family observations

A Random Mailbox

A random mailbox sprung up in the mostly vacant lot near my house. In the photo above, I have taken a photo of the mailbox from the road. Note that the opening for the mailbox is not facing the road. The mailbox is being held in place by sandbags. If you look really closely, on the right side of the mailbox in the photo, there appears to be a rain gauge. I’ve seen random mailboxes…

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family history home pragmatic historian projects

The Work in the House Continues

Busy, busy, busy. Now that the tearing apart phase of our dining room renovation is finished, we’ve been spending the past couple of weeks on the putting together phase. After the building inspector okayed the tear-down and framing part of the job, which had us inserting a few extra two-by-fours in corners so we’d have something to attach sheetrock to, we got right on putting up insulation. We also used spray foam around the windows,…

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challenge family observations technology

An Inelegant Map Solution

I spent much of last week driving in the Twin Cities metro. It’s an area I haven’t had to navigate much on my own because my husband loves to drive and has an excellent directional ability, so he’s done almost all the driving whenever we visit. (He’s so good at driving that even if he gets momentarily lost and turns the wrong way, he instantly knows it, saying, “This doesn’t feel right.”) As a passenger,…

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