A few slices ago I was writing about how much I wait for my kids. I remember writing when I was sitting in my cold car for my daughter in her music lessons. I write as I sat waiting for my son in drum lessons. I did, and still do, a ton of waiting for them.

I mentioned I had always wanted to play an instrument when I was a kid. It didn’t occur to me to take some dang lessons at the same time as my kids until a fellow slicer gave me a little nudge.

For the past few months I have been talking guitar lessons on Saturday mornings. I am pretty awful but I am doing it!

My only regret is the color of my guitar. I didn’t know they came in many different colors until I saw another student putting hers away, it was a sweet pink.

My goal is to play something and sing at the same time. I tried and my brain can only do one of the two.

It is never too late to start something, anything, new.

I have a new passion, small batch ice cream.

I came across this Facebook post talking about a local family who was looking to open a new ice cream shop nearby. While they were not open yet they started selling out of their home.

We bought a few pints and now I am hooked.

This week was something totally new and I should hate it.

This week the base is made from buttered popcorn. I hate popcorn. Absolutely hate popcorn.

The oddest thing is that I really like it.

There are songs that transport me back in time, Freebird is one of them.

It must have been 1991 when Fagly and I sat on a stoop on one of those little narrow streets in Kin.

The sun was just right, beaming down on us in the chilly air. Normall it wasn’t cold on the rock but I remember it as cold that day.

We drank some cold vending machine beer, you could buy most anything from one of those back in the day.

Somewhere down the road Freebird was pumping out of a bar.

If half the stories he told were true, he had the saddest youth of anyone I have ever met.

I sometimes think that is what drove him to an early grave.

Where ever you are Fag I hope you found peace.

(November – Novel Month Tiny Story)

We momentarily froze as we entered the chall hall, power outage? This pause was only a microsecond long, we just resumed our conversation.

Walking through the line we received our chow, potatoes and turkey. This was nothing special, heck even our MREs had turkey. I always assumed it was a cheap meat they could serve the masses.

Sitting at the table we stopped midchew, what was up with all the candles and decorations? While the dim lights made the whole place look nicer, the state of everything was odd.

I can’t say how long it took but it dawned on us, it was Thanksgiving.

It still shocks me today, how the heck did a massive holiday come upon us so fast without any knowledge of it?

I tried to describe this to some kids the other day, a day in the life of someone serving gives up much. Missed holidays and many of us suffer from for a lifetime from injuries and damage to our bodies.

Most would do it all over again.

(this was poorly written in one shot – better to have a crappy story out then a fantastic on stuck inside your head.)

maybe 16 inches wide

this narrow slit between two stores

hot as a furnace when these century old bricks heat up

if it wasn’t for the fence I would have squeezed through

emerging in what I believe is another world (or so I thought when I was younger)

these passages still catch my eye and images wander through my mind

I was walking the neighborhood tonight on my way to vote, I just made it with a few minutes to spare.

Across the street from the school is a house that stands out, I would guess this place has been here much longer than many of the surrounding places.

The garage was built with cinder blocks, unlike anywhere else.

I see two side.

The place is aesthetically unpleasant.

The other side is someone built this with their two hands. Built it to protect investment of tools or a car. It is functional. It it sturdy. It serves a purpose.

It stuck me today.

I wonder how often I look at things or people.

Sometimes it isn’t easy seeing deep.

I was listening to episode 170 of a podcast on a short walk around the neighborhood tonight.

There is something that really stuck out to me. It was talking about ownership.

If something goes wrong, even if it isn’t your direct doing, do you take ownership?

I think maybe it was the Corps but I tend to say WE a lot if it is positive, if there is a negative I say I did this or that.

There are times when I miss that.

While we had our fair share of people who thought, rightly or otherwise, that they should get some type of accolades or leadership. There is a lot more of that in the civilian world, people hustling.

I sliced last week about doing our part to save the earth. Getting your protein from a cow is very costly on our natural resources. 2000+ gallons of water but getting the same protein from crickets only takes 1 gallon, that is an impressive savings.

I bought some of the flour on Amazon. What can’t you buy?

Today Sammi and I waited for Jenn and Aidan to leave. We wanted to bake some chocolate chip bars without them knowing we enhanced the batter with just 1/2 cup of cricket flour.

We really wondered if they would even know if we didn’t tell them.

I had to share our small kitchen with Sammi as she was making some kind of scones, without any bugs.

There are times when she isn’t as organized and a tad messy. I have no idea what is going on with the butter wrapper.

If I didn’t tell you this was made from crickets, wouldn’t you think it was cocoa powder?

I do have to say it had an odd smell. Kinda earthy and kinda crickety. It didn’t deter us as we kept going. After all, how much would a 1/2 cup really impact the overall taste?

A shot before we put it into the over. It looks very similar to every other time we have made these bars. I did use all brown sugar so the batter is usually a tad darker. I do not think it smelled any different.

I also learned that crickets are considered a crustacean, I had no idea.

So we had Aidan and Jenn try it. Both said it was good. Jenn did mention there seemed to be something missing. I did mention that maybe it was not enough crickets, she was a good sport and had another bite!

I would say we would do it again but maybe next time we will make bread.

I am pretty sure this place used to have two sizes of salads, large and small. Maybe it was actually large and mini.

Same old salad but they changed the names.

Is it because eating a large salad is too much but a regular is just right?

I would love to see the data on this, after the name change I imagine they are selling more large, I am regular, salads.

What can I call dishes to make the kids rush to get them done? Or cleaning their rooms?

Sometimes you just gotta entertain yourself.

There are times when you need to stay in the office way too late.

It is Friday at nearly five. Maybe I have overstayed.

Aidan is flat out of things to do. He tried to see if he could crawl under this chair. Seems reasonable.

I have said being bored is actually when your brain starts to grow. I’m pretty sure both my kids think this advice is some type of made up teacher knowledge.

I wonder what new ideas I could come up with this weekend if I let myself become bored. No books or digital things, would I have a breakthrough or start crawling under chairs?