Easily Tangented

Well,

The wreath that Maggie made

Here it is, the 28th already. The rush of the Yule/Christmas holidays starts with Thanksgiving, and, we slide down the hill of celebration til now. We’ve almost reached the bottom of the hill, when January takes over, and we really appreciate the carol, ” In the Bleak Midwinter”, but, for now, we are still basking in the glow of the holiday.

Bill & Mollie, our gracious and good friends

We had, and are still enjoying the holiday. The only downside is that Maggie works most of the two weeks before Christmas, so, she’s pretty worn to a frazzle by Christmas day. Unfortunately, a cold managed to hold her in it’s grasp, but not too tightly to enjoy the day.  We do celebrate in our low key way. Christmas eve, our friends Mollie and Bill are gracious enough to host a small get together at their lovely home. Set against a backdrop of thick woods, and quiet, we had dinner, and an evening of sharing with great friends. Good friends are the most special gift one can have.

Surrounded by Spirits...

We opened our 'poppers'

Christmas day, we rose a little later, than usual, had breakfast, and, with global warming giving us the gift of a warmer day, we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Nice, for the Wisconsin/Illinois area. Opened presents, made a lovely dinner, napped, and, Maggie managed to get one last bike ride, short it may be, in for the day. She’s never rode on Christmas before. One more thing to scratch off the list…

The glow of the Season

Back to work, the next day, to receive all the people with returns, is not the best way to spend Boxing day, but, whatcha gonna do?  Part of the job… She has worked this week, but we will hopefully have the rest of the week off. Ikea, Algonquin, and other adventures await… Part of the decompression/recharging of the week.  We will ring in the new calendar, in a very low key way, and wake to the new year…

They were hung by the fire, with care...

Then, next week, the glow of the Season dims, with the boxing up of the decorations, ornaments, lights, trees, and sentiment of this holiday. Packed away but not forgotten. It is our 19th Christmas together, and, they are all boxed up, for remembering, whenever we desire to …

Winterberry

We finished the build part of our porch yesterday. A rousing success, after 4 days of working on it. As my friend Jeff said, ” no lost fingers, we are still friends, and, it looks pretty darn good, for two amateurs”. And, he’s right. Now, we have to sand, stain, and install the lights, and landscape, but the hard work is finished.
   Thanks, Jeff. It wouldn’t have been done without you.

Haven’t posted anything of note since the holidays. This is usually the doldrum time of year for us. Having survived the slippery slope from Halloween to New Years day, there is a bit of time to recover, and acclimate to the dreary part of winter.   We veggitate, watch movies, sleep, and just seem to move a little more slowly than the rest of the year.

But that changes now. It’s February, and, for one thing, it’s going to be Valentines’ Day soon. Maggie’s work schedule will crank up to Warp 6 here in a few days. All the hubbub of men rushing in for flowers at the last minute, will take up a large portion of her week.  That… is another story in itself…  We have longer days starting now, so that helps the attitude.  We have jams of various sorts, no, not fruit on toast, to look forward to.   Starting to allow ourselves to think of adventures of summer.

We have hopes and wishes and desires, for the coming year. Don’t we all?  We are hoping for a better year for all of us. We are wishing that things are less stressful, cuz we all have too much of it lately. We desire to have ‘better’ for all us… I think we’re all about ‘due’ for it…

So, here’s to longer days, brighter futures, and happier times…

Our journey to the annual Willow Folk Festival begins tomorrow, and in preparation we decided it would be a good idea last Sunday to set up our tent in the back yard.
The tent we’d been using the past couple of years was not our favorite, and when I found a tent on clearance last November we were more than happy to dispose of the old one at our spring yard sale.
Since this one was new we figured we better make sure it’s okay before we go.

I’m sure the reason this one was left over was because it was initially expensive and big. Did I mention big?
Tents can be like purses or shoes, it’s hard to find the exact right fit for the occasion.

Yes, you mostly just sleep in them, so what’s the big deal? Well if it rains you spend more time in them then you’d like, and this is a music festival, so we have our guitars to keep in there too, and you have to move around in them with all the stuff you bring.

