Now that my own blackberry patch has come in nicely, I no longer tend he ones along the street. But we will pick some there.
I had a complicated book review planned for today. But yesterday, after I got a minimum amount of editing done, along with my two special projects, I decided I was behind on my yardwork and better get to it. Under full sun, but much of the time working in the shade, I started pulling weeds out of our gravel yard. I made my goal in about a half hour.
I then tackled my blackberry patch. I had clearing to do in the paths between rows, trimming back high sprouts, cutting out competing vines, and then weed-eating around the whole patch. I didn’t get that last part done, nor did I clean up the mess I made with cuttings. But I did leave my crop in good shape. Saw a few berries starting to turn black, so the harvest may start as early as today.
The harvest isn’t far away.
All together, I was 1 3/4 hours in the yard, stopping in part because the weed-eater battery died, but also because I felt my strength giving way. I went inside, rested and read, and, after lunch, came back to The Dungeon to finish editing. I then rested for a couple of hours.
By 4:30 p.m., I was recovered enough to go back outside. Afternoon shade covered an area in the front yard I needed to work on. I started the small project, and to my surprise got more done than expected. The project is done. I came back inside, feeling good about having the strength to get both my inside and outside work done.
I spent the evening sorting through old photos, making progress on both physical photos and computer files. For some reason completion of the project eludes me. I can’t find some batches of like photos to add strays to. Hopefully today I’ll find them.
But only after I clean up the mess around the blackberries, and see if any are ready to harvest.
Editing the 5th volume of this series helped me through a difficult day.
So this week just passed I completed editing Vol 5 of A Walk Through Holy Week. That is, I completed the first editorial pass through the book. At least one, and possibly two more editorial passes are needed.
Although this is Vol. 5, I think it was the first one written. I put it on the shelf about three years ago as I tried to decide if I would write the whole series, and if I did, what shape would it take. I eventually decided I would write the whole series, changed it from six volumes to eight with a better organization, and finished Vol 8 last year. At that point I started editing and publishing the series beginning with Vol 1. I’ve completed publishing tasks through Vol. 4, putting that one up for sale on Amazon last month.
In Vol. 5, I found a lot of stuff wrong in the first few chapters, which is why I think two more editorial passes can be expected. But the last several chapters were better. And, as I read them in the first pass, three years after I first wrote them and last read them, I found some things to help with a number of concerns I have today. Here it is.
What About The Game Plan?
Remember the Game Plan we were working on? That list of encouragements, cautions, and commands? I haven’t mentioned it for a few chapters. I left it when it was beginning to burgeon into an unwieldy list. Too many things to think about, to constantly read over and implement.
Afterall, the Christian walk ought to be a kind of automatic thing. If Jesus is in us, and if we have walked with him for a while, we ought to naturally do the things that result in our being stronger Christians who are building the kingdom of God. We ought not have to think about every action and wonder if we are doing the right thing, the devout Christian thing.
So how do we do this? Do we even need a game plan? For me, I still like a list of things—I won’t call them rules—that I should review from time to time to help me live a more productive Christian life, fully devoted to my Savior. Not something to obsess over, but something to give me help when I need help.
The game plan from a few chapters ago doesn’t quite do this. I don’t mean to say it’s bad. It’s just…it’s just…too unwieldy. Sorry, but I can’t think of a better word to describe it. So I want something simpler.
A few things have come to mind. One is that this section of the Bible, John 14-17, is worth reading over every year. I’m not one who reads the entire Bible yearly, so without some kind of intentionality, I might not read this for several years. That’s not good enough. Henceforth, I’ll read this every year, perhaps a couple of times. I want to dwell on it, not rush through. I want to think about what it says about Christian living. What have I forgotten over the last year? What do I need to think a little more about as I go about daily tasks? That’s something I must add to the game plan.
What else? Obviously, something more about prayer needs to go in, but what? In the last two chapters, I can see at least a dozen statements of Jesus that would form encouragements, commands, or cautions concerning prayer. Alas, that’s too many to add to the Game Plan.
So I’ve been thinking as I wrote the last two chapters that I need some simple items to add to the lists, perhaps as a preface—a few things I can say every morning, or a couple of times a day if needed, as reminders of what my Christian walk ought to look like.
I was reminded of the three simple rules John Wesley wrote about finances that would serve as overarching guidance for his parishioners.
