family history pragmatic historian

A Culmination of Ancestral Traits

Yesterday, Hubby and I hosted an informal Zoom event with the kids in celebration of a new grandchild soon to be entering the world. (Yay, another grandbaby!) Our first grandbaby was part of the event, periodically hamming it up for the benefit of those gathered. First Grandchild is very mobile now. There is no rest while keeping track of him. He will find the tiniest fleck of dirt and put it in his mouth. He…

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family health music observations

$8 Million Tickets, Or Why I’m Too Old for Concerts

I had a dream the other night that tickets for an upcoming Duran Duran concert were $8 million. I woke thinking that if someone could afford that much for a concert ticket, they could just buy the band for a few years. This dream was prompted by a couple of recent concert-related pieces of news. One was Duran Duran announcing their upcoming North American tour. The first date on the tour is in Minnesota at…

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history museums observations

What Do Hart to Hart & Scooby Do Have in Common?

What Do Hart to Hart & Scooby Do Have in Common? Hubby and I have recently discovered old television shows on Tubi, an online streaming channel. We’ve been watching (reliving, really) Columbo, Fantasy Island, and Hart to Hart on the channel. I could probably write blog posts on all of these shows (like one on poor Mrs. Columbo, who is the never-seen but long-suffering wife of Columbo who keeps getting left behind on cases he…

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art family fiber art history home pragmatic historian

House Excavations: The Makings of Childhood

House Excavations: The Makings of Childhood The sorting continues …. The past number of weeks, I’ve been packing boxes with books and décor, trying to sort as I go. There’s no sense moving stuff we no longer want. And when you’ve lived in a house for close to 30 years, it’s amazing how much stuff accumulates that you no longer have a use for or, worse yet, never had a use for and can’t figure…

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family history observations pragmatic historian preservation

The Quirks of Our House

As I sift through and pack things in our home for our eventual move, I’m trying to look at the house from the perspective of new owners. We’ve made a great many improvements to the place since we moved in roughly 29 years ago. We gutted, insulated, rewired, and sheetrocked most of the old part of the house, which was built in 1894. We also removed the rotted front porch (trust me when I tell…

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