2026-09-30
Of course, I had my helper girls…
Chloe’s ears are long enough they pick up sawdust when she (always) puts her nose to the ground hahahahaha.
Helping Susan and Larry this past weekend
I volunteered to help our with their Hope Rising Gala a little. They needed this wall built to hold the over 700 booties that represent lives saved. It took a lot of my red tools and most of my garage haha. My Jeep was kind of locked in for a while there. Good motivations to keep at it and get the job done :)
Relaxing on the porch with my favorite cuppa tea
This is the apple cinnamon spice that Laura introduced me to on our trip to Michigan with Mom. Also in my favorite tea cup (left over from Steve and Janice’s things ❤️
2026-09-29
Zoe might consider this a betrayal?
It’s one of my buddy’s frenchy. I guess Daisy could tell I was a dog guy now? Haha.
Hitching a ride to the mailbox…!
The kids always wanted me to do this for them, now it’s their turn… hahahaha
It’s giving good advice…
I think Andy’s review mirror camera system is telling me I might want to reconsider?! 🤪 I also just noticed the little rubber rocket ship jet airplane thing on his dash??
Chris showed me around his new job last week
I got to see all kinds of UAS, from tiny to human-carrying size. You can tell he’s in his element. I liked the infrastructure inspection systems and the flying pavilion. It was cool to see what all he’s doing. It was fun to pull into the same parking lot where I used to meet up when he was a student there. It brought back good memories.
2026-09-28
I snapped a fun pic…
…of Julie’s filter feeding bambo shrimp catching an Uber to get from one side of the tank to another. I’m not sure the snail appreciated the extra effort required…
Julie’s shrimp gonig for ride!
Her “fan boy” bamboo shrimp decided he wanted a mobile perch for his filter feeding. I’m not sure the snail appreciates the extra cargo…?!
It’s always interesting when my worlds intersect…
The combo of jeeps and self-protection is common among my friends and club members. It’s just funny to me when I’m randomly watching one hobby (a Jeep YouTube) and it suddenly crosses over into a discussion on another hobby like shooting sports and CCW. Turns out this guy has started a whole ‘nother side channel just for such topics.
When I first ran across him, I figured he wasn’t “one of us”. I guess my biases were wrong :)
This is memory gold❣️
I just happened to notice this when putting away the stuff Julie had sorted from her mom and dad’s. It was a letter she’d sent back in 1990. It’s really fun to see her talk about her life then and dating me. She rated me pretty well. Hopefully I measured up after all these years. Moral of the story: with prayer, and effort, strive to be the guy your girl thinks you are!
Some tiny little watches added to my collection
I found these when putting away Janice’s remaining stuff. I found them to be interesting. They’re different from the others I have. Especially the Anne Klein with it’s quick date set in such a small case. Just nice pieces to remember her by…❤️
2026-09-27
Fourth generation of Barton’s working here!
This is why I was creeping on Andy. He’s been part of the push to get the Hammel house open in time for the Sauerkraut Festival. My dad was contracted to help rework the apartments (which were on the left side of the building in the top pic). It was a lot of work over a year or so. I helped out many nights and weekends and learned a lot. At one point, my grandpa also came down (he was a home builder). So, Andy marks the fourth in our line of Barton men to put his mark on it.
You can see some of the vents he made that are sticking out of the wall in the lower left. His truck was seen in front of the building in the lower left pic which is a screen shot from Katie Deaton’s post about their progress.
Finding gold
You might want to look through your old jewelry? I found these old chains among Janice’s things. It doesn’t look like much. It added up to 25g. That’s about the weight of a single page letter in an envelope. It was worth $550 at the local jeweler. I added it to Julie’s “inheritance”.
“Big” hair David…
The kids couldn’t remember what I looked like when I wore my hair longer (and Julie prefers it) so I decided to see what it looked like if I skipped a haircut. One month lather, here it is. The reviews are mixed 🤪
2026-09-26
He came back!
George Milo was missing from the farm for several days. He showed back up about the time I arrived on Wednesday. He was muddy and hungry but went right back to his usual antics. My co-worker topped him back up with a few cat food packets and he was good to go!
Imagine my surprise…
I found this while I was mowing the yard! I carried up to show Julie and when she saw me coming she had a moment where she thought I might be carrying my severed finger! The only reason she didn’t freak out was because I wasn’t freaking out so it must not have been true… It smelled really weird!
The recent storms…
…netted me two wagon loads of sticks to pick up. We were lucky. All around us lots of huge trees were down. I counted more than twenty along Wilmington pike from Bill Yeck park area to Ferry Church!
This morning, I got to save a hummingbird that had gotten stuck on the feeder❣️
I untangled his foot then held him until he got his wits back and flew off❤️
I think this is what was going on… Crazy, he was gonna be cat food for sure!
These are the great jerseys Julie found us
I like the Ohio themed logo, the res white and blue colors, the cannon patch, the stars on the sleeve and the fancy NHL logo on the collar. Laine was a player that ran hot and cold as a fan favorite so it’s fun to have one with his name on it given the history of the team from a few years back.
2026-09-25
A nice pic from my misty walk with Laura this week
She got the best shot though. These mushrooms stopped her in her tracks while Zoe was distracting me with a bathroom break, hahahah.
The view from our pre-season seats
Our normal seats are one section to the right from this. Nice view and cool CBJ colors for the whole arena. :)
It pays to wait…
When we started going to the pro hockey games last year, we realized their SWAG prices were outragous. Hoodies were $150 for example… Well, we waited until their clearance sale this year and we Julie found that they had authentic game jerseys on sale complete with player names and numbers! These are normally $300 or so (see the stickers on the right). But they were on sale for $60. Even better, a snafu and trip back to the register meant the cashier felt sorry for us and gave us a two for one deal. So we got exactly the jerseys we wudda wanted from last years season, at $30 each for two of them! I’m glad Julie’s eagle eye and bargain prowess were sharp this week!