Earn all you can.
Save all you can.
Give all you can.
Surely I can come up with something like that—except I need four “rules”, not three. Here they are.
Love all you can.
Pray all you can.
Learn all you can.
Serve all you can.
I like that. I can say those every morning, and at other times during the day, as reminders of how I should live.
I wrote those words, then life got in the way and I forgot about them. Reading then again gave me new inspiration to re-establish some of those priorities.
Oh my, it’s Friday and I haven’t posted yet. I started the day a little early, got involved in my special projects, including a couple of stock trades, and forgot to post. I had nothing planned, and consequently didn’t get one written.
I had a good day, getting much done. I have two letters ready to go to the P.O., and one long one sent by e-mail. Now waiting for a pie (of the frozen variety) to come out of the oven.
So, I’ll try to have something more meaningful to say on Monday.
Ed Dorion as I knew him, back row in the middle. I’m in the front on the right, on my grandmother’s lap.
My days of genealogy research are mostly behind me. My main work in genealogy now is consolidating files and documenting family history, though I still dabble in raw research from time to time. I last reported on this blog about writing the story of how I learned who my natural paternal grandfather was.
A couple of years back, I decided to find out a little more about my step-grandfather, Edgar J. Dorion. He was a big part of our lives, as he and our grandmother often had to take care of us kids when Mom was in the hospital and Dad continued to work his nightshift job. But all I really knew about Edgar (we called him Gar) was that he was career Coastguard, had been in both WW1 and WW2, and a few other tidbits he threw our way.
My grandmother and step-grandfather, probably on their wedding day in 1949. In her house in Providence, RI, with Gilbert Stuard Jr. High School in the background.
It was somewhat late (I may have been 10) when I learned he was a step-grandfather, that he had been married before, and that he had daughters from that marriage. For whatever reason, I left him till late in my research efforts. The first thing I found out was not particularly flattering, an instance of severe miliary discipline from a stint in the US Navy before WW1 (though he was later pardoned), something he conveniently didn’t tell us about. Maybe that was one of the reasons I let research into his life go by the wayside for a while.
As a young Coastguard man, as my step-cousin’s family would have known him.
I picked it up again last July and got a little farther. Found an obituary for his first wife and one for one of his daughters. That gave me names of children and grandchildren and even let me find a great-granddaughter on Facebook. I sent her a message, but we haven’t made contact yet.
I picked this up again just after Memorial Day, and did my best to document what I found, save important stuff electronically, and prepare a good, comprehensive summary document. I found an obituary for his other daughter, got the name of her son, and found him on Facebook. He and I are step-first cousins who knew nothing about each other for the first 70+ years of our lives. I sent him an introductory message; he responded fairly quickly, and we’ve had some good message conversations since. Importantly, I now have a copy of an excellent studio photo of a young Ed Dorion, and he now has some snapshots of an older Ed Dorion. We both have a more complete picture of the life of a man who was important in both of our lives.
And, as far as genealogy research goes, a triumph like this wants me to do more and find other, previously unknown relatives.
A good, solid read: enlightening, encouraging, entertaining.
I’m reading a literature book. Well, now close to 2/3rds of the way through it, I’m not sure if it’s about literature or politics or sociology or philosophy. It’s proving to be a tedious read, made more so by the typographical style built around 10 point font and smaller on the lengthy quotes. I’m not going to be finished with it and ready for writing a review (or perhaps two) for a couple of weeks at least.
But I found myself wanting to read something simultaneously that wasn’t so tedious. I settled on Night Hunt in Kisumu: and Other Unforgettable Stories from Africaby Dr. Richard Zanner. He’s originally from Germany, but spent twenty years in Africa in an administrative position over our denomination’s missions work there. It wasn’t strictly administrative, however, as wherever he went he was called upon to preach and do other assorted ministerial things such as baptisms, church dedications, etc.
Here’s another book about Zanner I’ll be looking for.
The book consists of 136 pages of stories about the situations Zanner went through. Frequently he piloted a small prop plane that the church owned. Frequently he was in a barely operating hired car. He tracked across unmarked territory from Djibouti to Somalia, through the bush in Mozambique, confronted the legacy of the slave trade in Senegal, and more.
