I didn’t realize when I sat down to update our news that I had so much catching up to do. I think the change in routine, or maybe the lack of routine, has thrown me off. Whatever it was, June is spent. Here’s my attempt to catch up for the last three weeks.
If you’re driving in Robertson County right now chances are good you’ll catch up to some farm equipment that is moving from field to field. The farmers have been cutting wheat and hay. Pretty soon they’ll be planting beans. I got a laugh when I came home one day last week. The neighbor who cuts the hay next to our house must have a tractor down because he was pulling the hay rake with his truck. It looked like half the family was riding in the truck with him because when I waved about five hands shot up to return the wave.
After the Cotters left, Ben’s basketball practice schedule picked up a bit. One day we all went out to Springfield High School where several teams in the area had gotten together to play games all day long. Ben got to play in two games. They won one and lost one. A few days later he did the same thing in Gallatin. We didn’t go to that, but I think he played in three games there. Right now we are in a dead period in the practice schedule so players can do other things like family vacations or church camps. Practice will resume next week.
I’ve mentioned before how much Ben is growing. He is enjoying the fact that he is two inches taller than me now. That’s okay. For now I can still take him down. The other day he got a little too big for his britches so I had to pin him until he cried “uncle.” It’s getting harder to do that. I think my only advantage is about 50 lbs. Anyway, we got another reminder of how much Ben is growing when we bought size 15 shoes last week. I should clarify and say the Nikes run a bit small. He only needed size 14 in another brand. Ben also learned the hard way that 6’ 2” kids should not go happily bouncing through a 6’ 3” doorway (our pantry door). And then there was the shopping trip to Wal-Mart when I was returning to Vicki and Ben from picking up an item across the store and thought, “Gee, Ben sure makes Vicki look small now.”
One thing that is so neat about Ben is that he is good with young children, and they, in turn, really enjoy him. A couple of weeks ago Jenna was working in the nursery at church. She was playing “Hide from the Monster” with a few of the kids when Ben walked by to say hi. Jenna asked the kids if Ben was the monster and one little girl said, “No, he’s the prince!”
“Are you sure?” asked Jenna. “He’s my brother and I think he’s the monster and not a prince.”
The girl stuck to her guns and matter-of-factly replied, “No, he’s the prince.” This embarrassed him to no end.
Nate is doing well. One evening I heard him singing upstairs so I grabbed my phone and set the camera app to record video and snuck up the steps. I wound up standing behind the boy as he was playing a video game getting over a minute of the silliest video before he turned around and noticed me there. It’s funny how he used to always want us to submit a clip to America’s Funniest Home Videos and now he doesn’t.
I mentioned before that the kids had pooled their money to buy a Wii U. This has brought all three kids together to some degree as they now have a game that Jenna is interested in playing so she invades their space far more than she used to. It’s sort of odd to call for her and hear her answer from upstairs. Ben has complained that she stays up there too late when he wants to go to bed.
Jenna is doing an internship at NorthCrest Medical Center. She goes in a couple of days a week and has gotten to observe a lot about how a hospital functions. She seems to be enjoying it. She’s also been trying to get some babysitting jobs in as well.
Vicki, Jenna, and Nate all went to Centri-Kid camp last week. They returned to the camp held at Campbellsville University. They left last Sunday and got home Thursday and from the pictures I’ve seen it was another big year. Nate had tracks in Outdoor Games, Splish-Splash, and Build It which he enjoyed. Jenna tagged along because she was finally old enough to return as a junior chaperone. This was Nate’s last year to be able to go to Centri-Kid as a kid. Of course, this is the last time Vicki heads it up as our Children’s Minister. Now that they are back home Vicki is focusing on getting ready for VBS which starts in two weeks.
Ben and I were on our own last week. We didn’t have it too bad as we took mom out to eat at Cracker Barrel and the Catfish House two different nights. We also had a M*A*S*H marathon a couple of evenings where we watched about half of the fourth season on Netflix.
Speaking of camp, Ben left with our church youth group this morning for Student Life camp. They will be at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, until Saturday.
Congratulations to Kenny and Lori who celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary today. I remember the day well. Kenny asked me to be his best man which was an honor I did not expect. Nine years later he was my best man when Vicki and I got married.
Vicki and I got a chance to celebrate our anniversary on “the” day for the first time in quite a while. She has been away at camp with kids from church for the last several years but this year it worked differently. We enjoyed a meal at Jimmy Kelly’s Steakhouse in Nashville.
My shop is a bit more organized. A couple of friends gave me their old counters when they remodeled their kitchens and I finally put it all to good use. I built shelves around the freezer and air compressor that sit in one corner. Now I can get a lot of stuff off the floor that had nowhere to go. The real battle though, as with anything, is to keep the building from collecting more junk.
On the subject of “junk,” Trash and Treasures was last weekend. We worked a shift at the concession stand for the Heritage Commission on Friday morning. By the time our shift was over we didn’t care to walk around too much. The only treasure I came home with was a game of horseshoes for $14. I’ve already got the stakes set up in the backyard if anyone wants to play.
Joe
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Cousins
We have had unseasonably cool, wet weather for the last few weeks. Jenna went to the elementary school a couple of days during the last week of school to help out with their field day and said everyone was cold because the temperature stayed in the 50s all day. We wound up turning the heat back on for a couple of nights. Now the last couple of days the temperature has bounced back up to the 80s.
FAMILY FUN. Vicki and the kids headed out to visit the Jones family the Sunday before Memorial Day (the 24th), returning last Thursday (the 28th). I didn’t get to make this trip with them. They sounded like they had a great time. The enjoyed tennis, shopping, playing games, swimming, watching movies, and, of course, eating.