2026-09-24
A gift in progress
It was fun to find this among Julie’s dad’s things. Andy’s grampy made him a chess table and set years ago. The pieces were made from standard nut and bolt hardware. Here’s a glimpse of the process it took to gather the pieces and get them assembled. I made sure to keep these notes with the set.
“Your cat’s all flat and junk”
Pepper loves to flop on this box. Sometimes about half of her falls in. 🤪
Before she sat on my leg…
…she tried to cast a spell on me. Haha, I was playing around with the new iOS 27 image generator.
A rare kitty moment for me…
Itty Bitty decided to grace me with her presence. She must have been hungry, but I’ll take it however I can get it 🐈⬛
The most photographed kids…?!
My father in-law always said my two were gonna be the most photographed kids in the world…. He might have been right…? My phone says there are 3,100 of Andy and 3,300 of Johnny… hahahaha. Funny that I got that notice from OneDrive while having a pic of the came kid on my lock screen. :)
2026-09-23
The end of an era…
Isaac had taken a board and some paracord and fashioned a swing many years ago at my mom’s house. Eventually it wore out, one of the strings broke, and the kids grew up. We decided it was time to take the other half down. I tried putting all my weight on it…but it still held! I ended up having to get a ladder and cut it.
Fun memories from the good ole days❤️
12 horses and 2 minis on display
It was fun to see the horses and riders showing off their skills and still integrating the gospel message. Also nice to see the result and impact of all the weekly work and care we all put into it.
God’s working
It was nice to hear the stories of how camp Jabez has impacted people, young and old alike. There focus on the message of Jesus and the cross is a simple one!
Andy at Jabez again❤️
They had an open house and it was fun to have my mom, Andy, and Sophie along to see what goes on at the camp. Andy can just barely remember camping and fishing there back in the early 2000’s. Seeing it did bring back some memories for Andy. He caught his first fish in that pond. :)
Rolex just dropped this little gem on everybody
It was kind of surprise super complicated dress watch. Pretty nice looking, lots of complications, and nice finishing touches like the moon indicators being made a meteorite. Too much $$$ for me! But pretty cool nonetheless.
2026-09-22
Zoe peering up at me from her taco in the Jeep
Cute little pup. She’s happy to just ride along on whatever adventure awaits… This day, there was a threat of rain, so she was sharing some of her space with the freedom flaps hahaha. She didn’t mind as long as she was along for the ride.
Julie has mastered her chaffle process!
So golden brown and delicious, so crispy, so yummy, so pretty❣️
My grandma Morey’s watch❤️
My mom remembered that she still had my grandma’s last watch and asked me if I was “still collecting watches” hahaha. Yes! It’s fun to remember grandma with it on. I fondly remember the black stretch band (upper left) and the way she put it on each day. She usually wore it on the underside of her wrist too. I always remember her telling time with it, but it was only ever to the closest quarter hour. Quarter of, half past, etc. It’s a common Swiss quartz movement (Ever Swiss brand) and I managed to get it running and set properly. I had to realign the hands since the hour hand was 30 mins off kilter and also adjust the dial in relation to the day/date window. It mostly runs, but likes to get hung up at 8:05 for some reason. It seems to be getting slightly smoother each day. We’ll see if I can revive it completely. I need all my watches to have a day complication so I can keep track of which day of the week it is these days… So, it’s perfect.
More old stuff to the rescue… I had a band left over from Julie’s grandpa’s watch drawer that fit grandma’s watch perfectly and fits my wrist perfectly with it (upper right). Hers was way too short. Couldn’t even get it over my hand haha.
Mystery solved?
At least mostly. These service pins were Julie’s Dad’s brother’s most likely. It lines up with his service record. We don’t know exactly why he never saw them or how I ended up with them, but at least we know where they came from. It’s fun connecting some of the family history dots.
2026-09-21
Retirement is… all this and more, in the middle of the day❤️
As the day dawns, and the storms blow on by, I awake this morning rested and thankful. Thankful for God’s provision, wisdom, blessing, and guidance through the trials and fun of life. Thankful for my family. Thankful for time to spend doing things like what’s pictured below with them in the middle of various week days.
This week I transition fully from considering re-employment over to just enjoying retirement and the next phase of life, officially. It’s somewhat just a final mental switch, partially the way the finances and timing worked out, and lastly the results of using the last half a year getting used to the idea, habits, budgets, resources, tax codes, and guidelines. Julie and I have been enjoying ourselves thoroughly. I’ve enjoyed being able to take life a little easier, being available when the kids need something or just want to hang out, and even joy riding with my mom in the middle of the day.
There’s so much more to my happy feelings, more than I can picture or express. Hikes with Laura, dinners with Susan and Larry, mapping out the future, volunteering for the Lord, getting caught up on things, even more time with my nephews and nieces…
Here’s to the next phase❣️ I love you all, and hope you see me giving the glory to God in the process. Praying it all works the way I planned, and if it doesn’t, I guess I’ll dive back into the rat race.
Guess what I found?!
An organized person wouldn’t think to look for younger childhood memories in this box… but I was getting desperate…
I had two or three boxes basically labeled similarly. Finally Decided I better look through them…
What do you think I found?!
My first watch from like 1980 or so!! It doesn’t run quite right but still brings back lots of good memories❣️ I paired it up with a spare band from Julie’s granddaddy’s watch drawer in the hutch we inherited from them. Fun!
Where’s weirdos
Kind of like Where’s Waldo? See if you can spot Andy and me in the kendama crowd from Dama at the Pond? It was great to hang out with him for the day!
2026-09-20
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