Weeknotes 23:40

November 28, 2023

Week of November 19–25

  • I continued working on the Toyota Policy Drivers Game Hub page. I decided to use Swiper version 4 for the “coverflow” effect on the carousel (see last week’s post). I finished adding all the elements to the page and started refactoring some of the layouts for smaller screens. I use a build desktop first and then refactor for mobile first in my CSS approach. I plan to finish up the small screen layouts and then pass the project along to one of our other developers to connect things to the Quorum API.
  • It was great to have all of our kids home for Thanksgiving. Our oldest lives in Nashville and our middle child is a sophomore at Murray State. They got home on Wednesday afternoon. Last year, our oldest was not able to join us for Thanksgiving because she had COVID.
  • Last Wednesday night, I found out through an alumni newsletter that one of my professors at KU had passed away in October. Professor Lou Michel taught architectural history. I sat in his class for three semesters. I started to write some reflections here but decided to expand them into a separate post.

God’s Provision

We saw God provide for us in a big way on Sunday night. We were purchasing a ticket for my son to fly to Barcelona in January for a semester of study abroad. About forty minutes after we purchased the ticket, our son called and told me that he got the date wrong and needed to be in Barcelona a day later than we had booked.

We went back to the Delta website and the tickets for the same location of the plane were double the price and there were not as many seats available. We were beginning to freak out a bit. We also explored some other options for flying out of other airports in the US but those options were pretty bleak.

Meanwhile, my wife called Delta and finally got through to an agent. The agent was a supervisor and a mom. My wife explained our situation to her and she said she would try to work her magic. About five minutes later, she came back and changed my son’s ticket to the following day in the same location on the plane with no extra fee. We know that only a supervisor had the access she had. We believe God’s hand was upon whom we got connected and He provided for us.

As I thought about it, I realized that if we had tried to purchase a ticket for the correct day to start with, we would have had limited options and not been able to get our son a seat that reclined (with a footrest) and would have had to purchase a “main” cabin seat for the same price as we paid for the one with more advantages, like the reclining seat and ability to check 2 bags. So God provided for us in the fact that we purchased a ticket on the wrong date but then were able to transfer it to the correct day with an option we could not have afforded otherwise.

Thanksgiving traditions

My daughters and I putting up our new Christmas tree. Our son was the official photographer as he enjoyed using his new camera to capture the evening.

One of the things we enjoyed having all of our kids home for Thanksgiving was to observe long-standing family traditions that we have celebrated since our kids were very young. Here are our family traditions.

  • For breakfast, we eat muffins that one of our daughters baked the day before. This year we had blueberry, chocolate with chocolate chips, and cinnamon strudel muffins.
  • We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade while my wife prepared the turkey and put it in the oven.
  • We watched the National Dog Show after the parade. Depending on how long it takes to cook the Thanksgiving feast, we will watch about half to the whole show before sitting down to an early afternoon Thanksgiving dinner
  • After dinner, we clean up and people usually disperse for a while.
  • We reconvene about an hour to an hour and a half later to eat pie. Several of us (including myself) eat pecan pie. This year we bought a pie from my youngest daughter’s workplace. And the other half of the family had a chocolate pie.
  • Not too long after the pie, we put up the Christmas tree. This year, we bought a new tree that was quicker to put up. Next come the lights, which we usually have to adjust a couple of times to get just right and cover the entire tree. And then the kids put up the ornaments that they have collected through the years. That is always a fun time of remembering when we got the ornaments or the memory behind them. We also did a bit of dancing at different points of the tree trimming.
  • Everyone catches dinner on their own. The kids may eat something else like cereal. I like to make a turkey sandwich (with Miracle Whip) and the stuffing that my mom made when I was growing up.
  • After dinner, we settled down and watched Miracle on 34th Street (1994). We don’t watch it every year and I think it has been several years since we last watched it. It was nice to carry on that tradition.
  • Before we dispersed for the night, I said a blessing over each of the kids. The blessing comes from Numbers 6:22–26. I do a little bit of a variation of the NIV translation. We started that as a nightly tradition back in November of 2009. We don’t do it as often with only one kid at home and she is gone many nights to ballet class or work. It was nice to do it again with all the family together.
Was this a prophetic ornament? My son is studying graphic design and loving his fine art classes at Murray State.
Poky Little Puppy was one of my favorite books as a child.

Articles I read

Books I am reading

  • You Are Not Your Own – I finished this one on Saturday. One of the most thought-provoking reads of the year for me. I appreciated that the author did not try to present a “solution” or “fix” but gave some good examples of how to let the material challenge your thinking about everyday relationships.
  • Tactics
  • Making Sense of God – I finished this one on Sunday. Another book that gave me a lot of food for thought.

What I watched

  • Project Runway Season 7 (Prime)
  • Chiefs-Eagles (ABC) – I watched parts of the game. I watched the end of it and was disappointed that the Chiefs could not score on their final drive.
  • Bluey (Disney+)
  • Gilmore Girls (Netflix)
  • The Great British Baking Show – Collection 11 (Netflix)
  • Miracle on 34th Street (1994) (Prime) – One of our family traditions for Thanksgiving.
  • Little Women (2019) (Prime) – The first movie we watched on our new 55-inch OLED TV that was a gift from another family member.
  • Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (NBC) – another Thanksgiving tradition
  • National Dog Show (NBC) – yet another tradition. I think we have watched every year since they started broadcasting it (when my oldest was a year old).
  • This Old House (Samsung TV Plus)

What I played

  • MLB The Show 23 (Rays) – It was the first time I had played in 3 weeks. I won both of the games that I played. The second game I played was on our new 55-inch OLED TV that was a gift from another family member.
  • FIFA23 (Manchester City)
  • Madden20 – I played an exhibition with the Chiefs and Raiders. I was unable to finish the game because my kids got home with dinner.

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