The Gift That Keeps on Giving
WordPress provides a prompt question every day and occasionally, I can’t resist. Todays is about the best purchase I ever made.
We were at a transition point in our lives, leaving the military, facing a temporary geographic separation (AdventureMan off to Saudi Arabia) and he said to me something I’ve always loved, that I’ve been a good wife and to buy a house any where I wanted.
I knew where that would be. I had a clever Mom who, every time I visited her, had set up a realtor to show us condominiums. She always said it was so that when they downsize, they would understand the options, but I also believe she had another agenda – to show me the options. Or so I suspected; my Mom often held her cards close to her chest and I would have to guess at her intentions. Whether or not she intended, she did sell me on the location.
AdventureMan drove one of our cars across the country and spent two days looking at options. He came back excited.
Then when he came back, we packed out everything we intended to keep and sent it to storage. Adventureman departed for Saudi Arabia and I kept working until our house sold, then moved temporarily to an apartment. I looked at a slew of places, and bought a house that looked very boring, but in the community I loved .
The house wasn’t as boring as it looked. What made it look boring was the wall-to-wall beige carpeting. Before I moved in, I had it all ripped out and had natural oak wood floors installed. It seemed horrendously expensive but it had a WOW factor – the house looked gorgeous.
I lived in the house for two years, AdventureMan and I having telephone dates and him dropping into town every few months for conjugal visit, LOL. Then, he got permission for me to live with him in Saudi Arabia.
We rented out the house. We’ve rented it out all these years, only one change in renters, never a single vacant month. I love the house still, and it was the best investment we ever made.
Within a few years, rental income had paid off the mortgage. Every year since then is gravy. We visit the renters now and then to check on the house; they are doing a good job at protecting those beautiful floors. They’d like to buy the house, but we have promised it to our son, who loves it too.
By far, the best purchase we ever made.
And Then – A Miracle Happened
In the middle of the night, with no crowd to celebrate, with no acclaim, The Affordable Housing Bill became law.
During a time when Democrats and Republicans can hardly talk to one another without spitting, 85 Senators, Democrat and Republican, joined 358 Democrat and Republican Representatives to pass a bill to help strapped young Americans get back into the housing market.
The President refused to sign the bill. He called it a “Yawn.” He said he wouldn’t sign it until the Senate and House agreed to institute the SAVE Act. He is attempting to create issues in American elections that don’t exist, to limit voting, to limit who can vote, and to make it harder for American citizens to vote. To emphasize his point, he fired the last two remaining watchdogs on the Election Assistance Commission. He FIRED the people who are in place to make sure our elections are fair and ACCURATE.
I guess he hoped nobody was looking, and that no one would care.
The President did not, however, veto the bill. My guess is that he was facing a revolution in his own party if he vetoed Affordable Housing. So he just let it slide.
He let it slide, and this adorable little bill, The 21st Century ROAD to Housing, supported by members of both parties (who, admittedly, want to get re-elected) quietly became law because it was not vetoed.
In truth, if the president had vetoed, the bill, the numbers are so solid that it would have passed again and become law anyway, but to have foregone that extra struggle, where anything can happen, another distraction, another unnecessary way, it is a small, very welcome, miracle.
Didn’t you learn in your high school classes that laws are made by clasping hands across the aisle? There is so much we all have in common. I believe that most of us have intentions for the common good.
This is a small step in that direction, clearing a small path forward of create common solutions by joining together. Get out the brooms! Clear these cobwebs of hate and chaos! Bring back civility!
Celebrate small miracles!
Celebrate the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
How Do We Celebrate the 4th of July?
Today’s Lectionary provided a prayer for today, along with today’s saint, Saint Moses the Black:
PRAYER (contemporary language)
Almighty God, whose blessed Son guides our footsteps in the way of peace: Deliver us from paths of hatred and violence, that we, following the example of your servant Moses, may serve you with singleness of heart and attain to the tranquility of the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
It brought to mind a troubling conversation in a meeting with a group of women I greatly admire. One said “I’m having a problem with knowing how to celebrate the 4th of July without compromising my belief that our nation is on a very wrong path.”