Well this one is plenty big, really big. Like I never have seen a tent this big. It even has a door frame. And a porch/awning thing. It took us 15 minutes just to figure out how to put the rain flap on.
Like the Taj Mahal in nylon.

The guaranteed waterproof part will come in handy though. The forecast is not too good. Rain Friday, really hot on Saturday followed by really really hot on Sunday. Oh well, the past couple of years have been cold, so it all balances out.

Well, that’s what makes for an adventure, so stay tuned for photos and stories next week.

Hi
We have been on vacation sine Friday afternoon. Sort of a forced vacation. Have to take a week off of work, unpaid, so it was around the fourth of July, so, I took vacation.
On Saturday, we went to a party with fireworks, music, food, and friends.

It was good to see everyone.
Sunday, we went on our annual black raspberry picking adventure with Mollie & Bill.

On Monday, we went on a bike ride out in the country. We rode the Jane Addams cycling trail in Northern Il

It’s been a great vacation so far. It’s always an adventure with Maggie.

Hello there,
if you know us, you know that our best friends have autistic twin boys, Ethan and Dylan. So, autism is a cause that is obviously close to our hearts. Well, it must be close to the Lindt Chocolate people too. They are donating a percentage of the price of a Lindt Gold bunny to Autism Speaks, a support/research group. Lindt is sponsoring the Walk for Autism too. Click the links to find out more….
So, if you have a few extra bucks, need chocolate, need candy for Easter, or, all of the previous, then, please, purchase a Gold bunny or two, or, three, or… It’s great chocolate, and, you’ll be helping in the battle against one of the most insidious diseases we are effected with…
Also, you can go to the Autism Society of America for more information from them too.
Thanks

Morning,

this is an Ethan update.

`We finally got some good news!  Yesterday they isolated the bacteria and started Ethan on the correct antibiotic.  Today they inserted a tube into Ethan’s chest and drained over 150ml of fluids in the first 10 minutes.  You could see in the x-ray they took after the procedure that his right lung could finally expand to his rib cage and the congestion was already starting to clear.  They may be able to start weaning him off the ventilator in a couple days.  We were becoming so discouraged after having nothing change in his condition since Saturday.  This is what we have been hoping and praying for – a step in the right direction.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, but don’t stop now, we still have long way to go. 

 Seems that we are making progress. He’s still in need of any thoughts, wishes, & prayers that you can spare.

Thanks

Hi

Our friends Tod & Shirley in Ca. have 10 year old autistic twins. Ethan and Dylan are they’re names.  I received a call today that Ethan is in the childrens hospital in Oakland with pneumonia. They’ve  transferred him there, after trying 2 different antibiotics on him and not having any luck.

It’s difficult for Ethan, being autistic. He can’t stand having the oxygen mask on. He’s not at home, so that breaks his routine, and routine is very important for an autistic person. He misses his brother and not being around familiar surroundings.

Please keep him in your thoughts.

Hi

we spent the weekend @ a folk music festival in rural Northern Illinois.  I posted some photos to flickr.com/photos/magtimmag, if you’d like to see what singing, playing, and sleeping in a cow pasture is like.

I will blog about it later….

Hi
we are getting ready for our camping trip to the Willow Folk Festival, in Northern Illinois on Friday. It’ll be a great weekend of music, friends, fires, and fun.
We found the tent, the shady thing, the inflatable mattress, and the chairs for sitting while jamming.  We grilled the food tonight, ‘cuz we found that it’s easier to cook & freeze it now, rather than cook from scratch there. Go figure.
      New strings on the guitars tomorrow, so they can stretch out before Friday evening, & then, load up the car.  It’ll fit, it’ll fit, it’ll fit.   Good thing we have a Vue to pile it all in. Last year, we had a storm around 2am on Sunday. A nasty assed storm that pretzeled several tents, shade things, and general mayhem. We were home by 4am. No sense setting it all back up.  Hopefully, nothing like that this year.

Can’t wait!!!!!

There’ll be photos & videos later..