Welcome to Notes from a Solitary Family Man!

Notes from a Solitary Family-Man

A Solitary....

Ok so welcome to my new and revised blog. So what does notes from a solitary family man mean. Last night as I was thinking about the things that I love like reading, running yoga and listening to music they are all things that are one person activities! Now part of this may be because I am an only child. As an only child I spent and still do spend a lot of time in my own head.

... Family-Man

Now with that being said I am also a family man. I have been happily married to my best friend Kathleen for 43 years! We have four great children Nicholas, Andrew, Peter and Elizabeth and two great daughter-in-laws Meaghan (Andrew) and Melissa (Peter) and three fantastic grandchildren Oliver (Andrew and Meaghan) and Zoe and Logan (Peter and Melissa). Oh,and we have one fantastic future son-in-law Marcus. For the last four years I have been one of the main caregivers for those grandchildren!

Zoe and Oliver playing recently in Riveride

In addition to loving and doing with my current family my wife and I also love the roots of our families. We have been doing genealogical research for more than 20-25 years.  Both of us  have had our DNA analyzed by both Ancestry and   23 & Me. Additionally,we both enjoy discovering new cousins through DNA and finding interesting stories about family members.

The Notes

Now we have established why I’m a solitary family man so what about the notes? The notes will be about my solitary activities like the books I read, the music I listen to, as well as my running and yoga.

I will also post notes about my efforts to turn back my biologic clock. And really anything else that I think about like politics or sports.

Book Notes

I have been a reader all of my life. Over the last several years I have created Reading Challenges each January. This year my overall Reading Challenge was to read 65 books. Today, I finished book number 55 for the year.

In addition to the overall goal I also created several individual challenges. In the next few days I will post my Reading Challenge and discuss where I stand on my various challenges.

Music Notes

Music has been a big part of my life since I bought my first stereo record player back in 1963?? So I e had everything from 45 rpm records to 33 1/3 rpm monaural  records to 7 1/2” tape recorders, cassette recorders, 8 track players, CDs to streaming!

i listen to a wide variety of music including: folk, blues and bluegrass, jazz, New Age and Progressive Rock and of course Classic Rock. I try to  in my music rotation each week at least one album from each genre I listen to and then write about the album.

Life Notes

My life notes may  include notes about my family,particularly my grandchildren along with my attempts to turn back my biological clock through diet and exercise.

I have two college degrees one is a BA from the University of Florida the other is a BS Ed from the University of Georgia. My major at Georgia was secondary social science education.

My work life life took me in a totally different direction. I spent 36 years working for a consulting engineering firm.  I started as draftsman and in-ground sewage disposal designer. Finally, I became  a soils expert and a wetlands specialist.

However, I never lost my love of politics, history and other social sciences. Through the years I have read many books about the US Civil War. This year I’ve read Like  Harding’s Collusion, Democracy in Chains and a great biography about Chester A Arthur. Hopefully, I  will be writing about these subjects on this blog.

So now you know all about this Solitary Family-Man and his notes! So I hope you’ll come back and find something you like!!

Where My November Reads Took Me – Part 1

Where My November Reads Took Me – Part 1: So I thought that good way to recap my November Reads was tell where those November Reads took me! From Oregon to Outer Spaces are a few of the places.