An eDiary of Some of the Key Things in Don's Life

As my memories are slipping away in my 70's, I've set up these eDiary pages for some of the key threads that had meant more to me than any others… these may well get "tweaked" as I recall others and/or replaced!

I started my eDiaries in the mid-80's, organizing them into these decade-based pages… each are sorted by year and months, showing from Jan to Dec; click on any of these sections to visit that decade?
    Main page (this page) | 2010's | 2000's | 80's-90's | 70's | 50's-60's

You should also consider visiting my profile page that shares more info about me vs. just these eDiary pages, or, see my list of the Global Places I've visited? For an "historical" view, start at the very end of my eDiaries & then scroll up to read then backwards in time? Also, the embedded textual event content reflects the time of the events vs. current time—view the pages full-screen?

I regularly updated these eDiaries until the creation of FaceBook's 2011 "eHistory" feature, whereupon I stopped… sadly, my account crashed out in 2019 ( while I was updating my profile ) and I had to redrill some of the "lost years" to get them back!

Have fun, regardless ;)

Some of My Current & Future Thoughts…

Your comments are welcome on any of these thoughts!

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2026: This Year…

January has brought us some pretty chilly weather, icing most of the country… we’re lucky to have not lose power! Our annual resort trip to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico had to be canceled due to a family issue—next year is on the schedule

Next month has Sandy’s 71st birthday is coming mid-February and we have a family wedding in late March! Our taxes are due in April with nothing too special; next year we’ll have to manage her Mom’s distribution… July will bring my birthday and we may visit our friends in Wisconsin; our planned Denali trip is in August—details will come!

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The year of 2020 is the 1st of this decade ( current year is above )

We spent a couple weeks away in January of 2020, first visiting Nuevo Vallarta ( just north of Pueblo Vallarta ) at the Villa Del Palmar Flamingo's Beach Resort & Spa, an all-inclusive week with a view of the ocean, & then a 2nd week with our friends in the “Gourmet group”…


In early February we decided to switch to a zero-gas car, a 2018 Leaf View details? ( an equivalent view )


As March began & that stinking COVID virus became a danger to all, & I decided that I needed to spend a little time updating my “15-minutes of fame” history page, “Just In Case” the virus decides that my time is up… The rest of the month was quite quiet with as much stay-at-home time as we could muster, fending off any arrival of the virus. We had our nearby grandkids 2-3 times a week as their schools had closed & our daughter's patient-load went from busy to pretty rare…

April, May & June didn't bring much news other than a little excitement with Sandy's 2nd hip-replacement & my moment when a scan of my kidneys ( by a new Doc ) highlighted an apparent swelling in my bladder… turned out ( checked/uncomfortably! ) to be “normal” with just my prostate being enlarged!

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July started out pretty quietly, with some web-site work for my 1985 Europe trip and my transition to into Medicare… we visited our Alabama grandkids for the weekend mid-month!

August was pretty quiet… we did spend a weekend in a cabin at the Guntersville State Park with family, a nice visit at the end of August!

September's excitement was that my desktop computer decided to get old & die… a replacement was easy to setup & the transition went well / am working on this as I do this update!

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October brought us a need to refresh our “capabilities” test at AARP which saved us 20% on our auto insurance ( yes, more than a few schekles!! ) and the fun of weekly watching our 5-year old grandson hit the ball, running like a rabbit to 1st base!!

We each voted early for the Nov 3rd national election, hoping like crazy at that time that a change in our US leadership will start to restore sanity… can happily say ( noted after the election ) that Vice-president Joe Biden beat the Trump campaign by 7 million votes!

I restored my World Community Grid account on my new PC around Thanksgiving in 2020, which allows anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet to donate their unused computing power to advance cutting-edge scientific research on topics related to health, poverty & sustainability. Through the contributions ( so far ) of over 650,000 individuals & 460 organizations, the World Community Grid has supported 31 research projects to date, including searches for more effective treatments for cancer, HIV/AIDS & neglected tropical diseases. Other projects are looking for low-cost water filtration systems & new materials for capturing solar energy efficiently

         

December of 2020 came & went quite quietly here… lots of at-home time managing the COVID avoidance. Hoping it'll be better in a couple months!

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The 2021 Year…

Not much to report for the 1st few months of 2021… we did each get the COVID-19 shots in Jan/Feb—neither were particularly nasty, & we've been staying well!!

