As I sit on the couch looking out into the early morning darkness, I’m watching snow falling steadily, and everything is going white. That makes me happy. The more snow that falls, generally, the happier I am. I know. People think I’m weird, for this as well as for other reasons. I suppose snow reminds me of my childhood. There were several winters back then where we had so much snowfall that when they were plowed, streets in the small town where I grew up looked like the parting of the Red Sea in Genesis.

We all encounter bosses who have obviously failed up, and they are relatively easy to spot. I've encountered many examples of this in my own career. The following list might be helpful to share, just in case you aren't sure of your own diagnosis. You might have a jackass for a boss when they: Routinely lowball the starting salary for hiring new people out of a misguided sense that that means they are being effective and smart.

One of the things I’m heartily sick of is trying to find people to fill positions at my library who are willing to work for low pay in imperfect conditions for the “privilege” of working at a faith-based institution. As I’ve told others, what this really means is that for every position we try to fill, we are looking for unicorns.

We made an unprecedented second trip in a month to the Art Institute of Chicago. It seemed a good idea given that it was a somewhat dreary, rainy fall day. This time, although we had hoped to view the Arts of the Americas area, it turned out to be closed, so we focused primarily on the Modern Wing and saw lots of different (and frequently somewhat odd, if I'm honest) modern artworks.

The work situation keeps getting worse for various reasons. So then, I often feel a bit of despair. As mentioned before, in spite of or perhaps more accurately, because of the fact that I work in a faith-based institution, my time there has robbed me of any sense of well-being, confidence, satisfaction, or purpose. It is such a warped place.

When I was a child, we often played a favorite board game called Masterpiece. I loved looking at the cards with various paintings by famous artists that are integral to the game. I didn't realize until I was much older that all of these paintings are in the Art Institute of Chicago, my favorite of all of that city's cultural treasures.

There is a stretch of road on my drive home from work that goes through a suburban downtown. The streets are lined with historic homes. Because this area has not just one but two railroad crossings, there is always a long line of congested traffic, and sometimes I while away the time by taking a look around at those houses. I mean, what else is there to do?

It is very rare these days that we are able to do something together as a family, because everyone has their own lives, work schedules, etc. So it was quite special for us to manage to get together to go to a favorite museum and then afterward, to have a nice meal together at a Mexican restaurant. We enjoyed seeing some of the sights at the venerable Field Museum, and hope to go back again soon to see more.

The past several days have been a mix of light and dark, good things and bad things. Such is life, right? We go through ups and downs, phases when things seem like they’re okay, and then times when things seem difficult. For example, I’m thinking of a close friend who continues to struggle with intense grief over the premature death of their partner.

Adventures come in all kinds of guises. Last night, we enjoyed an adventure in cuisine. We ate at a restaurant specializing in northern Chinese cuisine that was among those featured in a recent New York Times article that talked about the astonishing variety and authenticity of Asian restaurants in a nearby city. It was certainly worth the hype and was probably among the very best Chinese meals I've ever had.

Decent sleep was hard to find overnight. As I sat looking out over a darkened pasture, waiting for the sun to rise and sipping my first cup of coffee, I spotted the shadow of a fox (or was it a wraith?) floating across the field toward the protection of the nearby trees. At dusk yesterday, as we drove along a country road with our windows rolled down, it looked as if banks of fog were floating over the fields, but it was only the dust and debris formed by multiple combines harvesting soybeans.

This author has always been a favorite of mine, and it was nice to have a chance to visit the home he grew up in and which was the setting for his most famous book, Rascal. In the process of visiting, we learned that the town he grew up in was/is the center of tobacco growing in Wisconsin. I didn't even know tobacco was grown there.

One of the best and most enduring aspects of my childhood was extensive book reading. I was a voracious reader; I still am. Books featured very prominently in my life and filled a key part in my education. We were not allowed to have TV or radio, and I’m grateful for that. I’m also grateful that this was well before computer games and gaming systems were a thing.

As expected, we continue to grieve Teddy’s death. The day he died, we packed up his crate and his things and put them away because I couldn’t bear to see them as a visible reminder that he’s gone. Sometimes there’s an almost painful feeling in my heart when I think about him, even as life goes on. For example, one of his favorite things to do was to lie by my feet to sleep.

Our eldest dog died yesterday. In a series of events that happened fast and unexpectedly, we had him put to sleep after more than fifteen years of life. That made him the oldest dog I’ve ever had, one that I’ve had longer than any other. The reality of all of this hit hard and left us all in grief. It was the right and best decision for him given his quality of life.

It was a pretty good weekend. That’s a big positive, since most of the time, weekends seem wasted in one way or another, or are replete with their own troubles and drama. This one was different, and I am thankful for that. One way this weekend was different is that my wife and I were able to spend a lot of time together doing fun things such as window shopping.

At the risk of coming across as uncaring, I’m finding the need, more and more, to find distraction from the awfulness. I doubt I need to explain what the awfulness is as I’ve made it quite clear many times before what I think about the current regime in power. And the awfulness extends to other aspects of my life including work.

Galatians 6:9 (NLT) says: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. This verse comes to my mind frequently these days. I’m a fairly normal person in that in reality, I do a lot of bad things. I make a lot of mistakes and get things wrong all the time.

After many years, my wife and I returned to this zoo sans kids, which we had visited many times when our children were younger. I thought it'd be a bit sad for me, given that our kids are now grown up, but in reality, as I observed other parents with young kids everywhere, I kept thinking back to how stressful it was back then.

Some decades ago on a trip to Maine, I visited a store that featured locally made jams and jellies. They all looked good, but I don’t remember buying anything at the time. Since then, that local company went national, and the other day, I bought a jar of their wild blueberry jam, made from wild blueberries from Maine. I wasn’t really a big blueberry flavor fan for most of my life, but this stuff is so good.

It is a dark and stormy morning. Thunder booms and lightning flashes, and there is the torrential downpour of rain. Layered into all that are incessant barks and whines from multiple dogs. The geriatric one just barks about anything. Another dog is simply anxious and scared by the storm. This has been going on since three a.m. Not a good start to a Saturday.

My grandma used to talk about “a misty, moisty morning.” That is what we have today where I live. It reminds me of her and how much she meant to me and how much she influenced my life. My time with her was too short. We face yet another example of the end result of violent rhetoric and violent politics here in the U.S.

Yeah, that featured photo is of my cat, showing her tendency to sleep in my arms with her mouth open. She is weird, but I love her. My thoughts recently are on choosing an attitude of peace rather than worry. It’s very hard for me to do. There is so much to be agitated about or that causes anxiety and stress.

Sweet corn and garden-grown tomatoes, a favorite food choice of the rapidly fading summer, were the stars of our supper yesterday. My wife and I had picked up some of both at a nearby farm stand. It’s likely the last time we’ll savor these delicious treats this year. The weather where we live has been just about perfect, with cool nights and high temperatures in the sixties most days.

Here are some random photos of late summer flowers and other things I took during a short vacation visiting family. I didn’t have a specific purpose in mind other than continuing to use my camera to gain more familiarity with its features. I tend to rely on my iPhone for photography instead of my much more capable bridge camera, which results in long stretches without using it and the need to re-learn its settings.