Category Archives: miscellaneous

miscellaneous, reading, Writing

Wanting Something Else

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Carlyle in 1855, so nine years after the letter in question.

One of my reading places is The Carlyle Letters Online, which has 11,000 letters written by Thomas and Jane Carlyle. They were active letter writers during the Victorian era in England, and earlier mostly from Scotland. Thomas wrote for a living. He struggled in the early years, picking up encyclopedia hackwork and magazine contributions as he could get them. By around 1840, with the help of Ralph Waldo Emerson championing Carlyle’s books in the US, he had reached a measure of financial comfort. I’ve written other blog posts about Carlyle.

Maybe two months ago, I came across an interesting tidbit in one of his letters and wanted to blog about it. But I faced a dilemma of my own making: how to properly reference the letter and location? Traditional referencing, handed down through various academic organizations, expects you to give the publisher, publisher’s location, name of publication, author name, page no., etc.

I’ve come to believe that’s an archaic way of doing references in the Information Age. Here’s my example. The specific letter I’m interested in was written 8 April 1846 by Thomas to his wife Jane, who was on holiday at a seaside villa. It’s been published in a  4-volume biography of Carlyle by Anthony Froude written in the years after Carlyle’s death in 1881.  That biography has been republished, and the letter has been in other collections of Carlyle’s letters. Now it’s available at the Carlyle Letters Online.

Since there are so many potential sources for someone to go to check my work and the quote I’m fixing to give, it seems like the traditional methods of citing sources forces the reader to get a copy of the exact publication the person doing the quote used and find the page. How about we do something like this.

Here’s the letter I want to make the quote from. I find an interesting observation of Carlyle in the third paragraph of the letter. Assuming the paragraph breaks are Carlyle’s own and not the publisher’s [online publisher in this case], why not just cite the source as a particular letter written by Carlyle to a particular person [his wife] and found in a particular paragraph? In this case, it would be:

Carlyle, Thomas; a letter to his wife Jane Welsh Carlyle, 8 April 1846, paragraph 3. Accessed 7 September 2026 at Carlyle Letters Online.

If the quote is from a long paragraph, you can add a letter to designate approximately where in the paragraph the quote is from, e.g. paragraph 3a, or 3b, or 3c…. In this case the quote comes from a relatively short paraph and starts the paragraph, so a letter shouldn’t be needed to clarify the location. The person wishing to verify the quote can look through the entire paragraph if necessary, which is no more work than having to scan an entire page based on the traditional citation method.

Of course, my method will result in the person making the citation having to do a little more work to count up the paragraph and decide on the letter designation, but I think it’s time well spent. Of course, I doubt if anyone at the Chicago Manual of Style or other organizations care about my better way of doing it.

Well, that’s a lengthy introduction. Time to give the quote.

I really wish you could find an eligible House somewhere out under the quiet sky,—removed fairly from these tumults and loud-braying discords of every kind; which it is growing really horrible and miserable to me to spend the remnant of my days among!

Carlyle, Thomas; a letter to his wife Jane Welsh Carlyle, 8 April 1846, paragraph 3; accessed 7 September 2026 at Carlyle Letters Online.

Thomas was at their London home, Jane at some friend’s seaside villa near Liverpool. He was working on the second edition of his book about Oliver Cromwell, she just lazing around and enjoying her holiday. Thomas had asked her to look around for a house in a quiet place they could rent for a season to get away from London’s summer climate.

I must say I sympathize with him. How often do I think it would be nice to get away for a long stretch, not have to worry about home repairs, organization of stuff, other routines. It would be nice, if I could swing it, to have a cook and a house maid. I think we could do without a butler and a footman and a chauffer. We sort of tried that with a four week road trip last summer that included a week on Cape Cod (unpleasant) and two weeks in the Berkshires (very nice). Perhaps we’ll get to do that again some day.

Well, that’s my post for today. Not exactly earth shattering—that is, of course, unless the CMOS sees this and decides to adopt the Todd Method as an alternative way of making citations.

ETA: I see that I also posted about this comment in this letter earlier this year. I forgot about that. Ah, well, it was obviously still on my mind.

