Northfields neighborhood meeting tonight. It was great to meet and chat with many of our neighbors. We talked new playgrounds, block parties, folding cafeteria tables, and how to report potholes and uncollected trash to the city. Good times!

We have been enjoying the absolute best kind of mid-January home improvement.

After one brief conversation with my Dad about my dream of a motion sensor light switch in our entry staircase, I came home one afternoon to a very happy surprise.

For someone with:
a) kids who can’t quite reach the light switches, and
b) family members who forget to shut off the light, and
c) arms full of winter gear/swim gear/groceries/etc.,
it has come in very handy.

It may, in fact, be my favorite home project in a very long time!

Thanks to youtube we can spend a quiet evening folding laundry and watching Jimmy Carr on all sorts of British comedy panel tv shows.

It is so unfortunate that I can’t include his laugh on this post. Sometimes I find his laugh more enjoyable than his comedy!

It was a bittersweet day for Catherine. She had to say hej då, or goodbye, to Amiee and Barbara, the two Ikea employees that she’s hung out with periodically for the past five years. We knew the day was coming that she would over take the top of the red box that would exclude her from the Swedish nirvana that is Småland, and it turns out that today was that day.

While I am a bit sad to see the end of my solo strolls around the couches and desks and tiny home displays, I will embrace my new window shopping partner and show her the ropes!

If there is anything that the Wood girls love, it is a free admission day at museums! We spent a good part of today at the Museum of Fine Arts with a few thousand of our closest friends!

No matter how many times we visit, I’m always curious to see what will catch our interests. Today it was the Goya exhibit (“Look, Mama! That painting is in our ‘Babar’s Museum of Art’ book!), Egyptian Headdresses and, somewhat surprisingly, the museum’s collection of (usable) benches on display.

Esme was especially taken with the various benches found in many of the galleries. She had a radar for them and made sure to try each one out as we made our way through the museum.

A visit to the movies for the first time in over a year.

I have at tiny obsession with all things Bletchley Park and the Imitation Game hit the sweet spot for me. There was plenty of proto-computer-science in there for Peter as well. And we, of course, played our favorite game of “Identify the familiar looking British actor”.

A lovely night all around.

A morning spent in song, worship and remembrance.

The more funeral services and memorials from funeral homes oak brook il, the more and more I am thankful for them. I’m thankful for the stories and remembrances. I’m thankful for the moments of quiet and focus and thankful for the community that comes together.

I am thankful most of all, however, for the periodic and repeating reminder that life is short and we must spend it wisely.

We were spending the evening with some friends at their house tonight. Well after bedtime I popped upstairs to let Esme know it was time to head home. I found her sitting, playing this ball bouncing game.

It brought back many childhood memories of playing a very similar game on the kitchen floor of my Grandparents’ house; Bellies full of macaroni and meatballs and sides hurting from all the laughter.

It has been years since I’ve seen that game, or any similar. I now have a itching to go find this one for ourselves!

Catherine and I spent some time today honing our cribbage playing skills. Sometimes the old games are the best.

The eagle eyed among us will notice that Catherine has written herself a crib sheet on the chalkboard.

After almost a year and a half of staring a a brick wall while washing dishes I finally got up the nerve to change my view a bit.

The colors went up first, a few at a time, and the Bible verses have been added on one at a time, as inspiration hits.

It isn’t something very fancy, but it makes my dish washing view a little less harsh. Definitely something I appreciate on a daily basis!