In a brief discussion, we agreed that no one party owns the flag, or fireworks, that those are the influence-free celebrations of our freedoms, but that gatherings that involve political speeches and practices that support beliefs we find repugnant are contrary to our well-being.
I think we all came away from that discussion with a troubled sadness.
My family has a history of service to our nation. Much of what we have built, and what we have worked so hard to accomplish, has been wrecked. I love our nation, I love the American dream, I love the Statue of Liberty welcoming those who arrive with little but hope, and a desire to live free in a land of opportunity. I love our freedom to disagree with leadership and for the tools to fight unjust practices. I love that we have lived a life of service: serving our country, building alliances, and building a network that fights the evils of tyranny.
This morning, I put out our flags.
Alaska 2026: Homer Quiet Anniversary
This was a really funny day. The weather has changed, cloudier, foggier, damper.
We had a reservation for lunch again at Captain Pattie’s; AdventureMan had made it in advance for our wedding anniversary. We had a leisurely morning, starting to pack for our drive back to Anchorage, then heading down early to the Homer Spit where the Viking Orion was docked.
It was so funny being on the other side, watching the cruisers come into the little town of Homer, AK, doubling its normal population. We went down and took a photo; we can’t remember if we’ve been on the Orion before, but we have been booked on the same itinerary – three times – and never took the trip.
We had booked first for 2020. Ummm, yes, COVID nixed that. We had rebooked for the following year and then the following year, and none of those ships sailed. It was a trip from Japan, and at the time, through the Kamchatka Peninsula, which we really wanted to see, Dutch Harbor, the Aleutians, and then around the inner curve of Alaska, ending, I believe, in Vancouver, BC. We never took it. And here it was.
As we entered Captain Pattie’s, we were greeted by the wait staff that had taken care of us the day before, and had another lovely dinner, having salads and splitting a seafood linguine. It was all delicious.
I did not have King Crab again. After lunch, we visited the shops on the spit, ending up at Carmen’s Gelato, where I had the Chocolate Noir sorbet, very very dark chocolate, very intense, and AdventureMan had chocolate gelato. We sat in the parking lot overlooking the docks and ate our ice cream in bliss.
This was in the window of a shop on the Homer Spit. It totally cracked me up.
We try to have an easy day in each place we stay, and this was our easy day. We napped, we packed, we discarded. We thought through what we would get rid of now, and what we would leave in Anchorage.
We agreed that we got great sleep on this trip; the places we stayed were so quiet. It’s early in the season, and I expect the places will be livelier and noisier as the season goes on. We’re glad we came when we came.
What is amazing to me is how random all our good fortune has been. When AdventureMan said Alaska, and showed me the trip he had found, I just used those dates to plan our own version, and didn’t change a thing. It didn’t occur to me, and I wonder why? I love it that we traveled in comfort and privacy, and it cost us a quarter of what it would have if we had booked the group travel.
Education: Florida Ranks LAST in United States
My husband and I volunteer at a public elementary school. The teachers and administrators are heroes, battling a cynical Republican administration that increasingly limits public spending on education and local initiatives. This is a heartbreaking but accurate indictment. I ask myself why an administration would NOT want an educated population?
Florida schools rank last in new national report
ALAIJAH CROSS, TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
Tue, June 23, 2026 at 4:06 AM CDT
Among other national education research institutions, the Network for Public Education ranked Florida last for its lack of commitment and support for public schools.
The network, a nonprofit advocacy group that promotes and researches policies supporting traditional public schools, has evaluated and held states accountable for how public education is managed and upheld.
With scores up to 100, each state was evaluated based on privatization, school finance, and student and teacher supports.
