target stands with the remaining lumber, I find myself examining my skill sets….
Continue reading →We have all dealt with the insincerity, shallowness, and selfishness of people around us. Often this manifests as false faces, people who pretend to like or appreciate you but behind your back gossip about you. This situation is particularly egregious when we have behaved respectfully and positively about these people, and even gone to bat…
Continue reading →Thanks for your patience, Team Muh. I’ve passed from the doldrums of July to the mad rush of early August. In the past ten days I’ve worked seven sports team media days, a couple of football scrimmages, the annual Byng-Konawa Back-to-School softball tournament, and I’ve shot tons of pre-back-to-school images. I’ve tried to squeeze in…
Continue reading →Yesterday I took our chain saw and our power washer to the small engine place. The guy there told me he could fix the power washer, but the chain saw, a Homelite, was out of production because the company who made it was bought and sold several times, and he couldn’t get parts. (Sidebar: this…
Continue reading →For many years I have loved coffee. My wife Abby loves coffee as well, particularly when I make it for her. We both have favorite coffee; Abby’s is Doughnut Shop brand, while mine is Folger’s French Vanilla flavored coffee. But of course, we don’t stop there, and entertain all kinds of variety. For instance, as I…
Continue reading →After a nice period of rain, the sun is out. So, some notes I’ve kept in my phone… Snifter? Damn near kilter! Little Fudgies Diabetic in training Least-liked Roman dictator: Doucheous Chop suet Chopped sewage Girl names: Irony, Sarcasta, and Filtha Looking at a woman’s cart ahead of me in line at Wal Mart,…
Continue reading →I have been deluged with ultra-vivid dreams lately. It might have something to do with Sierra the Chihuahua, who is restless in our bed lately, waking us up more than a few times at night. If your think this is you, it is. If not, disregard: even though I will probably never see you again,…
Continue reading →No sooner had I clicked “publish” on last night’s feel-good entry than I heard the dryer buzzer. I felt the laundry inside and decided it needed a few more minutes. I cleaned the lint from the trap, then set it aside while I pulled some additional lint from the tray that holds the lint trap….
Continue reading →My wife Abby and I are going through a particularly good period in our lives together. Retirement seems to agree with her. Work is going well for me. And we’ve got a couple of potentially exciting items brewing for the future. Since it is early March, it is basketball playoff time. The remaining teams in…
Continue reading →This is a point-counterpoint rant, first about how amazingly sweet my wife Abby is, then about the inanity of corporate America. Abby and I were sharing a quiet moment in the living room one day last week. She was reading her Kindle and I was reading a photography web site on my iPad, when I…
Continue reading →Abby and I aren’t huge Valentine’s Day people, but we always try to spend it together, and I always like to get her something nice. In recent years, she’s been collecting Pandora charms. Pandora is a modular bracelet system that allows you to mix and match the charms for the desired look. Our jeweler, The…
Continue reading →This story starts in the summer of 2009 right after Mom died. Abby and I arrive at home in Mom’s car, which Abby and I packed so tight with Mom’s stuff that, according to Abby when we left Florida, “You couldn’t get a dime in that back seat.” We spent three days on the road…
Continue reading →Abby and I were host to our longtime friend and fellow photographer Robert Monday and Tuesday. He lives far away, so we don’t get to see him as much as we’d like, but a family affair brought him to Oklahoma, and he was welcome. Robert and I usually talk about photography and make pictures, which…
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