A clean and very funny Silent Letter Day comedy #video

| January 5, 2025

Before I add the humor (video below), I wanted to include a photo of the girls ice skating on their last day of Christmas break. It was so nice to have the extra time with “Mommy Katelyn“ on Friday and doing something special (great smile and photo)! Spotted this on X.com and it made me […]

A fun family weekend in the pool before school starts this week

| August 22, 2024

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A relatively small and quick workshop project: Fairy Doors

| August 14, 2024

With my granddaughters coming this weekend to help celebrate Brenda’s birthday (it is an excuse to get together), one of our granddaughter had a request: “Could Bompa make a Fairy Door for me to paint in his workshop?” How could a request like that be passed up? So Katelyn sent a photo of what the […]

Archiving photos: Our family busy doing “family stuff”

| June 27, 2024

Storm Clouds mid-June over Mankato MN  After our enjoyable and busy week with our granddaughters, I wanted to archive a few photos that have been piling up in the “maybe” for the blog folder. Above are some of the storm clouds in Minnesota that caused flooding in the midwest in mid-June — ominous! For us, […]

Archive: Summertime with Oma and Bompa – 2024 edition

| June 25, 2024

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Treasures found prepping old workbench for my granddaughters

| June 6, 2024

My Grandpa Bluhm made this workbench and gave it to me for Christmas back in 1966. His influence early-on likely influenced my interest in tinkering and woodworking (car restoration and rebuilding was probably mostly influenced by DadC).  This past weekend I cleaned it up a bit and added a homemade light strip with a roll of […]

Archive: A few leftover Valentine’s Day photos to make me smile

| February 15, 2024

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What doesn’t belong here? Very Waldo-ellian! #DDJ #humor

| February 10, 2024

Ok … so the title of this post is questionable.  The twisting of the “Where’s Waldo” picture game with the Orwellian like doublespeak obviously shows that I was too tired in preparing to add this photo to the blog. My plan in putting this “snail shell” in a palm tree was to See if it […]

Family is busy enjoying the winter weather and MLKJr.

| January 16, 2024

Although the temperatures around the US have taken a deep dive and have brought a cold and snowy winter to much of the country, our family is making the most of it. Taylor and Megan spent the long weekend skiing with some in her extended family in Utah and KDAE made the most of the […]

This year’s Christmas woodworking project: A Puppet Stage

| December 24, 2023

It is becoming more and more difficult to remember what I’ve added to the blog and what I have not when it comes to woodworking projects? I had thought I might have mentioned a few of the steps back in November regarding doweling a couple of unique joints when building a Puppet Stage for my […]

Archive: A family Throwback Thursday #TBT filler post

| November 30, 2023

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It looks like it’s time to clean out the birdhouse? #TBT

| September 21, 2023

It is humorous to see just how much a bird can put in the bluebird birdhouse that the granddaughters and I made back in 2020 (hence, the Throwback Thursday #TBT photo at left from 2020). It was completely stuffed full when I took it down from the pole at their house last week.  My plan […]

A shared “feel good about the next generation” story

| July 16, 2023

Perhaps I’m just being sensitive in having a couple granddaughters I want to protect, but started to read a human interest story last week that started me off irritated. Thankfully by the end, it gave a ray of hope for the next generation. Dear teenage boy at the skate park… You’re probably about 15 years-old, […]

Happy Father’s Day with a few leftover garage sale photos

| June 18, 2023

It was an end of the week “Safety Town graduation” and garage sale for Katelyn, Brenda and the girls (and Saturday sale for Drew) as they “unloaded” some stuff before having to move it. They did well and on top of it was a great time to be together (from what I’ve heard). All in […]

Woodworking: Practicing mortise and tenons on a project

| June 1, 2023

The previous “refined” Cornhole game project for my granddaughters worked out so well that I decided to make a modified set for Taylor’s birthday in June this year. Thankfully I started it early since I’m modifying the project just a little bit to work on mortise and tenon jointery … and have been busy outside […]

Our six-year old granddaughter’s dance recital weekend

| May 24, 2023

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Presentation by Taylor and time with our granddaughters

| March 26, 2023

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Unhealthy Aging graphic and my granddaughters in church

| March 15, 2023

While reading a health related social media post this past week, a graphic struck me as interesting since it highlights many of the ailments that most doctors and aging humans eventually face. Just to keep it personal, I’m noticing the hair thinning, vision and hearing loss as well as my high cholesterol needing some work […]

A March snow, tweaking MarsEdit 5 and Kid-genuity

| March 12, 2023

Now that I own a MacBook Air M2, it is time to get it set up for a few of the daily computer chores … like posting to My Desultory Blog. I’m still trying to get comfortable using MarsEdit5 blogging app, but do enjoy the ability to be able to write custom macros that helps […]

Archive: The Cornhole woodworking project was a success

| March 7, 2023

For years now, I’ve been planning to make a set of Cornhole boards for the backyard when entertaining in the summertime, but never really wanted to just slap together construction grade 2 x 4s and plywood. So when thinking about a project gift for my granddaughters 3rd and 6th birthdays this year, who are now […]