“The grades in this report are not merely academic assessments influenced by demographics or changing test standards. They are a measure of how seriously each statehouse takes its obligation to the children who attend public schools within its borders,” says the report, released through a press release.
Florida earned an F, with 14 out of 100 possible points earned.
“The states most aggressively redirecting public funds toward private alternatives were also the states most neglectful of their public schools, their teachers, and their students. Privatization and disinvestment, it turns out, go hand in hand,” the report adds.
Florida has steered billions in taxpayer funding to private school programs with limited oversight, a policy critics say disenfranchises public schools and the communities they serve.
Proponents contend that private school programs increase educational choice and competition, potentially improving outcomes for students and families seeking alternatives to traditional public schools.
A lawsuit filed by the Florida Education Association against the State Board of Education argues that traditional public schools must comply with a growing set of laws governing safety, staffing, student services, facilities and finances, while charter and private schools receiving public funds operate under significantly fewer requirements.
FEA President Andrew Spar said the last straw which prompted legal action was the 2026 legislative session.
“We saw bills that were going to address the massive teacher and staff shortage, address the pay and equity gaps that exist, address the funding inequities we have between public schools, charter schools and private schools; and lawmakers didn’t act on any of those,” Spar previously told the Tallahassee Democrat in May at a press conference.
Including Florida, 17 states received F grades, 13 states received B grades and 13 additional states earned a C grade. Seven states were scored a D and only two states earned an A, Nebraska and Vermont.
The report says: “States that most aggressively expand vouchers and charter schools are the same states that underfund their public schools, underpay their teachers, and provide the weakest protections for students. Our analysis found what statisticians consider a moderate/strong relationship with a probability of occurring well beyond chance between the expansion of irresponsible ‘choice policies.’ ”
Florida lawmakers reached an agreement May 29 on a $115 billion state budget, boasting a total of $21 billion in funding for education at a time when critics are calling out the state for chronically underfunding public schools.
For example the base student allocation, which is also considered “per student” funding, increased by $85, from roughly $8,900 to about $9,000.
After rising expenses, however, some say it isn’t an increase at all. With rising health insurance, supply costs and labor, advocates say the increase should be at least $1,000 per student.
Spar said the budget “ignores the needs of hurting communities.”
Florida has now ranked at the bottom of several national research reports on education, including the National Education Association’s listing on teacher pay, and the Education Scorecard’s state-by-state analysis on academic achievement.
“It’s no surprise that a failing woke institution would rank Florida, a national leader in education, last whenever possible,” a state education department spokesperson previously told the Tallahassee Democrat in response to its low ranking on the Education Scorecard in May.
Talking With My Mom in the Commissary
“Mom! Look at the price on that flank steak!” When she sent me off to college, one of the pieces of advice she shared with me was never to spend more than $1.25 per pound on flank steak, one of the leanest, thriftiest cuts of beef available. Even four years later, the butcher looked at me in amazement and said “your mother’s information is out of date.”
But when I saw these breathtaking prices – even marked down! – for flank steak, I couldn’t help taking a photo to share with Mom.
Yes, I still talk with my Mom, I can’t help it. She should not have died when she did, one of the earliest victims of COVID. I have so much admiration for the choice she made – she chose not to be intubated. Intubation machines were limited, and she wanted younger people to have priority on their usage. She was 96. Her mother lived to 104. She requested hospice, and went quietly and without pain. I still choke to think of it, but it was her choice, and a heroic choice.
“Can you believe this?” I ask my mother, incredulously. “Hershey’s chocolate FLAVOR! Not even real chocolate!” and Mom replies in my head, telling me not to buy it, it’s just chemicals.
As the oldest daughter, some of my earliest memories are Saturday trips to the supermarket, wheeling the basket while Mom filled it, stopping now and then to chat with shopping neighbors, or to show me a label and what it meant. It was excruciatingly boring. I learned a lot.