Daddy Daughter Day, Danny Tompkins Short Stories, Harmony of the gospels, letters, miscellaneous, The Forest Throne, The Gutter Chronicles, Writing

Somehow Gotta Get Writing

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Sold one of these last week, the first one in several years.

Life has been quite busy for a while now, including some family stuff that has taken away much of my free time. Except for minor work on the next book in The Forest Throne series, I haven’t done any writing for a while. I have done a little editing the last two days on the harmony of the gospels I wrote close to twenty years ago to get it ready to share with a friend.

Almost every day the urge to write hits me. A novel. Non-fiction. An essay. Letters. A blog post. Doesn’t really matter. Just let me get back to writing.

And one of these, same conditions.

But it’s been hard to set my mind to it. I’ve had a little time, here and there in bits and snatches, but at those moments I just couldn’t shift gears from whatever had most recently consumed my time. I took a few notes on paper. I did some organization of what may eventually become my autobiography. I better organized my computer files and folders. I found a good quote in one of Thomas Carlyle’s letters that will serve for a blog post. Ideas for essays passed through my head, and I documented a few.

But actual writing has been almost nil. Last Monday I couldn’t even get my act together to make a blog post. I’ve been wondering if my decision back in June to cease actively trying to sell books has contributed to this writing lethargy. Maybe so. But a few sales in August, despite no advertising of any kind, should have perked me up. Yet, no real writing.

and one of these. Someone dug quite deep into my backlist.

So here I am on Saturday writing a post to go live on Monday. This morning I completed—or nearly did—a project organizing family photos and papers. It felt good to have that done and not hanging over my head. Some home renovations are just about done. One door to be hung whenever our contractor gets to it. That includes a mended bookshelf, which will allow us to finish shelving our books. That will be a good feeling. And a little locksmith work.

I think, to ease back into writing, I’ll go back to that Carlyle letter and see if I can write a meaningful blog post on it for next week’s post. Then I’ll pull The Forest Throne book back up and work on it a little. One grandchild is anxious that I do that. Maybe getting some words on paper, or rather pixels, will be a few what I need to jump start my writing. Maybe September will be the month.

family, home improvements, letters, miscellaneous, reading, technology woes, The Forest Throne

Random Thoughts Part “n”

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Three collections of letters moved from to-do to done—or maybe not.

Having recently given up reading two books (which I will report on later), I have only random thoughts on my mind upon which to build this post. Here goes.

  • We are having a workman come today to make repairs to the screens on our screened-in patio. One screen panel is completely loose, two others appear to be at the point of coming loose, two have slight tears in then, one needs some caulking, one door has a closer that needs replacing, and the other door is sagging, leaving a gap. A few years back I would have attempted these repairs myself, but no longer. This workman will also be converting our tub-shower into a walk-in shower. We aren’t quite ready to do that yet, but might be in a day or two.
  • I may finally replace my 10-year-old laptop with a new one. I’ve been putting this off for as long as possible. Our oldest grandson needs a powerful one for his first term of college, and I’m hoping we can get a better price on a two-computer order. I may scoot up to Best Buy today and see what this will set me back.
  • I spent a good part of last week getting caught up on my checkbook and the family budget. Yes, I still balance my checkbook and keep a budget. I have a little more to do on these, which I think I can finish today. At that point I’ll be ready to…
  • start some new writing. It will almost certainly be Vol 3 of The Forest Throne series. Though possibly I’ll work on another piece first before I get into that. New creative writing will feel good after a long time working on Bible studies and editing collections of letters.
  • Also hoping for some good reading time this week. I began a new book yesterday, and it looks like it will be a good read.
  • This morning I spent a fair amount of time on computer file organization, making good progress. Ready to scan some photos and save them for posterity.
  • Other than that, the main thing I have to do is deal with an IRS letter that says I did my taxes incorrectly and they owe me money. That should be top of my list but I’m having trouble dealing with it.

In reading, I’m working on about three things. One of these is the Carlyle Letters Online. I found a good quote in a letter Thomas wrote to his wife, Jane:

…I really wish you could find an eligible house somewhere out under the quiet sky,…

8 April 1846, TC to JWC, par 3A.

Thomas was in the last week or two of shepherding the 2nd edition of his book on Oliver Cromwell through the editing and printing process. And he was sick of it. He needed a break and wanted his wife to find them a house away from London, “somewhere out under the quiet sky.” As the rest of the letter makes plain, it could be for the summer or for good. Carlyle was finally making money and probably no longer needed to be in London to be near the publishers.

I can so relate to this. I just finished editing and publishing the third collection of letters in a row. It’s taken me over a year, actually the better part of two or three years. Copies of the last two arrived today. I immediately thumbed through the two books, looking for layout errors, then read the Introduction of each. What did I find. An error in each book! In the first couple of pages. In one book I used the word “prosperity” when I mean “posterity”. In the other I have “thin” where I meant to type “think”. Am I really that bad of a writer/editor?

But I’m so sick of these books, I don’t know if I have the mental strength or stamina to make the changes, let alone read the entire books looking for other needed corrections. I really want to move on to something else. I could see myself in the house somewhere under a quiet sky, reading and writing, a little bit of editing and publishing.

But I don’t really expect that to happen. There are still photographs and papers to sort through, pictures to hang. Driver licenses to get and cars to see to maintenance on.

So onward and perhaps upward.

 

 

books, memories, miscellaneous, Writing

Moving On

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Seems like every part of the house is a mess with photos to be sorted through.

On Saturday last (so two days ago), I completed a project. No, this post is not about that project. It will be the subject of my next post.

Nor am I going to go into detail about what the next project is. I’ve made enough posts over the last year about what my plans are—how they get fulfilled or derailed—that I suspect my readers are tired of hearing about those plans.

Suffice to say I’m moving on to something else. Actually two something elses. Or maybe it’s three something elses. I’m not really sure what’s next. I’ve consulted my last list and have started on the one listed next. But my brother-in-law threw a monkey wrench in the works of two projects and I need to wait on him to send me something. Other ideas are floating about in the space between my ears. I may make a few jottings on them, see which one presents the lower-hanging fruit, and shift to it.

Meanwhile, I still have family budgeting work to do (dreading it and so avoiding it), at which I’m falling further behind. I still have filing of bills and paper (same), which still show up in my mailbox even though I’ve gone mostly paperless. I still have boxes and boxes of “things” to sort through after our move (tired of it, and still irked by it). I worked on photographs on Saturday and Sunday, because two of my projects involve dealing with photos. While I made progress, the living room is not yet free of boxes of photos, folders of photos, and loose photos waiting to find their place. It’s possible that by the end of today or tomorrow, I will have all photos in clearly marked boxes, arranged by locations or subjects, and ready for me to do what is needed for the next two projects. That’s my goal, at least.

Welcome to the ides of June.

letters, miscellaneous, reading, The Forest Throne, Writing

Stardate 2026.06.08, Miscellaneous

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  • On Friday, I finally found a box of photos I’d been looking for in our disorganized new home. “It was poorly labeled” will be my excuse. Of course, I’m the one who labeled it. I sorted through the photos and, on Saturday and Sunday, began scanning them to put them in the right format for adding to the WW2 letters book, learning more about formatting photos in G.I.M.P. in the process. It now looks like I might be able to finish the book, complete the formatting, and publish it within the week.
  • Not related to writing, other photos finding/sorting/evaluating is also in progress, with some progress, though also with some dismay at finding many more photos than I realized we had. The task I thought was merely humongous is actually gigantic.
  • I’m sticking to my reading and making my reading goal almost every day.
  • Today, in writing a letter to a friend, I made the first tangible documentation of an idea for another book. I know, I don’t need another book in the queue, but nor do I need this idea consuming so much brainpower with no outlet. Perhaps now I can direct more energy to projects already in progress.
  • After three or four weeks of undisciplined eating and failure to exercise, I’ve at least partially righted those wrongs and my weight is dropping a little. Gotta keep it up. Also seeing progress on blood sugar daily readings.
  • Perhaps related, perhaps not, my sleep seems to be better regulated.
  • The wall I hit, at mentioned in my last blog post, hasn’t totally come down, but it has enough chinks in it to see to the other side.