I set a goal of reading ten pages a day, mostly in the late evening or a few times when I couldn’t sleep at night, and was able to read that much or more. Zanner’s writing style is easy reading. I won’t say light, because his stories include tense moments as he went through territory where revolutions and wars were either in progress or had just ended as he sought to strengthen and encourage existing churches and seek out places to start new ones.
This was definitely a 5-star read for me. But it’s not a keeper, as I don’t think I’ll read it again given the number of books in my reading piles. We will place it on a shelf in our adult Sunday school classroom at church and let others know it’s there.
Last month I resumed setting goals for the month. I had suspended this practice, which used to include progress, as my injuries and medical issues piled up in 2024 and continued in early 2025. But I decided to resume setting goals but not taking time to report progress on the prior month’s goals. So here are goals for June.
Begin editing Vol. 5 of the A Walk Through Holy Week Bible study series. Based on how the last couple of volumes went, it’s likely I’ll finish it this month.
Continue with work on computer files. This, for now, will mainly be checking scanned files to see if I’ve properly saved them and then get rid of the duplicate file.
Having done a good job on genealogy research this month, I’d like to continue it in June. This may be mainly organizing computer files, getting rid of duplicate material and superseded files, rather than new research.
Work some more on going through family photos. It would be nice to finish one of our four main families and send those photos off to the next family member who needs to deal with them.
Continue going through my father-in-law’s letter files. They are in approximate chronological order. I’m going through them one a day, from newest working backwards. At this rate it will take me a couple of years to get through them all.
Consolidate a few ideas I’ve had lately for future writing in the Documenting America series.
I have other things I’d like to accomplish, but these seem like enough to set for the month. Especially in consideration of the outdoor work I have to do in the blackberry patch.
I write this Thursday evening. It will be sort of a journal entry of the good things that happened the last two days. Having completed a writing project last week, I decided to take a week off from writing tasks. How to fill the time?
My work area in The Dungeon is still a mess. I have to make a concentrated effort at clean-up.
Wednesday morning I awoke feeling pretty good. After Bible reading and prayer in The Dungeon, I gave brief attention to one notebook of letters my late father-in-law left to us at his death. I’m very slowly, limiting myself to one letter a day so that the project doesn’t overwhelm me, converting the letters to digital files, either scanning or transcribing as needed. I started out working on my one letter for the day and dispatched that task quickly.
I then took time to finish my checkbook register, which I now keep as a spreadsheet due to my diminished handwriting after my last stroke. I didn’t quite finish that task, but I got it to the point that I should be able to finish it in about 30 minutes of budgeting. I had sort of planned to do that today, but decided to put it off till tomorrow.
At that point, I decided to get back into stock & options trading. I haven’t done this since my first seizure in December and thus haven’t earned any money—except for dividends on a few positions and interest. As it happened, I didn’t have too many positions when the seizure happened. Thus I didn’t participate very much in the market turmoil that has marked 2025 thus far. But Wednesday morning I put on a one day trade, and it closed at full profit. Made $102. Today I did the same thing, and made another $92. I’ll put that money aside for vacation. Hopefully today I’ll be able to make a similar low-risk trade and make it a trifecta.
That brought me to 9 a.m. and breakfast. Wednesday is our normal trash day, but on a holiday week it is usually delayed a day. But the City had nothing about the delay, nor did the trash company. Being unsure, I got the trash out right after breakfast.
Then it was back to The Dungeon, with 1 1/2 hours to kill until a writing networking time via Zoom. I decided to work on some e-file maintenance. I have over 2,900 files I’ve scanned and saved to a proper filing system, but never checked the scans to make sure they saved properly and then deleted the scan file. So I went back to doing that (I’d done a little the last couple of weeks). In that time, I was able to check around 75 files. Maybe two I couldn’t find in the place I expected to find them, so I saved or re-saved them, taking time to do a better job of choosing the right folder and a good file name. This is not high priority work—just something useful to do in odd minutes between things. But it felt good.
Then came the Zoom meeting, a time of on-line networking with other struggling writers. About 45 were on the Zoom meeting. We were divided into break-out rooms for 15 minutes, then shuffled into other break-out rooms. With some general discussion time, this fill 90 minutes of the planned two hours. At that point I dropped out. I came to realize that this kind of networking probably wasn’t the best use of my time. I’ll likely skip the next one.
Next came lunch and my reading time in the sunroom. I read a few pages in a magazine I’m trying to get through and get rid of, then almost my daily quota in an interesting literature book. I usually struggle to get all my reading done, but was able to come close in this session, though I still needed to carve out some time.