We spent a week+ in May at a beachfront resort in the panhandle of Florida… View details? a great ocean view from our room!


We spent an enjoyable month in July visiting friends & family in WI—great to catch up! There are many Facebook posts that were shared


On my dynamic family tree, I spent several weeks through August & September doing some major updates to improve the site… still not quite perfect, but quite a bit better!
Some changes/updates included:


Bringing the year to an end, family birthdays were a blessing: October (Amelia), November (Landon) & December (Kelly) with a great Christmas celebration at our house!!
The snap shows (l-t-r)   [front] Landon & Max   [middle] Nora on Grampy Don's lap & Sandy with Amelia on her lap   [back] Quentin, Kelly, Kaci & Dave

My Family tree updates continued, with many new places & people; see the dynamic tree here? I also finalized some clarifications to the Help page for the tree structure to expand & improve the guidance! Again, should you observe ( if you're taking a look! ) things that seem wrong or wonky, please feel free to share? Cheers!!

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2022

I spent some time in early January for my 20-year remembrance of the death of my son, Alex… such a sad time considering the whys & whats for his decision to depart from us at such a young age

R.I.P. snap to my dearest Alex…


We flew down in late January to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico's Baja California peninsula to stay for 2 weeks… the first week was in Sunset Beach, followed by Blanco where we were joined by some of our family. Several snaps follow, click to enjoy!

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Sandy upon our arrival!
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Don too ;)
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at Dinner
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at Lunch
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Beach
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Flower
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From our window
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Steps up to room!



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A view from our room…
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and of the back


A snap of Landon & Amelia with Kelly in the pool snap ( click to view ); the 2 videos & with Sandy are partly why we came!!


Our very dear friend Srini Seshadri sadly passed away in February, 2022 after fighting cancer; we visited him in Florida the year before & there was a celebration in Milwaukee about a year after


The 25th anniversary of our wedding was in late March, & we went out to Alpharetta's Lapeer Steak & Seafood restaurant for a great evening, celebrating with wine & all those memorial thoughts!!


April let us be blessed to have our Alabama grandkids stay with us for a week; both Max & Nora had fun with their cousins Landon & Amelia!!

We also happily paid our taxes ( on time! ) with a small bill, spent a weekend down in Savannah in May & had our wills & trusts finally finalized! Flew up to WI for a week mid-May to celebrate a 90th birthday for Sandy's Mom, who's doing remarkably well!

After returning home, we had planned to have Max & Nora again for a couple weeks, but this sadly crashed out when Sandy's brother Danny died unexpectedly; we flew back up to WI again for a few days to attend his funeral


Sandy has been very busy all year, being the co-leader for the North Fulton Master Gardeners group where they're working to make life better for many! They're also on Facebook; view some of their recordings here… enjoy a couple!!


Our planned 3+week July visit to WI went very well! We drove up, stopping overnight in Effingham & then staying near Lake Pewaukee for a week with Kaci, Dave & grandkids, riding on the lake & visiting SummerFest

We had an afternoon on Saturday, July 2nd at Ali's house ( the lower ½ ) snap then up to Green Bay to stay with Tom & Amy to see the fireworks ( upper ½ )

We then all visited Kelly Lake to let the kids see their GGM & the family headed off home; we when on to spend some time visiting with
Karon & Dan ( 1st snap )snap & then out on the big lake ( 2nd ) with a GREAT pilot!! We caught a snap of Erica's kids ( 3rd ) & visited with an old friend ( 4th )


The last few months of the year were generally fairly quiet, with some family activities ( grandkids/Blue Ridge Scenic Railway, Halloween, all 4 kids at the house for a week (!), etc )

We voted (early) which was a zoo as the line took a couple hours!

Spent a week in Florida ( Nov 5th )
Landon's birthday ( Nov 25th ), blowing out the candles!   snap
And my ongoing tree updates, specifically adjusting burial data for many people; here's my GrandDad's page, who passed on in August of 1971 & is buried in the cemetery at St. Nicholas Parish Church in Winterbourne Clenston… view the 2 snaps at his burial for visuals?

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2023

In early January we flew down to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico's Baja California peninsula to stay at our timeshare for 3 weeks… Sunset Beach; couple snaps—click to enjoy!