Jim, Dianna, and their boys arrived at our house Tuesday afternoon. We were the last stop on a two week vacation for them. As soon as they got settled in we noticed Nerf projectiles flying all around the house, which was a frequent occurrence for the duration of their visit.
When they weren't having a Nerf battle the boys were playing video games. Our kids recently pooled their money and bought a Wii U so they're still in the novelty period of their new game. One evening the sound track from one of their games was getting a bit loud so one of the adults good naturally hollered upstairs, “Could that be a little louder?" Ben answered, "Yeah, I've already taken my shower."
We also made the rounds to several local restaurants, meeting Jim and Judy at the Catfish House as well as enjoying a lunch at Thomas Drugs and supper at True’s Barbecue. Thursday evening we brought pizza over to Mom's house and ate at the picnic table. It was a very pleasant evening. We also enjoyed a game of Jeopardy! that Jim and Chris had created using PowerPoint. The boys dominated, even though Nate called the Periodic Table the “Patriotic Table.”
ARCHIVAL. Speaking of memories, we all have pictures and home movies from holidays, family visits, and every day living. A few months ago I wrote that I had digitized all of our home movies from VHS and miniDV tape and have those files backed up on several hard drives.
Since that time I have been working to sort through all our digital pictures. We got our first digital camera in December 2003 and have never missed film. The nice thing is that a digital camera timestamps all pictures without placing a date on the picture like some old film cameras did. Organizing these has been pretty easy assuming the clock on the camera was correct when the picture was taken.
I am organizing these along with our videos. That way when I look up an event on a given day (e.g. Christmas on a given year) I have all the snapshots and videos in one place. I am also keeping track of events in a text file. You may be wondering why I don't use any photo management software. I did for several years, but changes in software with updates would periodically make me have to go back and reorganize everything. Eliminating the management software eliminated this problem and made things more future proof.
I am now sorting through pictures from last year. At present my archive has well over 37,000 files and takes over 227 GB of space. When I get caught up to the present I'll start seriously scanning and organizing our old film photos.
I've noticed some interesting trends. First, we tend to take more digital pictures than we did with film. We do this knowing we can delete bad shots which is really handy when trying to pose the family for an important shot. Turns out this is something we don't do like we should. And since Vicki and I got smart phones a couple of years ago the number of pictures we snap has increased again.
GARDEN. We’re a little late getting our garden out seeing how we we didn’t get it done until today. We have a small plot of ground behind the shop where there’s a few tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
The strawberries Jenna set out last year have done well. She plans to return to Haiti next February and has sold about $200 worth of strawberries toward her trip. I have to admire the industrious streak that girl has.
Joe
FAMILY FUN. Vicki and the kids headed out to visit the Jones family the Sunday before Memorial Day (the 24th), returning last Thursday (the 28th). I didn’t get to make this trip with them. They sounded like they had a great time. The enjoyed tennis, shopping, playing games, swimming, watching movies, and, of course, eating.
Jim, Dianna, and their boys arrived at our house Tuesday afternoon. We were the last stop on a two week vacation for them. As soon as they got settled in we noticed Nerf projectiles flying all around the house, which was a frequent occurrence for the duration of their visit.
When they weren't having a Nerf battle the boys were playing video games. Our kids recently pooled their money and bought a Wii U so they're still in the novelty period of their new game. One evening the sound track from one of their games was getting a bit loud so one of the adults good naturally hollered upstairs, “Could that be a little louder?" Ben answered, "Yeah, I've already taken my shower."
We also made the rounds to several local restaurants, meeting Jim and Judy at the Catfish House as well as enjoying a lunch at Thomas Drugs and supper at True’s Barbecue. Thursday evening we brought pizza over to Mom's house and ate at the picnic table. It was a very pleasant evening. We also enjoyed a game of Jeopardy! that Jim and Chris had created using PowerPoint. The boys dominated, even though Nate called the Periodic Table the “Patriotic Table.”
ARCHIVAL. Speaking of memories, we all have pictures and home movies from holidays, family visits, and every day living. A few months ago I wrote that I had digitized all of our home movies from VHS and miniDV tape and have those files backed up on several hard drives.
Since that time I have been working to sort through all our digital pictures. We got our first digital camera in December 2003 and have never missed film. The nice thing is that a digital camera timestamps all pictures without placing a date on the picture like some old film cameras did. Organizing these has been pretty easy assuming the clock on the camera was correct when the picture was taken.
I am organizing these along with our videos. That way when I look up an event on a given day (e.g. Christmas on a given year) I have all the snapshots and videos in one place. I am also keeping track of events in a text file. You may be wondering why I don't use any photo management software. I did for several years, but changes in software with updates would periodically make me have to go back and reorganize everything. Eliminating the management software eliminated this problem and made things more future proof.
I am now sorting through pictures from last year. At present my archive has well over 37,000 files and takes over 227 GB of space. When I get caught up to the present I'll start seriously scanning and organizing our old film photos.
I've noticed some interesting trends. First, we tend to take more digital pictures than we did with film. We do this knowing we can delete bad shots which is really handy when trying to pose the family for an important shot. Turns out this is something we don't do like we should. And since Vicki and I got smart phones a couple of years ago the number of pictures we snap has increased again.
GARDEN. We’re a little late getting our garden out seeing how we we didn’t get it done until today. We have a small plot of ground behind the shop where there’s a few tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, and watermelon.
The strawberries Jenna set out last year have done well. She plans to return to Haiti next February and has sold about $200 worth of strawberries toward her trip. I have to admire the industrious streak that girl has.
Joe
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