Last Friday, May 30th, was Deb's actual birthday. But we're still celebrating here on IBL&F! Joe and I drove to Missouri for a quick weekend visit with Ken and Deb—and to help celebrate Deb's 70th! Doesn't she make 70 look good! We walked along the Mighty Mississippi... We rode our electric bikes... We visited the local farmers market and shared Amish … [Read more...]

I love those little robot vacuums. I have never purchased one of the fancy expensive brands (for reasons you'll understand in a moment), but considering that we have three big dogs, I love my little robovac and have programmed it to run three times at day--morning, noon, and night. I'd say it's more of a sweeper than a vacuum, but it picks up a lot of dog hair and dust, and that helps considerably … [Read more...]

Hi friends, I don’t know if you heard but we moved to Florida last September. Twoweeks later Hurricane Helene hit and completely flooded our house withfour feet of water. With almost everything still in boxes since we’d betraveling one of those two weeks, we lost 95% of our belongings and twocars. It turned into six months of waiting on insurance and four Airbnb stays, butwe are finally back … [Read more...]

I hope you had a meaningful and enjoyable Memorial Day. Like many people, I’m guessing, I spent part of the weekend planting flowers. Where I live in Minnesota (the upper Midwest US), Memorial Day is often considered the earliest “safe” time to plant flowers. While I transplanted my simple pots of geraniums, petunias, and marigolds, I found myself thinking of the beautiful … [Read more...]