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The resort
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View from our room
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Sandy at dinner!
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View from our door
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Another view


We traveled up to Wisconsin in February for a memorial after 1 year of his death on Saturday, Feb 11th of Srini Seshadri, our very close friend who passed away in 2022… we sadly couldn't attend his funeral due to COVID

We also were blessed to stay ( for a short weekend ) with our Gourmet group friends at Chuck & Linda's—we had dinner with the group; we got to visit our family up nort' / sure snowed like crazy as we landed in Milwaukee!! Fortunately the sun shone brilliantly after that but the temps were quite brisk with the howling wind at 10℉… guess who forgot his coat as we went north!!

We then spent several days in February replacing our downstairs flooring—this really improved the general appearance!! snap


Sandy's Mom has been living since April ( as of this writing ) under care in a hospice near her home, with her every-day difficulties as she ages…

Sandy also spent a lot of time & work organizing the North Fulton Master Gardeners' annual flower sale, which made a great profit!!

We enjoyed our grandkids thru the summer, who got to visit with us a few times! Max & Nora had a 2-week acting class near our house in June which they thoroughly enjoyed!

Our Gourmet group traveled south to us from several places to spend a weekend in April at the Brasstown Resort just 2 hours north of our home… Sandy orchestrated this, too, & we enjoyed dinner there!!

After enjoying our summer, we spent 2 weeks in late September for a social gathering at a close friend's historic castle in Scotland… we also visited with my brother Alan & his family for a few days! The trip is captured here… enjoy the visit!

We had a quiet Christmas day with our family either at home or traveling & an enjoyable week ending the year!


2024

January was generally a quiet month, with some of our normal annual tasks like thinking about/planning the year's calendar, making sure our household smoke & CO2 detectors were up-to-date & active with new batteries (!), etc…


We also learned from an eye-surgeon visit in late-January that a not-so-good residual affect of one of the treatments for my '98 brain tumor ( specifically the “60 Grays in 60 Days” of radiation therapy ) had shown up. Our visit was to assess & possibly deploy a surgical solution for my “wandering eye” snap that had started showing up before our UK trip last September…

The eye-surgeon's assessment was that there was no surgery that he could perform, as the cause was most likely from a damaged nerve to my left eye. The arrival of this ( which is also causing some annoyingly tricky balance issues ) was **not** great news as it added to my existing list of difficulties like being unable to read a book due to the loss of my short-term memory & being unable to recall what I did yesterday etc…

<eSigh> but on the good side? Am not yet dead!!


Our February vacation with some of our family started on Saturday, February 3rd where we flew south to Cabo San Lucas ( in Mexico's Baja California peninsula ), staying for a week at the Rose resort & then on to the Sunset Beach resort for our 2nd week—the family left after the 1st week after having fun++

Sandy's birthday arrived while we were in Mexico; here are a couple of our many snaps:

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View from our Sunset Beach room
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Snap of Sandy at dinner (in Rose)
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Sandy's birthday dinner at Sunset Beach


Also a short video of Sandy's birthday dinner ( may download vs. playing / click the download? )


After our Mexico trip, Sandy had a really busy couple of months organizing & finally running the NFMG annual flower sale day on Saturday, April 20th which has been running since 2001, generating income for the group—they made $20k this year, quite an improvement!!

Sandy was also interviewed by our local TV station ( published on April 23rd ) along with some of the hundreds of guests


Not much more to share for May or June, other than Sandy's ongoing support for family ( her Mom & her daughter Kaci's move ) & that the weather's been pretty nice!!

I am continually working on the annoying wandering eyeball ( see January, above? ); my doc started me up on a new med, Pyridostigmine to try & control it…
will keep you posted as ( well, **if**! ) it gets better!!


Sadly on August 17th, Sandy's brother Randy unexpectedly died from a sudden heart attack at age 64 after being unwell for several months; an obituary was held a few days later


On Sunday, October 27th we ( Sandy, her sister Amy+Tommy and our neighbor, Patti+Richard ) drove up to the town of Highlands in the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains to spend a long weekend in a lovely resort, visiting many of the nearby waterfalls, lighting & warming our toes at their fireplaces with wine, cheese & beer & enjoying the local food!


Sandy took a week+ trip up to Wisconsin late November to visit her Mom & friends… was also able to visit with Steve Kerr who sadly passed away in November 30th after fighting cancer for 2-3 months; we also visited his Remembrance on the 1st weekend in January, 2025

We traveled out to Kaci & her kids for Christmas, a lovely time!


