Patti Foley of Toledo, obituary

 https://www.coylefuneralhome.com/obituaries/Patricia-Foley-8/?  We came to know the Foleys in the 1990s when they hired Bob to be their architect for their new home at Lakeside where they were active members of the community.

Ohio is buried in 11" of snow and other problems

 Our car is immobilized for a while. Churches and schools were closed by the latest storm that has swept across the nation, and particularly those areas south of us. Even if we could get to the car, sweeping off the snow would cover us up, and I suspect the wipers and doors are frozen shut.

"COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Good Sunday evening! [Jan. 25] Most snowfall totals across Central Ohio have been around 10–11 inches as of 5 PM. We did have a few 13-inch reports from New Albany, Zanesville, and Coshocton County. Southern and eastern Ohio had some sleet and freezing rain mixing in during the day, with reported snowfall totals around 6–8 inches, but we are not done with the snow just yet."

These are AI generated reports I found on internet:

"Schools and colleges across central Ohio, including Ohio State University, Columbus State Community College, and Columbus City Schools, canceled classes for January 26 and 27 due to snow and extreme cold.

Businesses and government offices closed, including the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Columbus Metropolitan Library, Franklin County courts, and Columbus VA clinics.

The City of Columbus declared a Level 3 snow emergency on January 25, which was downgraded to Level 2 by January 26 as snow removal crews worked to clear roads.

Mayor Andrew Ginther confirmed that over 16 inches of snow fell in some southern and eastern parts of the metro area, and crews were actively working to improve road conditions.

Wind chills dropped to -15°F to -25°F through the week, with a Cold Weather Advisory and Extreme Cold Warning in effect, posing risks of frostbite and hypothermia.

No new snow is expected through January 27, but blowing snow and icy conditions remain hazardous, and temperatures are forecast to stay below zero for several days."

 Then to complicate things Bob was in the hospital January 21-24, getting out in time to grab a few new prescriptions.  There wasn't time to stock up on food--and we live in retirement independent living where meals are provided,   If the employees can get to work! A few did make it in, but it's more like picnics and the new menu for Bob includes less salt. Some of the staff spent the night.

Get rid of your personal information on Google

 “If bad actors get their hands on your personally identifiable information (PII), they can use it to swindle, impersonate, or even endanger you on the internet—and in the real world. One of the prime places to find PII is on Google, and while Google can’t stop that info from appearing on other websites, you can try to remove PII from the search giant’s results." PC magazine explains it.

https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/psst-you-can-remove-your-personal-info-from-google-search-heres-how?

Benefits of local honey

Never a dull moment at The Estates. 

I couldn't get the jar of our homegrown (Upper Arlington, Ohio) honey open this morning to make my delicious chocolate-honey de-caf. Even when I was a strong 65, I couldn't get these open (home processed). So, I tucked it inside my waxed amaryllis box and went down to the night watchman (it was about 6:30 a.m.) and asked for help. I even took with me two plastic jar opening strips. Big guy, he  huffed and puffed but he couldn't do it either. So, I told him we needed hot water to loosen the ring seal, so he took it to the back room and did that. After much effort, he was successful. Then there was the sealed lid, so he found a pair of scissors, and finally, success!

"Benefits of Local Honey

Local honey offers various health benefits that can enhance daily wellness. This natural sweetener not only tastes good but also provides important nutrients that support a healthier lifestyle.

Nutritional Advantages

Local honey contains essential vitamins and minerals. It includes vitamin C, calcium, and iron, which contribute to overall health. This sweetener also provides carbohydrates, giving a quick source of energy. Unlike processed sugars, local honey has fewer additives and preservatives, making it a cleaner choice for sweetening foods. The presence of local pollen in honey can boost immune responses. This helps the body build tolerance to local allergens, which can be especially important during allergy season. Choosing local honey means enjoying a product rich in nutrients while also supporting local beekeepers.

Antioxidant Properties

Local honey is rich in antioxidants, which help protect the body from damage caused by free radicals. These free radicals can lead to chronic diseases and aging. Antioxidants found in local honey primarily come from plant compounds, such as flavonoids and phenolic acids. Consuming local honey can aid in reducing inflammation and supporting heart health. Studies show that honey's antioxidant content can be more effective than those in many processed sweeteners. Regular use may help improve overall health by boosting the body's defenses and promoting better well-being. Local honey stands out as a natural choice for enhancing health and combating oxidative stress." . . . 