After that, since the ground was soaked from five straight days of rain, outdoor work would have been difficult so it was back to The Dungeon, monitor my stock trade, and on to the next task. I decided to do some genealogy research, spurred on to this from having dealt with some scanned genealogy files that morning. I decided to concentrate on my step-grandfather, find out little more about his first wife and his descendants with her.
Without boring you with the details, I found out a whole bunch, expanding a start to the research I had done the previous July. I created a file or two, corrected a couple of mistakes in on-line genealogy sites, and filled in a bunch of gaps. I worked on this the rest of the day, taking time off only to eat supper and watch some of the Titanic Sub documentary on the Discovery Channel.
I went to bed about 11, but my mind was so full of the productive day’s activities I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. But surprisingly, I think I did after wrestling my mind to quit dwelling on the good day just finished. Alas, a small disturbance later and I was wide awake. I got up at ten minutes after midnight and read. I completed the few pages left in the daily quota of the literature book and read in a missions book that I’m trying to get through simultaneously with the literature book. That was good.
You might ask, “How was it good to lose sleep?” Not to lose sleep, but to get my reading in. Instead of going back to bed, which would just wake me up, I turned the light out and leaned back the recliner. I must have fallen asleep right away, for the next thing I knew it was three hours later. The time I went back to bed and slept another three hours.
That brought me to Thursday morning, to the same routines tackled and finished. Except, instead of organizing files, I completed my research on my step-grandfather and his first wife and did most of the work of properly documenting that research. When I say “finished,” that’s a relative term. Genealogy research into anyone is never complete. You just come to stopping points and take breaks, waiting for that time to pick up that strain of research again.
Oh, and perhaps the best part of these two good days: I identified a grandson of my step grandfather, reached out to him on social media, and he responded. He and I are step-first cousins. We had a nice exchange of messages. Connecting with a newly found family member is always good.
What does Friday hold? Probably decumulation tasks, and getting closer to going through photos from one of our four main family lines.
Saturday, I wrote two letters, printed them, and made them ready for mailing. The plan was to mail them on Sunday when we drove by the post office going to and coming back from church. In doing so, I totally forgot that Monday was a federal holiday and the P.O. wouldn’t pick up the letters. No matter; I got that little task done.
So here it is Monday of Memorial Day weekend. I’m caught up with my correspondence. I set out chicken to thaw for supper. Rain continues to fall, with occasional breaks, so outside work isn’t easily possible. So today will be an inside day of work and relaxation.
With some remembrance of those who fell in battle, fighting because out country asked them to. In our family, Lynda’s great-uncle, Lee Thompson, died on the first day of fighting at Guadalcanal in 1942. He is the only one that I know of in her family and mine that died in battle. Others served with distinction but lived to rejoin civilian life after war. I take this moment, as one who did not serve, to salute Lee and those others who gave their lives for the USA.
As to filling the day, I started with some work on my deceased father-in-law’s letters. He was a letter writer and saver (as I am) who spent lots of time in his last three or four years writing long letters on his computer. He saved them in notebooks and on floppy discs. At some point we need to get rid of one or the other of these, so I’m taking time to organize the notebooks. Possibly I’ll computerize them, then get rid of either the hard copies or the discs, or possibly both.
Last night I updated my book sales spreadsheet. As I did so, I learned it’s become somewhat unwieldy and needs revamping. Not sure if I’m going to do that today. But today I plan to update my financial spreadsheet, something I let drop after my seizure back in December. I need to see where I stand financially overall. I also hope to update my checkbook. Since my handwriting is still very difficult since my stroke in September, I now keep my checkbook on a spreadsheet. And, yes, I still keep my checkbook, probably an anachronistic practice in this electronic era.
I have a lot of papers scattered over my work area in The Dungeon. I hope to, if not reduce them in number, to at least better organize them. That also goes for a few 3-ring binders on my shelves. We are very close to finishing with deciding what to do with the mass of photos from Lynda’s dad’s family. We could finish those today with an hour or two of effort. I’m anxious to see that completed.
But otherwise, I will mainly read. About 15 minutes is all that’s left on one magazine. It would be good to get more than my 10-page quota read in the literature and missions books I’m reading. Maybe the evening will find us watching an Agatha Christie movie on Britbox or U-Tube. And, the Carlyle Letters Online are always there should I need something to fill up a half-hour. As is my too-long neglected journal.