Have also spent a fair amount of time throughout this year, updating/refreshing many of my Websites, including this one!
    > My dynamic tree page, which today holds more than 18,000 people—see the development/stats info page here ( or the older one )?
    > I added some new threads to the Help page for my dynamic tree
    > I refreshed my Bio page
    > I added the “We Were Once Worms” idea & several others to my story
Such updates will continue for my Website Matrix page, my 50's-60's / 2000's eDiary pages, my Definitions page & others… Enjoy!

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2025: Last Year…

Sandy & I visited Cabo San Lucas ( Mexico's Baja California peninsula ) for 3 weeks in January at the Sunset Beach resort Room view from our room… more may come!


February brought a busy month with Sandy's hand surgery ( from which she is quickly recovering as of this writing! )

We got my new iWatch ( which is pretty cool! ) that started flagging Atrial fibrillation for me in the 1st week… am now setting up with a Cardiology doc after a quick check at my primary doc!

I also visited a new ENT doc for my ear ringing/deafness who advised that the issue is from my '98 brain surgery and that not much can be done other than a hearing aid; also advised that dropping a little mineral oil into each ear weekly could help. My visits to Reid ( the Physical Therapy & Spine clinic ) for balance improvements from my wandering eye aren't doing very much…

We were also blessed to have daffodils pop up Yard in our garden… Spring has Sprung!!


As Saturday, April 19th rolled past this year, I found myself thinking about my now 50-years-ago marriage to Jane… some interesting history!!

A few weeks later in May Jeanette Smith ( Sandy's Mom ) passed away around 8:30pm on Friday, May 9th after fighting cancer—just a few days before her 93rd birthday; she had stayed in a hospice, “The Cottages at Meadowlands” in Oconto Falls, WI for 2 years. Her funeral was held on Saturday, May 17th in her church, the St. Michael's Catholic Church in Suring ( I flew up with Kelly for the weekend ) and Jeanette was then buried along with some of her family, her husband Leslie Sr, daughter Kathryn, and 2 of her sons, Dan & Randy at the Pine Hill Cemetery in the nearby Town of Spruce.

Sandy was finally able to return home after a month+ living there & working to help a few days later


Sandy & I celebrated our joint 70th birthdays on a Saturday in June at a really nice park park in Sussex, Wisconsin!
We drove up from home to our resort on Lake Okauchee, WI over the previous weekend with Max & Nora ( 2 of our 4 grandkids ), arriving on Monday, June 23rd;
Kelly & Quentin Gayles, Landon & Amelia ( our other 2 ) flew up too—my son Stuart was trying to fly up on Friday June 27th but had bad weather & sadly couldn’t fly…
We did several things there during the week before our birthday party: a Brewers ball-game with friends & a pre-game party: Party
Out on Jackie's boat ( I was not out with them! ) Q&K Boating Landon+Max floating around Lake Okauchee

We visited Summerfest for a day, with a few snaps… riding the skyline Summerfest Summerfest 2
girls getting Henna tattoos Summerfest 3 Summerfest 4 Summerfest 5 Summerfest 6 Summerfest 7
and riding home from Summerfest Summerfest 8 with Max & Landon out like a light!! Summerfest 9
One of many eating out moments: Sandy snapped the family in Oconomowoc as they got ice-cream! IceCream
The kids were caught in a race, with my grandson Landon winning by a mile!!
etc, etc ………………


As Saturday, June 28th arrived, we drove to the park & did quite a lot of prep in the morning, setting up the coolers for beer, wine, waters & soda's, a dozen tables & chairs for the 80-ish people ( both friends & family, with 20+ youngsters ) Birthday-4 who had accepted the invite.
Sandy & I then spoke briefly as lunch was starting, sharing our many thanks to all who came; Lunch
We continued after lunch to meet & be social around the room, table by table… Andy Rubin & Razia Birthday-2
Frank and Suzi Childress & Bob Senzig Birthday-6
Rick & Susan Ellner-Krumrei Birthday-17
Gail Vande Castle, Gary & Nancy Jeffers, Phyllis Kirschner, Regina & Rigo Estrada Birthday-7
Kristin Pagel, her son Clayton & her daughter Isabelle, Amy & Tommy VanDenLangenburg and their daughter, Ali Birthday-10
Laura Rowel, Kelly Gayles, Ali Leubbers Birthday-12
Will, Ben, Laura & Andy Rowell with Quentin Gayles Birthday-11
Marg & 5 grandkids ( some are Amy's ) with Lauren & Mike & Pagel and Cayrl Pagel Birthday-13
Dave Worzalla & Maureen Coffee and Henry, Alli & Noah Pagel ( Jared Pagel's family; he is off to the right ) Birthday-15
The Treptow family: Rob ( son of Darlene ), Bob Stutleen ( wife of Darlene ), Wayne Anderson & Cherie ( daughter of Darlene ) and Darlene Birthday-22
We then assembled outside as the family of Sandy: 17 grandkids & 11 couples Birthday-5
Many more snaps…Amy, Ali, Kelly & Sandy Birthday-1
David & Anna. Mike, & Lauren, Ali & Matt Birthday-3
Kelly & Quentin Birthday-9
Marg, Amy & Sandy Birthday-14
Sandy & Darlene Birthday-18
Gail, Phyllis, Jackie, Sandy & Susan Birthday-19
Tony deShazer ( who was with his wife, Marie-Laure ), Kris & Chris Bauer, Paul Hartke ( who was with his wife, Kathy ) & Dave Mliner Birthday-21

