A Cold One . . . In Healdsburg yet

This has been one strange week in a variety of ways. Back to work for one of us certainly makes things a lot different around the house. Temperatures in the low to mid 20s many nights make things different too -- not to mention that we had no heater the first couple of days of the week. And a GDB puppy outing at the mall, a meeting about the upcoming kitchen work and a few unscheduled things made this week memorable.

I don't know that I'd call this severe after growing up in the Midwest and all those winters, but many mornings this week it did feel less than the posted temp. And there were many close calls on the deck and stairs while going out with Dino.

For this week, this post will be a little bit abbreviated as I am preoccupied with among other things -- the PLAYOFF games . . . for the last 100+ weeks I have had posts and maybe, just maybe I'll even try a midweek post, we'll see. It is a new year and it might be nice to do things in a different way.

From Illinois to California (and in-between)

Last week, I  mentioned that I would try to bring some light to the journey that I have made that has brought me to Healdsburg after growing up in the Midwest. I had mentioned Hinsdale, but actually most of my young childhood days were spent in a variety of homes in La Grange, Illinois. And sometimes images trigger some memories of everyday life then. For example, we do the wash here almost always on Mondays -- I am not sure what day of the week that my Mother did the wash growing up -- but I know that it was my Mother who did the wash -- not like now as we both do the wash -- mostly me during the work season . . .

In the "Little House" above, we had a basement and in the basement I remember a wash machine very much like the one pictured above including the sink -- AND I can still smell the Fels-Naptha as my Mother would use a potato peeler to break the bar down into particles. What a job that entailed what with the wringer and all . . . I sometimes get frustrated with the operation of our washer/dryer. I can only imagine having to do several loads via the old method -- we are so lucky these days.

Fels-Naptha soap can still be found to purchase  and I even think that the brand is owned by a company that owns a brand of soap that I used to be connected to -- Dial soap -- I worked in sales for Armour-Dial for four+ years . . . it is so hard to keep track of corporate changes.

Dino's Week

It seemed like a long time in between GDB meetings for some reason. But this week our puppy group met at the Santa Rosa Downtown Mall and had exercises, fun ones and obedience ones. Fortunately it was not raining -- only cold.

Above if you click to enlarge, you can see some of the Mall doings -- we had a photo scavenger hunt where all the puppies and raisers were to have photos taken at various places in the mall. It took about an hour to accomplish and was fun. A new pup, Rider, about 9 weeks old can be seen joining in for the first time. There was no barking and NO "accidents" which is normal.

After the scavenger hunt we all took the puppies outside for some obedience exercises. The folks in the mall seemed as usual to enjoy watching and sometimes interacting with the pups.

Genealogy This Week

A variety of things happened this week. I updated several families in various trees that I have around the web including in Geni, Ancestry and the HILES website . . . but as usual I went looking for new things and I found an app that I hope to put into use:

This app seems like a great way to present memories in a story fashion by recording them. The nice thing is that you can do it via an iPhone or iPad or on a desktop. I just got the app up and running on my iPad so hopefully there will be recorded stories soon . . . check it out if you are interested: Saving Memories Forever


And Lastly

What is taking up my time this weekend -- the NFL playoff games, of course. There were two excellent games yesterday and two today.

When I say excellent it is mostly because the San Francisco Forty-Niners were big winners over the Green Bay Packers yesterday. The other game also though was exciting as the score flip flopped back and forth throughout the game -- we were pulling a bit for Payton Manning and the Broncos, but having the Ravens win meant that the Harbaugh brothers were both winners . . .

If you enlarge the above you can see the chart depicting the status of the playoffs leading to the Super Bowl.
Since we time-shift (record) all the games I am about to go watch the first game . . . and then later the afternoon game.

It should be a great day.


That was a bit of our week -- we had the burgers and sweet potato fries last night. Tonight may just be our second stir-fry of the week . . . see you all in a few!