Bulleted items aside, I start off this week in a significantly better mood than last.

family, letters, miscellaneous

Hitting the Wall

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That’s what happened to me yesterday. I hit the wall. By 9 a.m., I felt like I couldn’t do another thing. Yet, I had done very little except for Monday morning stock market work. I couldn’t work family finances, at which I’m falling desperately behind, couldn’t work on my three letter projects, couldn’t work on post-move organization. I did manage to get my wife to her cardiology test appointment. I also managed to get a long message chain done with a newly found cousin on Lynda’s side.

Today has been somewhat better. But here is it not quite 4 in the afternoon and I’m out of steam. I guess I’ll try to read for a while.

miscellaneous, Writing

A Great Weight

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This year, filling out my taxes was worse than normal.

At the moment, I still don’t feel at home at our new house. At least in part, this is because I don’t feel like we’ve gotten into a rhythm yet. Daily tasks are a mixture of the old routines brought here, trying to finish unpacking and finding a place for things, and doing tasks that are one of a kind.

One of the latter has been dealing with Lynda’s eye infection. That has required four appointments with a new eye doc, with one more to go. Another one-of-a-kind task has been setting up autopay on our new utilities and cancelling the old. That’s about done now, with a few glitches along the way. Learning to use an unfamiliar range top, unfamiliar streaming service, stores with things in unfamiliar places, all of these are making life difficult.

But the big task that has been a weight around my neck has been the income taxes. I was able to complete my home business taxes calculated in March and the partnership forms filed by the March 15 deadline. Then other things got in the way. I finally got back on our personal income taxes last week, mainly last weekend.

And to my horror, I owed over $1800 in additional taxes! How could this be? Every year since I’ve retired, the amount withheld had been enough that I never owed much, sometimes even got a little back. What happened this year? Had the law changed a lot? Or had I missed something? Or did my spreadsheet have an error?

Then I realized: I had made more money this year than normal in our stock trading business. Despite trading only about six months of the year, a new way of trading of my own design had been successful, and the profits proved it. To test the theory, I took a little time to re-figure my taxes with no business profits included. Sure enough, the IRA withholdings were about right with the taxes owed. That makes sense. Make more money, don’t pay in taxes as you go along, expect to have to pay more at the end.

On Tuesday, I was able to get the tax forms filled out, printed, signed, copied, and the painful check written. I wrote it on the business account, since after all that was the cause.

Of course, then I had to do my Arkansas taxes. Those are normally easier. My spreadsheet fills in all the blanks. I just need to verify that I’ve entered the data correctly and make sure the forms didn’t change since last year. I completed those forms on Wednesday and mailed them Thursday. Since they owe me, I don’t think Arkansas will object to my being a day late.

Having this done for another year feels like a great weight having fallen off my shoulders. I think now I will feel comfortable moving on to other things. On Thursday I tackled the family budget. That was after Wednesday was filled with church activities and dealing with the potential sale of our house in Arkansas.  Friday will be setting up my files for next year and entering data for the start of the year. Saturday will be a mix of work around the house, looking at the status of my writing projects and maybe getting a little done on one. Also Saturday I have an author even, the Stacks N’ Snacks adult book fair at Brazoswood High School for two hours in the afternoon. I’m looking forward to that.

 

miscellaneous, moving

New Venue, Old Routines

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We are in our new house in Lake Jackson, TX. Many boxes are unpacked and broken down, but many more are pushed against walls, waiting their turn.  We haven’t found a few things, though every day, as a new box gets opened, we find something we’d been looking for and say, “Oh, that’s where that was.”

We still have no inside fridge, relying only on the old fridge we brought from Arkansas and set up in the garage. I had many other things to do so didn’t rush the refrigerator. But the estate sale at our house was last weekend netted what I hoped we would, so now we can go buy the fridge. Today I’ll visit a couple of places, and hopefully we will buy it and have it installed tomorrow.

