Oh no… Why??

I just checked the weather forecast for tomorrow…. Sunny & 70 degrees (Fahrenheit, which is  21 degrees Celsius in case my readers in Wales wondered…). This is not the best news for me because…

Well, cuz shortly after New Years I laid out some of my plans for this year (not resolutions, I don’t do resolutions. I also don’t do social media.) One thing I mentioned I intend to do this year is to edit, revise, update, and publish my thesis on the Origins of the Illinois State Highway Patrol. I posted an excerpt from it already, and that started the process. Today, I spent the majority of the day researching a couple of the first officers who were hired in 1922. And I was having a super fun time! I guess that makes me geek-eligible, right? Well, therein lies my consternation over the nice day tomorrow…

I was hoping to spend a good portion of the day tomorrow continuing my research. But now it looks like I will be outside playing instead. Darn it.

I do have one observation I wanted to share. Based on my research today, I was able to compile a huge treasure trove of relevant information, and save it on my laptop with the relevant citation documentation incredibly fast and easily. When I was researching originally for my thesis, I had to hand write my notes and cites, and roll through miles of microfilm, and travel throughout the state to various museums, archives, and libraries to access possible records. I am (happily) overwhelmed and overjoyed by the ready access to materials online! Ahhh, technology!

On a somewhat related note, today’s researching brought me to the Memorial page online of one of my close friends who died in the line of duty 27 years ago, Trooper April Rapp Styburski … I was on my day off the night it happened. The District desk officer called me to tell me… It still brings a tear to my eye. She is buried in Oswego, Illinois. {I helped my friends, Garrick & Janice, move some of Janice’s son’s furniture and clothes to North Aurora on Saturday, and we went through Oswego. This got me to thinking about April}. End of Watch, January 5, 1990.

Thursday Doors-Water Side

This past Sunday afternoon, The Mrs & I took advantage of the incredibly warm weather and launched the kayak! Neither one of us had ever kayaked in February before! We did not go very far, being our first time since last fall that we were on the water and the affected muscles involved are not tuned up yet. We paddled to the first cove north of us then went back to the first cove south of us, and stopped at my Mother-In-Law’s house and peeked in the windows (she was not home at the time)…

My door(s) this week is on a boat house situated in the cove north of us. The right side door is mostly bust-i-cated, but a small remnant still sits in the upper right hand corner.

 

What more can I say, except – Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button at Norm 2.0 .  Look for this guy at the bottom of Norm’s page 

Thursday Doors – Estero, Florida (& the Bathtub Messiah)

On December 29, 2014 at 7:13 am on a chilly midwestern morning, The Mrs & I pulled out of our driveway in our old mini-van, pulling our old pop-up Dutchmen Duck camper. We were headed south to the Fort Myers, Florida area for a few days of sunshine and inviting beaches. This was a rare opportunity for us, to leave town over New Years… In the past, one or the other of us would usually have a NY Eve commitment – I either had a band gig, or The Mrs was doing her one woman comedy show for First Night. But not this year!

We took a couple days to drive to Florida, and camped at the Koreshan State Historic Site in Estero, FL. We were 9 days in the warm sunshine of Florida! You can read about our escapades from the perspective of The Mrs starting HERE… I’m here to post a door picture. This is a picture of our little camper which we set up in the dark once we got to KSHS…

And here, note the four doors on just one side of the historic Koreshan Planetary Court building. We were camped just a short walk from the grouping of old historic buildings that comprise the Koreshan compound.

You can read more about the Koreshans and “The Bathtub Messiah”, starting with this interesting article.

And for some door pictures from the frozen Great White North, visit the website of the Door Sensei (先生) , Norm 2.0 … if you click on the blue frog towards the bottom of his posting, you will be magically transported to a page of portals to doors from AROUND THE WORLD!!!! WooHoo!!!

Hope’s Happy Birthday

I have been silent for over a week now, both on my blog and in my “real life”… I have been laid low with what I thought at first was just a cold, but it quickly transmogrified  into the flu. Blahhhhh… I did get my flu shot, so I am certain that is why I got the flu, right?  😉

That said, just a couple days ago, The Mrs posted Her Movie on YouTube! It is a real live indie feature length movie that she wrote, directed, starred in, edited, copyrighted, and released. It is titled,

HOPE’S HAPPY BIRTHDAY

You can also read more about the film at the IMDb (Internet Movie Database) HERE

The movie was filmed in Illinois (Springfield area) and Texas (Austin area).

I was going to do a summary , etc, but am still not feeling well, and just want to nap… maybe when i feel better…

Thursday Doors – The Cat’s Meow!

This is the reason why:

Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Visit Norm 2.0 for more doors and details. When you get to Norm’s site, look for  The Blue Frog.

…the Blue Frog… I think that’s the name of a cheap wine I drank once in college. But I can’t remember…

First Door is of the storm door leading to our fenced back yard, highlighting, of course, the cat door I installed a few years ago to allow the cats to go outside without me having to get off my butt all the time…

Kind of a Two Doors in One offering.

Second Door is the sliding door from the hot tub room to the same fenced back yard. Two things I would like to point out. #1 – The cat is Lester, who we have aptly named, The Escape Artist! (click this link to see Grace’s video explaining WHY!) and, B) the hot tub died so now this room serves as our winter greenhouse for all the plants we have in pots on the deck in the summer. Lots of FLOWERS!!

This Third Door picture is a Find-the-Threeper Doors picture!

This final picture is just~cuz…. Just Cuz today is so wonderfully sunny and the colors of the living leaves and flowers happily enlighten my day this day, I just had to share!!