Friday, April 3, 2026

#AtoZChallenge - Chuck

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for 2026!
My theme this year is simply things that I’m grateful for.
It’s a broad and varied theme but was surprisingly easy to fill in each letter!

This is sort of a weird thing to be grateful for - but for entertainment value.... I'm grateful for Chuck

That link above tells the story on how Chuck became part of the family - but he's basically a 3D Flat Stanley, except he's a skeleton with googly eyes & wears a tuxedo onesie! 
He's even got his own Instagram account (@chuck.d.bones)!

Halloween Camp
Trunk or Treat at the granddaughter's daycare (with friends!)
He's been kayaking.

Sometimes Chuck has to send a smaller version of himself - here's MiniChuck attempting to fly to Arkansas last January.

He got his own invitation to my niece's wedding, too!!

He's pretty fun.  He's been to Texas, Arkansas and Ohio many times, he flew to Nashville and got his picture taken by the pilot and was given a set of Delta wings, he always travels with us!



Thursday, April 2, 2026

Happy April (part 2)

I meant to change yesterday's post title, but forgot - so Happy April for real today! 

It was crazy that Tuesday (aka March 31) was close to record high temps (73*ish) and yesterday we had a high of maybe 35*.  Today is raining & is ~supposed~ to get to 63* but it's not looking likely to even break 40!  That's Michigan for ya! 

Last weekend, I took a road trip with the sisters & Mom to Ohio to see Bro2. 
Look what leaped into the car!
I'm a sucker for cute blowmolds and Cracker Barrel usually delivers! 
When I got home, I hurried and stuck it out on the front stoop with the rest.  I saw the grandson do a double-take at it, but he didn't say anything....I don't think anyone else has even noticed it!

And to prove that I'm not the only weirdo who likes to explore old cemeteries, Sis1 (who was driving this time) happily changed our route so we could visit 2!  
This creepy old church (cornerstone said 1892) is what drew me to the first one.  Technically this is a graveyard - cemeteries don't have a church on the grounds.  There were actually some recent-ish burials, 2004, in there. But most of them were 100+ years old. 

Oh, and if you look close - there are 2 vultures up on the bell tower! 
Note to self - don't try A.I. to remove a vehicle from a photo!
This is the stuff of nightmares! 
The second cemetery we planned was only 3 1/2 miles away, but for some reason it was saying 33 minutes!   The last mile or so was a dirt road and GPS wanted us to park and walk instead of drive on the dirt road!  Aw hell no.  At the time, we were using my phone, so the setting to avoid dirt roads is most definitely OFF.   That dirt road was actually in better shape than the ones around Sis1's house! 

Anyway, just in case, I texted the Spawn to make sure she could see my location (since nobody back home knew where we were going other than "to some cemeteries") & she said if we kept going straight, we'd reach civilization.  
This was a super cool stone - I haven't seen any like this since the Spouse & I went to Boston. 
And I have no idea what that building is in the background!   It didn't look that close on Google Maps. 

I'll have posts up on my Halloweenie blog for both of these cemeteries and others in May for Cemetery Appreciation Month.  

Anyhoo.  The grandkids are on spring break this week.  I feel sorry for the Spouse trying to work from home while they're there.  But the Spawn has been trying to keep them under control. 
We did have to separate the kids for a while Sunday - they can get pretty rambunctious. I took this one and went on a walk which led us by a small play structure at a church on our street.  I have approximately 15 pictures of her posing as she came off the slide - each one more dramatic than the last!   

Easter is Sunday.  I'm sure we'll have a good time like we usually do.  My search & rescue team also will be at an Easter event Saturday where there will be a bunch of emergency vehicles on site to see and climb in (as long as there are no call outs! 😄 That's happened before!) and of course the Easter bunny!  I'll be going to that and then over to Sis1's house for family festivities.  Hope it's not raining!

Speaking of search & rescue - in the grand scheme of things, we fall under the sheriff's department. So tonight we get to go on a tour of the county central dispatch office and meet the peeps who page us out on calls.  In a couple weeks, we get to visit another county's SAR team - since it's the "richest" county in Michigan, they have all the cool toys.  That'll be neat.  

Anyhoo.  Signing off for now! 

ChatGPT did a much better job or removing the car from in front of the creepy church! 

#AtoZChallenge - Blogging

Welcome to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge for 2026!
My theme this year is simply things that I’m grateful for.
It’s a broad and varied theme but was surprisingly easy to fill in each letter!

This one will be short & sweet!

Blogging.  

I started blogging sometime prior to 2009 on Yahoo 360 but I clearly didn't bother importing that nonsense over when they shut down and I switched to Blogger. 

At one point I had 3 blogs - starting with basically this one, but with a different name.  It began as "Random Ramblings" until I realized just how many similarly named blogs there were out there. So in October 2011, I changed it to "The Life of Lisa".   In July 2013, it changed again to what you see now. 

Blog #2 was "Adventures in Weight Loss" that was an attempt to keep myself accountable in my Weight Watchers Journey.  In July 2013 I changed that to "Slow & Steady" then late September 2016, I merged it into this blog and here we are!

Blog #3 is my Halloween-themed blog called Maple Grove Cemetery  I started it in August 2011.
It's pretty self-explanatory.  I post pictures from my extensive Halloween display, cemeteries that I explore, shopping, adventures with my skeleton named Chuck, etc, etc,  

Anyway - it seems like someone always talks over me, this is a way for me to say whatever I want, whenever I want and nobody can interrupt me!