She also taughte me to cook. I’m not the greatest cook (neither was she), but, like her, I have a few great recipes that make me look better than I am. Some of them are hers 😊. Even better, when we were cleaning out her condo, I found this old set of measuring spoons, which I brought home and still use. They must be seventy or eighty years old; look how thin the aluminum is.
I talk to her in the kitchen, too. Yesterday, I made her Autumn Plum Cake (Pflaumekeuchen) (you can get the recipe by typing that into the search box, it’s a great, easy recipe for an Alsatian kind of torte) only I used fresh cherries, and it turned out really juicy. She just laughed (in my head) and told me not to try it with blueberries, that they are a real mess. But she never really liked blueberries.
I have some strange beliefs, including the veil between life and death being a lot thinner than we know. The last message my Mother left on my phone was about some masks I made and sent; she was excited for them to arrive, but that night she fell ill and went to the hospital. She never got to see the masks.
Mind Your Own Business!
This message from yesterday’s Lectionary Readings made me laugh because different cultures have such differences, even in my own country, the United States of America.
I grew up in the great Pacific Northwest, on an island in Alaska, surrounded by Scandinavian immigrants and Alaskan natives and pioneers from the “lower 48,” as we called the USA, which was then a territory and not yet a state. Neighbors relied on one another, and we were strongly interconnected, helping one another out in daily interactions, and in emergencies. We were close, and yet we were also insular – a curious child’s innocent inquiry (mine!) would be met with “Mind your own business.” It meant don’t ask questions. Give people their privacy. In truth, there were many people who had left the “lower 48” for good reasons, established new lives in the last frontier and did not want to be reminded of what kind of mess they might have left behind.
AdventureMan grew up in the deep South, a town of around 3,000 people where they joked that the population always remains the same – a new baby gets born, and a man leaves town.” When I come back from a meeting or a lunch with a friend, he has endless questions. When he meets my friends, he has questions. I tell him generalities, and he asks specifics, and I say something vague. I hurt his feelings when I don’t share all the details – in his culture, in his small town, everyone knew everything about everybody. No one had any secrets. People knew what you had done 50 years ago, and there was little room for changing anyones opinion of who you are now, how you might have changed. People regularly shared what they knew about one another.
We’ve been married decades, and we still push and pull on this issue – how much do we share? We both know there is not a right or wrong, just what feels right to him and what feels right to me, and we have to agree to disagree, and sometimes we can be very disagreeable!
This is what the Lectionary reading says:
Thessaalonians 4:10
But we urge you, beloved,* to do so more and more, 11to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, 12so that you may behave properly towards outsiders and be dependent on no one.
How does it work for you?
The Things That Matter
Moving to Kuwait was huge, with so many adjustments. As we hunted for a house, we were shown palatial living spaces. One had a big pool as you entered the house – inside the house. One house had an elevator to the three floors. We were shown so many truly amazing places to live.
It was just me, AdventureMan, and our cat named Pete. My husband worked hard. Those houses were just too big for me, and the quieter life I wanted to live, and how would I find Pete hidden in one of those huge houses?
We chose an apartment high on the 10th floor in Fintas, overlooking a beach park, overlooking a wild street, with a 180 degree view of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. There really was never a question. That view took my breath away, and gave me hours of pleasure, watching dhows, watching fishermen, watching people in the park. I called it my Eyrie.
It also gave me a glorious daily sunrise. Every sunrise was different and glorious.
Later, we were able to buy exactly the house I wanted in Pensacola – a house we had owned before, with a view of the Bayou. As a great favor to me, AdventureMan, who never wanted to move again, agreed to move, and together we watch the sun set over the Bayou. Every night we have a sunset. Every night, a different sunset, a different angle, a different color, a different mood. I am grateful for the richness that fills my life every evening when we watch the sun set, and my heart fills with awe.