We then shut everything down after a delightful gathering around 3pm & headed out… such a great celebration!!


Checking out of the resort early-ish on Monday, June 30th, we drove 12+ hours to Max & Nora's home in Hartselle, Alabama—quite a long day, but far better than staying overnight! We got home around lunchtime on Tuesday, unpacked & relaxed!

July & August were spent mostly at home, with some website work by me & some less-than perfect family-related work out at Hartselle—otherwise, quite quiet!

We then took a 10+day trip in September to Portugal, Europe for a Viking River Trip; details and many snaps are caught here!


October had Sandy’s brief WI trip for Marg’s birthday along with some annoying family distractions for her, and my creation of the concepts of Time… a nice page!

We sadly learned on Monday, November 4th from Dan, Brian’s partner that Brian had unexpectedly passed away at the age of 60 in his sleep on Saturday night; view his obituary from Fairland, Oklahoma ( which is where he had died ) here or his WI obituary for his family and friends… A Celebration of His Life was then held at the Blue Spruce in downtown Spruce, WI in late November


Other activities for me ( in November/December ) were some updates to my Facebook tree page and a report of my familial relationship to the biblical entity of Yahweh… I then went on to create a particularly interesting and extensive 267-page joint family tree report, using RootsMagic’s built-in Ahnentafel feature by adding ( temporarily for the report ) an imagined child to Sandy and me… This allowed for the creation of a display of my ancestral data with many thousands of people in hundreds of places across the world!

The people that are listed ( only 62 generations are shown of the 90+ that are in my tree, a limitation of RootsMagic ) reach back into history with our joint ancestor Fjolnir Yngvi-FreyrsSon on page 166 ( scroll down? ), who was born around 256AD in Uppsala, Uppsala Län, Sweden, Europe as my 58th GGF ( Sandy’s 61st ) but with limited overall information… He is also shown as the 13th person in the Yahweh report—this tree branch does continue back for a dozen generations to Yahweh. Another joint ancestral person on that page is Jokull FrostasSon my 58th GGF ( Sandy’s 61st ), who was born around 240AD in Finland, Europe

A table ( using 3 columns, ordered by surname ) in the report shares each name, starting on page 167 ( with 4+ “(mother of …)” pages! ), followed ( ~50 pages later, page 216 ) by an alphabetical index of all the places that are used; clicking any of the page numbers shown in either of these tables will take you to the entry


In early December, our 2 grandkids ( Landon & Amelia ) had their Christmas snaps taken and we all went to a nearby restaurant for dinner; my order arrived and as I started to eat the food, I discovered a sliver of glass with the tip of my tongue… Ouch! Ouch! ( click and zoom in to view… ) Not a disaster, but it sure was sore ;(

Another activity for me that month was to create a “future predictions” website, sharing the status of a dozen events that may occur in the next 1, 3 and 10 years… Also view a PDF of the matrix

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The End of My 2020's Page…

Well, that's about it for this decade's section of my eDiary; see the past decades here? You could also go to my Bio summary page, the profile page that I created a few years ago, my family tree profile or visit me on FaceBook where you can scroll down to view my events year-by-year.

As I expect that parts of my eDiary will improve and/or change as I tag more year-by-year info or clarify some of the threads… watch this space!
Please also visit my privacy page to be aware of some legal stuff?

As a final thought, view some snaps of me & my family in my older album? Enjoy!! ;)

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