Combined Birthday celebration for our granddaughters

| March 5, 2023

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Happy Valentine’s Day to my special girls

| February 14, 2023

It is not a Throwback Thursday #TBT post, but the Echo Show photo below is from a previous year. Happy Valentine’s Day! The REAL Valentine’s Day story … (yikes!) The Catholic martyr St. Valentine was beheaded on that date in the third century, supposedly for breaking a Roman ban on performing marriages. Now in Dublin […]

Routing corner splines on a woodworking project with a jig

| January 29, 2023

Instead of painting the entire woodworking project that is currently underway in the workshop, I want at least to be able to naturally lacquer finish the frames of the Cornhole game. Partially it is to show off the miters and walnut splines in the frame corners and partially because I didn’t want to use any […]

Our Echo Show continues to remind us of family

| January 28, 2023

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Katelyn and Drew’s pile of drying lumber gets a tarp

| October 19, 2022

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Chick-Fil-A masks and Taylor has “the keys to the Castle”

| September 2, 2022

We are looking forward to seeing Taylor’s new condominium in Cincinnati for the first time this weekend. He informed us that he “has the keys to the castle” a couple days early (negotiated current tenant move out date). We can’t wait. It also came on the same day Katelyn and Drew forwarded a photo of […]

A quick babysitting trip to Perrysburg and a check on Katelyn and Drew’s property and house building progress

| August 27, 2022

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The 2022 school year has started for my granddaughters

| August 25, 2022

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Summer 2022 at home with our granddaughters wrap-up

| August 14, 2022

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A Happy Birthday for Brenda … with her granddaughters

| August 12, 2022

It has been a perfect summer week with Ellerie and Annalyn and all topped off with our family together to celebrate Brenda’s birthday. Katelyn and Drew are taking the girls to Kings Island today while we recuperate and I try to get a few things done that have piled up from phone calls, emails and […]

Katelyn found a new version of Lucky Charms for Annalyn

| May 20, 2022

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Birding outing for Katelyn with the family for her birthday

| May 17, 2022

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Great weather to be in Perrysburg babysitting our granddaughters

| April 14, 2022

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Happy Birthday! Our granddaughter is already 5 years old!

| March 6, 2022

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Archive: A leftover photo and priming Ellerie’s rocking chair

| March 1, 2022

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The Bengals going to Super Bowl LVI meant a lot to Cincinnati

| February 15, 2022

This post is going to be “a day late (or so) and a dollar short” post … just as the Cincinnati Bengals were in Sunday night’s Super Bowl LVI. Our young Bengals put up a valiant fight, but came away with a disappointing loss: Rams 23, Bengals 20. As so many have said, 2022 for […]

Archive: Enjoyable condo cleaning and NFL playoff football

| January 26, 2022

Brenda and I stretched out a cooler than expected weekend in Florida to get the condo ready for our Canadian renters. It worked out nicely since we had enough sun to start in order to go to the beach and plenty of time over the weekend to clean things up AND watch some excellent NFL […]

Archive: Hardly artwork but memories with my granddaughters

| January 15, 2022

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Making Monkey Fist ornaments and a fire on the back porch

| November 9, 2021

After learning to tie a Monkey Fist knot this past year, I decided to make a couple Christmas ornaments for my granddaughters. I was planning to attach them to their presents in December, but Brenda suggested they should have them before Christmas so that they could hang them on their tree. Yikes, now I need […]

Halloween gremlins creep in to finish off our Florida vacation

| October 26, 2021

Let’s start with "we had a great time in Florida" this past week" (more to come) … but the cleanup weekend ended with a couple gremlins. I blame it on the "uncarved" pumpkins left by the granddaughters. HA! Actually there were no unexpected problem while they were in Delray Beach with us, but after they […]

Archive: Weekend chores, family photos and a drip distraction

| October 10, 2021

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A week of summer with Annalyn and Ellerie at our house

| July 11, 2021

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Back to Perrysburg for Annalyn’s dance recital and babysitting

| May 28, 2021

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Ancestry and two cute St. Patrick’s Day granddaughter photos

| March 21, 2021

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Our granddaughters are coming and new Great Room windows

| December 23, 2020

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Santa Mouse slippers, Christmas stories and Echo messages

| December 12, 2020

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Apple Mac announcement event this past week along with some fun babysitting Annalyn and Ellerie in Perrysburg, Ohio

| November 14, 2020

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Archive: Some books to bookshelves and granddaughter photos

| October 6, 2020

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Assembling a simple (cough, cough) swing set for grandkids

| September 6, 2020

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Archive: Stay around home 2020 mini-vacation family photos

| August 11, 2020

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Carpenter bee traps, a box joint finger jig and birdhouse ideas

| July 5, 2020

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Happy Birthday to a great mom and best daughter in the world

| May 14, 2020

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Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog