Category Archives: Memories

Thirty Amazing Things About My Son Who Turns 30 Today

  • He is deeply empathetic and genuinely cares about people
  • He’s a super involved father
  • He understands science and math and the world on a conceptual level
  • He isn’t afraid to speak up for someone who needs it
  • He accepts everyone exactly as they are
  • He is married to his highschool sweetheart
  • He always says sweet things about her when she isn’t around
  • He is adventerous
  • There isn’t a food he won’t try
  • While visiting somewhere new, he refuses to eat at any restaurant he could go to at home
  • He’s an excellent cook
  • He reads to his daughters
  • He loves his grandparents and communicates with them regularly
  • He’s calm under pressure
  • He never went through a “my parents embarrass me” phase
  • On a group outing at the age of 10, he saved his sack lunch to give to the homeless man we’d passed on the way there
  • He’s always been my video game buddy
  • He is super creative
  • His skills as a D&D DM rival those of any fiction novelist
  • He is musical
  • He has a freaky good ear for sounds and tones and can hear things nobody else can hear
  • For example, if he hears loose change drop on the ground, he can tell you exactly how much it is
  • He can fix things
  • His sense of humor cracks me up
  • He is kind
  • He has the ability to look beyond the surface level of any given situation
  • He has a broad perspective of life in general
  • He loves his family with everything in him
  • He memorizes random and ridiculous things
  • He is the best kid ever (except for Jesus)

Meaningful Questions to Ask to Get to Know Someone On a Deeper Level

  • What is one new thing you’d like to accomplish over the next year?
  • Where is somewhere you’ve never been that you would like to go?
  • When you are feeling overwhelmed or sad, where is the place you would like to retreat to?
  • What is the last song that made you cry?
  • What is a cherished childhood memory?
  • What is something you have done that was out of your comfort zone but you’re glad you did it?
  • What is the last thing you tried and completely failed at?
  • How many times have you been “in love”?
  • What is the difference between loving someone and being in love?
  • What is one thing you try to do every day?
  • If you were to write a book about your life, what would this chapter be called?
  • What would your favorite chapter be called?
  • When was the last time you laughed so hard you couldn’t breathe, and what caused it?
  • When your mind wanders, who do you think of?
  • What is something you’ve done recently that you’re proud of?
  • How do you know when it is enough?
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Top 10 Search Terms That Have Brought People To This Site (Aggregated if spread across more than one similar term)

  • W
  • Shades of Green
  • Lifeguard Acronyms
  • Famous People Whose Names Start With X
  • Famous People Whose Names Start With Y
  • Famous People Whose Names Start With Z
  • Hemingway Quotes
  • Animals that Start With I
  • Elsie Was A Mighty Fine Cow Lyrics
  • Pepsi Endorsers

Surprising Things I’ve Accomplished This Year (specifically given that it’s been a corona-year)

  • Checked two new states (North Carolina, Mississippi) off my list
  • Missions trip to Haiti
    • Three “airports” in one day
    • Landing & taking off on a dirt runway
    • Attending/walking in a Haitian funeral processional
    • Ate goat for the first time
  • Iguanas in the wild (in Miami… they chased me away from my lunch)
  • Finished unpacking all boxes from moving end of 2019
  • Started packing up to move again
  • Attended nephew’s high school graduation
  • Vacation to San Diego
    • Lodging at the fabulous beachfront Tower23
    • Riding bicycles to Mission Beach
  • Completed “Visual Communications” course through Sophia Learning
  • Put more than 10,000 miles on my car
  • Ran three trivia nights before the world shut down
  • Read 29 books
  • Successfully began intermittent fasting (lost 8 pounds and dropped my A1C from 6.1 to 5.4!)
  • Watched multiple full series on Hulu and Amazon Prime
  • Achieved level 40 and then level 41 on Pokemon Go
  • Applied for 66 jobs
  • Got hired for exciting new position with city of Clinton, Iowa!
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Previously On November 10

  • 1989 – German citizens begin demolishing Berlin Wall
  • 1989 – College student (it’s me) raced to Merle Hay Mall in Des Moines, Iowa to stand in the electronics section at a mall store so that I could watch the fall of the Berlin Wall
  • 2012 – Barack Obama elected as 44th President of the United States
  • 1483 – Birth of Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation
  • 2010 – Disney composer Alan Menken (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas) receives 2442nd star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame
  • 1241 – Pope Celestine IV passes away
  • 1969 – Sesame Street premieres
  • 1908 – First Gideon Bible placed in hotel room
  • 1889 – Birth of Claude Rains, famous for playing Chief of Police in Casablanca
  • 1940 – Walt Disney’s first day as FBI informer
  • 1801 – Dueling is outlawed by the state of Kentucky
  • 1871 – Birth of Winston Churchill, but not the Winston Churchill you’re thinking of
  • 1964 – Birth of Kenny Rogers, but not the Kenny Rogers you’re thinking of
  • 1969 – Birth of Ellen Pompeo, yes the one you’re thinking of
  • 1958 – The Hope Diamond is donated to New York’s Smithsonian Institution
  • 1990 – Home Alone movie premieres at the box office
  • 1766 – Charter signed for Queen’s College / Rutger’s University
  • 1998 – Premiere of Star Trek: Insurrection
  • 2014 – London Premiere of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
  • 1963 – Actress Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) marries novelist William Goyen who is 15 years her senior
  • 2007 – Author Norman Mailer dies
  • 1954 – Unveiling of the Marine Corps War Memorial depicting the raising of the flag during the Battle of Iwo Jima
  • 1928 – Emporer Hirohito is publicly confirmed