Today is the first day for me to work in my office. It’s not fully set up, but it’s functional. I placed a few stock trades this morning and here I am writing a blog post. I’ll likely cut this short to see what more I can set up. It’s about time to take a look at income taxes, I have filing to do, and must find a few things yet.

So I’ll end this a little short. Time to get to my other work. Still thinking of a name for my office. “The Dungeon” won’t do anymore.

Decumulation, miscellaneous, moving

Driving Tomorrow

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Edit on Feb 16. Well, I never got this done in a timely manner. I’ll post it now for what it’s worth.

I’m actually writing this Tuesday morning, February 3 and  scheduling it to  post on Friday Feb. 6th. On Friday I get the U-Haul in the morning, the loaders load it in the afternoon, and on Saturday we drive. The following week, the estate sale people come in and whatever we leave behind will be sold the 13th-14th. The house should go on the market after that.

I’ll add an update on several days this week, at least until our internet is cut off, probably Thursday afternoon. I don’t yet have internet at the new house (investigating options), so I’m not sure when I’ll post again unless I write another one for posting during the dark time.

The Dungeon is all packed except for the modem, signal booster, and two mostly packed but not yet sealed boxes, waiting to see if I have any more small items to go in the top.

Tuesday, Feb 3. I woke at 3:45 a.m. and never got back to sleep. I read in the recliner for a while, in the last of the magazines I want to read and put in recycling before we leave. Then I tried to sleep, but couldn’t relax due to the massive amount of work yet to do. So I went out to the garage and worked on that. I had already packed my tools, but the box was too big. I got them re-packed in a properly sized box, boxed up the small amount of hardware I’m taking, pulled some shelf units out to the middle of the garage that I hope will fit in the truck, then went back in the house. I decided I won’t bring my drill, only the drill bits. I don’t know whether I’ll have to do any drilling. If I do, I will get a modern, cordless, chuck-less drill and let someone buy this old one.

Only three days left to pack a lot of stuff.

Decumulation, Health, miscellaneous

A New Tale for the Vagabond

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The legacy books were once a part of my journey. They are all gone now.

For a long time, I thought, if I ever wrote my autobiography, it would be titled The Journey Was A Joy. But as started to write it, that seemed wrong. I thought that would instead be the name of the last chapter. As I thought about the journeys I have been on—spatial, physical, spiritual, professional, intellectual, avocational—I decided instead I would title it Tales Of A Vagabond. I’ve written the first six chapters of that.

I’m about to embark on a new chapter of the vagabond life. For a long time Lynda and I have talked about moving to be close to one of our children. The choices were Worcester, Massachusetts and Lake Jackson, Texas. The problem is, neither of them may be in their current locations for a long time. Either of them could pick up and move in a matter of a few years. Knowing that, we’ve been slow-walking our decumulation efforts, as readers of this blog will know. Our son in Worcester finally convinced Lynda that the better place for us to move was to Lake Jackson. I had been of that mind for some time.

The health journey is also a consideration.

A couple of weeks ago, a house across the street and two doors down from our daughter came up for sale. To make a long story short, we found the house to be perfect in size and location. Through a realtor we made an offer, came to an agreement with the seller, and are under contract to buy the house. Closing is scheduled for Dec. 8.

Monday, we met with a realtor (husband and wife team) in our house in Bella Vista.  Within a day or two we will likely put her to work as our realtor, and get the house listed ASAP. We think it will show well (if we can get it at least somewhat more presentable) and hope it will sell reasonably quickly. Our time to move is between Dec 18-ish and April 1. I have knee replacement surgery scheduled for Jan 27, so it may not happen then depending on when we do make the move.

Interest journeys have been part of it, as writing became a part of my life.

Am I excited? No. The amount of work before us is massive. Slow walking isn’t going to get it done. The worst part will be leaving our church of almost 36 years. That will be hard.

We’ve been in this house for close to 24 years, and in this area since January 1991. That kind of stability probably negates the idea of me being a vagabond. But life isn’t defined only by your physical location. My life has included many other types of journeys.

If I live long enough, like into my nineties, it is likely that this won’t be the last move in the vagabond journey.