All this with no warning, no ability to plan my time.
Tuesday this week I was scheduled to go to Washington Regional Medical Center for an EEG test. This was my second of this test. I had one scheduled for January. It was a follow up to my Sept. 3, 2024 stroke, but a couple of weeks before that I had my first seizure. Thus, the EEG might also give them information about what happened with the seizure.
For that test, I had to be awake 24 hours before, with no caffeine, so that the test, consisting of 1 1/4 hours prep and 45 min test would be in a sleep deprived state, with me falling asleep for most of the test period. That test worked well.
After my second seizure, on April 17 (treated at the ER of a different hospital), I contacted my neurologist’s office, which is associated with WRMC, to see if they wanted to see me. After some delay, they contacted me to say they wanted me to first have another EEG. We found a mutually acceptable date, Ma7 20, and Lynda and I made the 45 mile drive. This time, the instructions they gave me, through calls with both the hospital and my neurologist, was to go without caffeine. Sleep deprivation was not part of it.
I got to WRMC, and as the EEG technician was walking me back to the room, he said this test would last two days. I would leave the hospital and go home with 20 electrodes stuck to my head, covered by a tight-fitting skull cap, and a 2-pound electronic unit in a bag slung over my head and shoulder. Don’t go near water, but otherwise go about life as usual.
Right. I take it that technician has never undergone this test. Look at the photo.
With all respect to the hospital and the neurologist, I feel like I should have been informed about the nature and duration of the test before it—I mean long before it. I had outdoor work planned for Tuesday afternoon, but no way I could do it carrying this pack. Had I known, I could have done the yardwork in the morning and saved my indoor writing work for after the test started. We are about out of groceries, which I planned to go for on Wednesday. But no way I’m going to Walmart carrying this pack, looking like an idiot. Had I known, I could have gone for groceries on Monday.
I was really hacked on Tuesday, and gave the tech an earful. It wasn’t his fault, but he was the hospital’s representative at that moment, and his organization either dropped the ball in keeping the patient informed or, possibly, purposely withheld that info so I wouldn’t back out of the test.
Having the test is good. The way the hospital and doctor failed to help me to prepare for it is a big failure. 1-star reviews for both.
So, in the interest of decumulation, I’m getting rid of books—even cutting deep into books I would like to keep and read someday, I’m getting rid of photographs. They don’t take as much space as books, but they are more numerous, are a burden rather than a blessing, and someday will be a burden to our kids. What else can and should go?
Every now and then I take a “tour” of the basement storeroom, looking for what should go next after we finish with current decumulation projects (mainly the photos). I see boxes of old Christmas decorations we haven’t put out for years. Same for other holidays. I see a couple of boxes of old camping equipment that I’m sure we will never use. At some point we’ll tackle them, but I don’t think the time is right just now.
The pants I wore to church yesterday seemed pretty big on me. I checked the size, and they are 42s, about 10 to 15 years old. I don’t know, but maybe I’ve lost enough weight that 42s are now too big and I should get rid of them. That, of course, brings up the whole subject of clothes and closets, which is a huge project. Do we tackle that en-masse or one garment at a time? I’ll be pondering that this week. It wasn’t too long ago that I stuck an old pair of 44 corduroys that were way too big in the donation pile and took them to Goodwill.
Last week, seated at my desk in The Dungeon, I looked at the shelf above my computer desk and saw it adorned with what I can only call “stuff.” Some of it is left over office supplies that I “might” use some day. Some is misc. things. Not quite sure what to do with those. But one thing I noticed is my trophies. These are things I got for delivering technical papers at engineering conferences. One year my paper was awarded best paper at the conference, and I received a trophy for that (actually two, since the first came with a typo and they sent another). The company I worked for then awarded me trophies for writing the papers, as a means of encouraging others to do the same.
Those trophies sat on a shelf at my office. When I retired over six years ago, I stuck them on the shelf in The Dungeon and more or less forgot about them. But what good are they doing me now? None. So I have decided they will go in the trash on Wednesday. The shelf above my computer desk will be a little barer, a little less decorated, but a little close to being ready to be moved somewhere when moving time comes.
One small decumulation step; one giant leap toward downsizing.