Why Is Local Honey Better for You? Key Health Benefits — Blythewood Bee Company

Sainte Chapelle in Paris

 Visiting Sainte-Chapelle in Paris: What to Know Before You Go - City Or City  A story of this chapel was included in my reading this morning,

Finding a service opportunity

Don't ask God if you don't want an answer. Like in 5 minutes. After my devotions Sunday morning I reread a post Christmas letter from our friends John and Sue. They moved to Yakima some years ago but he was a pastor at our church and we've known them since 1974. They too had recently moved to a retirement community, so I was reading about their interesting, challenging life of service in their new community. I sort of sighed a prayer, something like "Lord I'd like to be of service like John and Sue." Then I picked up my phone to take my morning walk through the halls, down the stairs, past the front desk and back. I stopped to look at the Columbus Dispatch and read about the governor's race (Vivek Ramaswamy). Then I heard something--some people have pets and my first thought was a Siamese cat. Sort of howling. So I redirected my usual route to follow the sound, and after a few turns saw a door was open and someone was yelling for help. I found a resident on the floor covered in blood, grabbed her hand and told her I'd get help. Because of the blood I didn't recognize her, but as soon as we spoke, I knew her voice. I alerted the security staff. She was soon off to the hospital via the Columbus squad, and I hope she'll be OK. She was lucid enough to talk to me and I stayed with her until they took her out of the building. For being 98, she's a tough gal. Pray for her. And me. I was a bit shaky. My mornings are usually not this eventful.

The mess in Minneapolis

With the help of Hakeem Jeffries ["We must reform our broken immigration system and create a pathway toward citizenship for the millions of undocumented (illegal aliens) hardworking individuals who dream of becoming Americans"] and the left-wing, never-Trump media, Gov. Tim Walz allegedly covered up fraud [theft of federal benefits] in Minnesota. Ms. Renee Good chose to disobey lawful orders so ICE could remove dangerous criminals preying on innocent citizens, and lost her life.

Food costs--eggs and walnuts

Remember about 2 weeks after Trump took office and the price of eggs (about $5 a dozen) was beginning to fall, Democrats complained he hadn't fixed it yet. Today, I bought a dozen eggs for 87 cents. Yet they act as though food prices haven't changed!

Speaking of food costs. There is one very healthy food that didn't go up during Biden's reign and has stayed stable all during Trump's. Walnuts. I usually buy them in 16 oz bags (California, whole). They've either been 3/$10 or $3 a bag for probably 6 years. Very good for heart and brain. For breakfast today I had a sliced banana, about an oz of walnuts with milk. Also cheddar cheese on toast with butter.

https://earthsidefarms.com/blogs/earthside-blog/nutritional-value-of-walnuts?

Egg Nutrition Facts and Health Benefits

Diane's question about Presidents Obama and Trump

"Here's a question for all of my Democrat/liberal friends who are decrying the US capture of Maduro in Venezuela. What’s the difference between President Obama ordering US forces to enter a sovereign nation, without their permission, to intentionally kill Osama Bin Laden, who was under a US indictment (issued in 1998, under the Clinton administration) and President Trump ordering US forces to capture Nicolas Maduro—unharmed--to prosecute him under a US indictment for narcotrafficking issued in 2020? If you have a cogent answer other than “Orange Man Bad,”

I would be delighted to hear it.

Don't forget Manuel Noriega in Panama when George HW Bush ordered troops on the ground to capture him."

Did Santa bring you any good books?

Did you get any books for Christmas? I got one--an ESV archeology Bible. My NIV was lost in the move, so rather than fret every day I just asked for a different one. But here's what Bob got. I'm reading the one on the far left, "An inside job" by Daniel Silva (2025). It's not a genre I like, but I'm really enjoying it. He's a good writer.

As I age, I read less and less, although I have plenty of time. I just can't find a comfortable place with good light.

Mamdani tries to make NYC Venezuela

Not my words, but exactly my thoughts from the newsletter of investment advisor Joel Ross:

"Mamdani has only been in office a few days and each day it gets much worse as he announces his appointments. They are all far left radicals who will destroy the city. Their policies are socialist to communist and anti-capitalist and anti- landlord. The result will be a much worse education for poor kids and a far worse rental apartment situation. No developer is going to want to start a new multi project. Dealing with evictions has just become totally impossible. Schools will experience a downgrade in education in the name of diversity. The homeless will begin to reappear in parks and on the streets in spring. Tisch as police commissioner is all that prevents crime from going way up again, and we will see how long she lasts. Now Mamdani has lashed out at Trump for arresting Maduro. That is right out of the Socialist manifesto. He already is virulently anti-Israel. He knows nothing of how to run the city but suddenly he thinks he knows about geopolitics. He is dangerous because now he has a bullhorn and will be read and followed on social media. We can expect much more of that. He abolished the Adams committees and definition of anti-Semitism. His father is a rabid outspoken anti-Semite who actually is a professor at Columbia-where else. This is going to bad or worse than we all expected."

