Schools in the Tri-City United School District are celebrating Homecoming this week. In the schools, fun events and dress-up days are planned to make the annual tradition a fun one.
At the high school there’s Hidden Volleyball and Montgomery Messanger Sports Lip Sync, among other things for the kids to do safely. I like the events the kids will be able to participate in during the week.
However we know kids have minds of their own and come up with their own ways to have fun during this week, some of which may not be smart.

After a whirlwind of events—a family wedding “up north,” John’s grandpa’s funeral (north, but not so far north), our 16th wedding anniversary, our girls starting separate sports, and the groove of a new school schedule—my family of four opted to stay home all Labor Day weekend.
You can probably guess what that means…
Saturday and Sunday were spent cleaning.
Our home—and yard--had paid the price of our crazy busy August schedule, and it was time to address the mess.

For years, I have written an editorial/opinion column that is on this page.
This week, I need to write another one, but I have a severe case of writer’s block.
Oh! I don’t have a problem covering a meeting, sporting event, or a story about an event at the Arts & Heritage Center. That’s easy. I take notes, follow-up with questions, create an outline, and voilà - a story!
No, the block comes up when I have to write about something personal, or something interesting that I’ve done. The problem is, I never do interesting things.
I’m boring.

It seems like this year’s Kolacky Days was two years in the making. After last year, it was nice to see people getting together and coming to our town for our fantastic festival.
Yes, it was hot, but not oppressively so. I applaud the Montgomery Area Community Club (MACC) and its list of volunteers for putting on another great multi-day event. A festival like ours does not happen over night, nor, does it happen from the work of one person. In my opinion, they did a great job throughout the year, not knowing exactly what kind of festival they would eventually be able to put on.

The last couple of months have been like a breath of fresh air.
Life after the pandemic seems like it’s getting back to normal. We have had some events with face-maskless (is that a word?) people and more are coming up!

My husband gave me a pump for my 40th birthday.
Seriously.
I am now the proud owner of a green, shallow-well pump. (No, I don’t know the horsepower, etc.)
At first, I thought he had just used a pump box, so I tore into the package expecting something else, but... It really was a pump.
Confused, I smiled and told him “thank you.”
“What is it?!” demanded our 9-year-old Ellen.
John informed her.
Then, our 11-year-old Anna, “Why’d you get her a pump?”
I was thinking the same darn thing.

I don’t know when it was, but somewhere between a day old and 33 years old, I learned to appreciate my dad for who he is; not for who I thought he should be. He was a great man, I always knew that. He was a hard-worker, volunteer, and faithful, and devoted husband to my mother.
But the truth is, God knew long before we showed up on this earth that we’d be a family. He knew my dad’s strengths and struggles would one day coalesce to create the man he became until he left the earth at 58-years-old in 1997. It was too short a journey, but one I reflect on every day.

Friday was a big day for the TCU seniors and their families.
They transitioned from high school students to Tri-City United alumni.
The youth might not realize it, but that’s a big transition. It marks the end of one part of their life and the beginning of another.
I’m sure their journey to graduation was a bumpy one. Being a senior during a global pandemic that brought hybrid learning, to distance learning, to hybrid learning then all-in learning made it unforgettable.

My kids are ready, but this momma is still marking up the color-coded calendar and trying to figure out the logistics of getting everyone everywhere they need to be.
I’m excited for my girls to participate in swimming, soccer, tennis, and volleyball, plus a babysitting clinic and a few other activities—all good things.
But, what working parent can get their kids to a 10 a.m. event every day for an entire week and then be back two hours later to shuttle them home?
I get it.
It’s summer. Kids don’t have a schedule per se.

Last week Thursday was Earth Day!
Earth Day is an annual global event, observed on April 22, that celebrates the environmental movement and raises awareness about pollution and ways to maintain a clean habitat. It started in 1970.
Whether you agree with the notion of a climate crisis or not, we should all choose to be better and more respectful inhabitants of Earth. We can support environmental conservation for ourselves and for living things with whom we share the planet.

A new bundle of joy
My wife and I became new parents two weeks ago to a healthy, five-pound, four-legged bundle of joy that’s keeping us up at night and going through the developmental stages right before our eyes.
I was the instigator to bringing home another fur baby. We had just moved into a new home, out in the country, where there’s plenty of space for the new puppy to roam with our older dog.

We missed Easter this year. Well, most of it. My family of four (my husband, John, daughters Anna, age 11, and Ellen, age 9, and myself) recently spent a week in Florida with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s family of five. They have three kiddos—ages 7, 5, and 3, and one more on the way. Basically, the Ingebrands invaded Florida.

Here’s a scary story from the field of science: experiments at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel have successfully grown mouse embryos inside an artificial uterus.
Wait!
What?
The embryos looked perfectly normal, according to the study published in the journal Nature. All their organs developed as expected, along with their limbs and circulatory and nervous systems. Their tiny hearts were beating at a normal 170 beats per minute.
Fake wombs?
Really? Why?

Saturday, while he was standing in shorts and a t-shirt in 60-degree weather, my son, Mecca, muttered, “I’m so glad winter’s over.”
Yes, the lack of snow and warm sun gave him the impression winter was finished.
Yes, the balmy temperatures made us think of packing up the winter boots and shovels.
But, we know better than to be fooled by March’s trickery.
When he said this, I smiled, because Mecca doesn’t say much. I was thrilled we were having a meaningful conversation. I was hoping more would follow.
Alas, the magic was over.

Daylight saving time has returned, prompting many to celebrate with an eye toward warmer temps and the change of seasons. As if on cue, this is a great time as well to celebrate newspapers and the sunshine they deliver to all of our lives and communities.
Reminding citizens and public officials about the public’s right of access to government information is the focus of “Sunshine Week: It’s Your Right to Know,” March 14-20. At its foundation, Sunshine Week underscores preserving the free flow of information for an open, effective and accountable government.

I wanted a unicycle.
I was 10 years old and wanted nothing else—just a unicycle.
I begged for one for my birthday. Begged.
I cut a picture of one out of a magazine and dreamed of riding the darn thing around my driveway.
I would have been so cool.
But, instead, I got a pogo stick.
My parents were “concerned” I’d severely injure myself learning how to ride a unicycle, but for some reason… a pogo stick was “just fine” in their minds.
I was not pleased when I unwrapped the pogo stick.