Tag: family

Easter Week Musings

~ Jim Flanigan

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend regardless of whether you may have been celebrating Easter, Passover, Ramadan, or just a Spring weekend. Here are some thoughts as I look back on my Easter week.

Our 13 year old daughter assisted at our church’s Palm Sunday service as an acolyte to kick-off Easter Week. She left the house in very ripped (shredded?) jeans, bare midriff top, and her brother’s old McDonald’s work shirt, currently seemingly one of her favorite shirts. Are we bad parents for not monitoring her attire? We didn’t think so. Normally, acolytes wear a robe. Well, not on Palm Sunday. She was a walking advertisement for a Big Mac up on the altar. Would you like fries with your faith? Maybe it was just a coincidence, but after Palm Sunday, our church sent an email with very clear dress code instructions for Good Friday services that our daughter was also assisting in.

And speaking of ripped jeans, my daughter wears them because she can. I wear ripped jeans because my jeans ripped a little bit.

I saw this video on Twitter over the Easter weekend.

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Broadway Bound!

~ Jim Flanigan

My wife and I were proud parents last weekend as we got to see our middle daughter dance on Broadway. That’s right, after graduating from the university with one of her degrees in Performance Dance, she made it to Broadway less than a year later. Unfortunately, that would be Broadway Ave. in Chicago at the intimate Edge Theater. Regardless, we were thrilled with seeing her do what she loves to do. Here she is with the rest of the dance ensemble at the end of the show.

What a coincidence that our daughter was standing directly under a big white arrow when they took the pic. And yes, we are a transracial family with our three youngest children being adopted. I don’t want any readers confused … or more confused than usual after reading one of my blog posts.

It always makes a parent feel good to see their child doing something they love. We love watching our middle daughter dance, especially when no poles are involved. Unfortunately, the dance ensemble our daughter is in is more focused on art rather than profit, so our daughter has to work 3 other jobs to make money. I did point out to her that there is a professional dance team located very close to us which probably pays well as they dance to entertain the great citizens of the USA. Take a look.

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Questioning Education & Conversation

~ Jim Flanigan

Over the weekend, I drove almost 300 miles on Saturday to help my middle daughter move into college for her 5th year, also known as her super senior year. I have so many questions, but will limit it to these 3:

  1. Will my middle daughter ever really use her second major and second minor she plans to earn in this 5th super senior year?
  2. At my advanced age, why do I have a youngest daughter that is still 6 years away from even starting college?
  3. From a parent’s perspective, there is nothing super about a second senior year. Okay, so that is more of a declarative statement than a question.

The second question is the one that really bothers me. It points to a total lack of planning and judgment on my part. I fear I can never trust myself again, not that I ever could before.

Anyway, after I returned home, I planned to regale my wife with stories of how I got over 38 miles per gallon on the way there, but 6 mpg less on the way home. Imagine the possibilities as to why that happened! Wind direction, speed maintained, route taken, etc. Then I realized just how sad that sounded, so I spared my wife that conversation and decided to blog about it instead. It seems even sadder in writing.

Family Hysterical History – The Parents

~ Jim Flanigan

Yesterday, I introduced you to stories from the childhood of my grandmother and her siblings, my great aunts and uncles. For today, I threatened promised stories of the parents, my great grandmother and great grandfather. I am making good on that threat promise, so here we go. First up is a story of how my family history is similar to the Trump family in one special way.

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Family Hysterical History – The Kids

~ Jim Flanigan ~ 1 Comment

My oldest daughter has been working on the family genealogy, so she was thrilled when I stumbled across my paternal grandmother’s family history from the late 1800’s to 1975. I had no idea what a treasure trove of odd, humorous tidbits it would contain. Here we go with some memories from the 10 kids, who would be siblings of my grandmother who was already deceased at the time this history was written.

I just offered you a cartoon about mite cannibalism yesterday. How about we start today’s post with a story about chicken cannibalism?

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Retraction: I Did NOT Ruin Easter

~ Jim Flanigan

I recently posted about ruining Easter thanks to my bout with the flu. Turns out that Easter was not ruined, at least for me.

I was still pretty sick on Easter morning, still coughing up “things” that I swear struggled not to be washed down my sink’s drain. So I had no big plans to run a Bunny Hop 5K or anything like that. My wife told me church was not in my plans. I considered arguing with her for a nanosecond, and settled in for my big morning plans …

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Water You Gonna’ Do?

~ Jim Flanigan

Water bottle text.jpg

How I Spent My Summer Vacation & Other Musings Upon My Wife’s Return

~ Jim Flanigan

My wife and youngest daughter just spent a week in Denver visiting family and hiking in the mountains as a summer vacation. I spent a week home alone with my 2 college-age children and 2 geriatric dogs as my summer vacation. Guess who drew the short straw on that one? But I tried to make the best of it, and although I am not sure if I made the “best” of it, I think I at least made the “better” of it. Here’s how …

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