Oddly Satisfying Conversation
We had a lovely weekend, a confirmation of a much-loved young friend, and gathering afterwards in her home with other close friends.
On our way home, AdventureMan was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t drive. He had asked me about the serious conversation I had been having with the host.
“We were talking about loading the dishwasher,” I told him, not thinking to incite this hilarity.
When you run into someone who shares your interests, it can lead to a great conversation. I love doing dishes. I find it meditative. I like gathering them and rinsing them and stacking them. The host agreed with me that my loading his dishwasher would not be a good thing.
People who LIKE loading dishwashers have their own ideas about how it needs to be done, it’s like we have inner patterns that must be met. I want to load my dishwasher because I unload the dishwasher, and if I load it, I have all the things together that need to be unloaded together. I like to unload and put away because I like to know where things are in my kitchen. If I put them away, it is always in the same place.
I think it’s OK to be a little bit obsessive about a few things!
A friend once laughed because all my spices were in alphabedical order. Now, I’ve changed the pattern; I do this now and then when new ways of achieving efficiency come to mind. Now I have herbs and savories together and baking spices together, and it makes sense to me, but to someone else it might not.
But I’ve discovered it is like a secret club, this need to have order. Some people are not wired this way, but those of us who are can discuss pros and cons of different patterns endlessly and enthusiastically.
And AdventureMan just laughs.
A Small Disaster
“Aaaahhhk! Aaaaaahhhhkkk! AAAAAHHHHHHKKKK! HELP! HELP!”
Our quiet, peaceful Saturday morning suddenly goes emergency mode as AdventureMan aaaacckkks in the kitchen.
“What??? What?!!” I ask, because he can’t articulate in his distress.
“We have water running all over the kitchen!” he gasps.
Alaska girl that I am, I have a stash of thirsty old towels nearby, and as I go to get the spare towels tub down, I ask “Where is it coming from?”
He checks under the sink and finds this:
There is a gap in the drain pipe to our right side sink. AdventureMan is in the process of making his famous beans, and when he ran the water, it started gusing out the gap. He tried to twist the connector-thingy but it did not grab.
“I’ll mop up, you call the emergency plumber,” I said, already at work gathering up the stuff stored under the sink, cleaning up the mess and dragging out things that needed to be further cleaned. It isn’t a bad leak, but it’s a leak that prevents us from running water into that sink. On the other hand, it gives me an opportunity to give the area a good cleaning up; you know how it gets under the sinks. As I am cleaning, I admire the solid pinewood cabinets in this mid-century house, built in 1974. I had the plain pine re-faced with birch when we bought the house, years ago, but I won’t replace solid wood cabinets.
Our normal plumber is a family owned business, with the luxury of taking the weekends off. Fortunately for us, there are emergency plumbers, and we are on the list for one to come today. Meanwhile AdventureMan has found a fan to dry out moisture remaining under the sink, and is continuing on with his baked bean magic.
LOL, as I look at this photo, I can see the near-empty tub for the towels on the dining room table, and the bottles from under the sink. And I see that the ham and the bacon are already frying to be added before the beans bake.
April has been a month for home-keeping. The handyman put in a set of discreetly hidden laundry lines outside, far from prying eyes, and I have already used them for sheets, and now they are ready for a load of towels to wash and dry for future emergencies. Our electricians put in lights and switches, small luxuries, but small luxuries can make such a lovely difference. I am personally thankful that the pipe broke while AdventureMan was using it, and that we tackled it as a team, so that the end result was only 15 minutes of chaos and disruption, rather than a whole morning. And oh, the wonderful aroma of beans baking slowly for hours, as AdventureMan makes his magic.
We are invited for a special celebration tomorrow, and when I asked “can I bring AdventureMan?” she immediately responded “Oh Yes! Can he bring biscuits?” Who knew that after a career as a top dog, he would become famous late in life for his fabulous cooking skills? Life is full of mysteries!
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Early Voting in Florida
