Weekly Ephemera #170

Another couple of weeks that really didn't matter much.

• We really didn't do anything.  The Wife watched basketball and went to Mass , including one with her little cousin.  I just vegged, napped, and didn't do much else.
• I finally finished "Alien:Earth"  It took me two months to finish the last three episodes.  I liked it but it didn't excite me.
  
  I watched "Jurassic World: Rebirth" with expectations of seeing ScarJo kill some dinosaurs.  Strangely enough, no dinosaurs were killed by any of the humans, as far as I could see.  Several humans were killed by the dinosaurs though.  It was ok but it felt a little flat for me.
• I walked four times over the last two weeks.  I walked 29.8 miles (48 km) since my last Weekly Ephemera post.  On my last walk I must have looked bad as a lady in a car stopped and asked if I needed a ride.

Weekly Ephemera #169

Last weekend was a bit busy so I missed  a weekly update so this one will include some of last week.

• Last weekend the Wife's aunt and cousins visited from Florida.  They treated us to a Creighton men's Basketball game.  Unfortunately, my sports curse which had disappeared seems to have returned and Creighton lost.

Creighton vs Saint John

• This weekend the Wife hosted Bread Camp for her niece's husband and five year old son.  She taught them how to make different types of dough with their bread machine and made homemade pizza for dinner.
• We have finalized the bones of our next three trips.  The first will be a road trip after the Winter Olympics around Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California.  The second is just under two weeks in Cape Town, South Africa at the end of July.  The last is a month-long trip to Paris, northern France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium.  We have quirky things planned for all three of these trips, which I will document in posts prior to our travel dates.
• Over the last two weeks I walked four times for a total of 30.7 miles (49.4 km).  I missed a couple of walking days due to the visits.

2025 Balkans and Malta Travels - Magnet Edition

We Purchased magnets on our Balkan and Malta travels last fall, as we usually do, and added fifty-two new magnets to our collection.  Our collection now stands at Eight-Hundred-Thirty-Eight magnets.  Here are a few of my favorites from our last travels.

Zeus.

Meteora, Greece.

Communist era pillbox in Tirana, Albania.

Northern Macedonian shoes and dress.

Popeye, filmed in Malta.

You can see our entire collection in our 2006-2025 Travel Magnets Google Photos album.  You can also access them from the Travel Magnets tab above.

Weekly Ephemera #168

The Holiday season has come to an end and, frankly, it felt like the shortest Holiday season ever.

• On New Year's day, after a quiet New Year's Eve, I took down the wreaths, lights, and ornaments from the front yard.  I took down the Christmas tree.  The Wife took the rest of the indoor decorations.  I will be stuffing everything into the furnace room closet this week sometime.
• I didn't walk this week.  I decided to take the last week of 2025 off.
• We watched the finale of "Stranger Things", which was a good end of the series.  Unfortunately it ended wide open for a sequel series.

Best Photo Of 2025

We had a quiet New Year's Eve watching the celebrations around the world.

I looked through my favorite photos I took in 2025.  From the three trips we took, plus a few I took in between the travels, I ended up with twenty-six that I would call my favorites.  Of those, my favorite is a simple one taken in Chichicastenango, Guatemala.  It shows a can of burning incense and flower petals on the steps of a church/mayan temple.

"Smokey Faith"
by Bruce H.
(Taken on the 13th of February, 2025)

I can't wait to see what photos I capture in the coming year.  I just have to keep my eyes open.