So true about Mamdani's parents. All bad ideas come from academe, and it's probably worse when they are Communists who flee from India via Uganda.

He's appointed a "tenant advocate" who thinks home ownership is "white supremacy." Landlords should be fleeing the city. Zohran Mamdani’s new NYC tenant advocate called to 'seize private property,' blasted homeownership as 'white supremacy'

This corruption didn't begin with the Somalis

Before tracking down "root causes" and supply chain history of the Somali day care fraud, I hope Congress stops and looks at two basics: Head start (turned 60 in 2025 in the failed War on Poverty which we lost ) and the corruption in the nonprofit arena (got really bad during Bush I who wanted to reduce federal employment with "faith-based" solutions).

By any definition and all the studies, Head Start has failed miserably--40 million children, their parents and the tax payers. Not every daycare is a head start model, but it's been ingrained in generations that children will be better off if mom leaves home to work and someone not family takes care of the kids. That's the old south slavery model, isn't it? By 2nd grade all academic gains are lost.

 
The whole nonprofit grants from the federal government model so the money is controlled locally is riddled with corruption, nepotism and graft, The Somali thing is the tip of the iceberg, and it's not just day care. It's good intentions gone bad.

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/government/fbci/qr3.html?

Some think the Head start failure is a result of this year's fraud investigation (60 years), but it was declared a failure at 50 years and 40 years,  It's never passed the smell test. Head Start is in turmoil - The Hechinger Report

Epiphany, January 4

I remember when I first learned about Marco Polo, the 13th century Venetian diplomat who lived in China as a young man. I was about 10 years old and we were living in Forreston, IL so it was probably 5th grade. I just loved history. And it was about that age and this time of year we were also singing, "We three kings of Orient are," the hymn that tells about the 3 Magi arriving to worship the new born king led there by a star. I learned about 50 years later, there weren't 3 kings, but 3 gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh, so no one knows how many Magi showed up. The 19th c. hymn writer wrote it for a children's play.

 
We celebrate that event on January 4, so I was reading today about an illuminated French manuscript of 1410 of "The Book of the Wonders of the World" by Marco Polo written in 1298. The original no longer exists, but there were hundreds of copies and translations and it was a best seller, some beautifully illustrated. Over the years, many people have doubted certain stories in Polo's travel account.
I was quite surprised to read that while traveling through Persia (Iran) the locals told Polo a "true story" of the 3 Magi and told him to visit a fortress to see their tombs. The 3 bodies were together and still intact with their hair and beards. The story known in that area was "they set out for a distant land in order to adore a prophet who had been born and to offer him 3 gifts--gold, frankincense, and myrrh. . ."

Of course, even as a teen, Polo knew the Bible story, and perhaps he wanted to enhance it--but still, he thought there were 3 Magi just like the guy in Pennsylvania who wrote the hymn hundreds of years later.

  

Cover, Magnificat, January 2026

Ending the old, beginning the new--while sick

 We had plans to go to a friends' home for dinner last night (prime rib and the trimmings) but Saturday I felt a cold coming on and by Wednesday it was really out of control. So Bob went alone. He also went out for orange juice and kleenex this morning, but I'll be down probably the rest of the week. I've watched some Hallmark movies but am too tired to read. Bob is sleeping through all the football games, so it's not an exciting New Year. Back to bed.

Happy New Year anyway! May 2026 be good to you.

The $9 billion fraud in Minnesota "for the children"

I've heard but not researched that some MSM are complaining that MAGA type citizens are overly concerned about $9 Billion fraud in child learning scandal in Minnesota. But I do know that the investigation began during the Biden administration, that the NYT has had a story about it, that local watchdog groups were investigating and the buck didn't stop at Walz's desk. He says he's been working on it, so why is $9 billion the tip of the iceberg and the learning centers are still open?

Hey, that's Bill Maher

 Bob has taken to watching old reruns of the TV series, "Murder She Wrote," and today I looked up from my blogging and said, "Hey that's Bill Maher, the late night political commentator."  "You mean the one who got fired and then rehired?" "No, but it's Bill Maher with long curly hair,"

So I looked it up and sure enough, it's "Fire Burn, Cauldron Bubble" Episode aired Feb 19, 1989.

Is it affordability or the economy?

Steven Moore said on Fox News the U.S. has 4% of the world's population and 1/2 of the wealth. So, I looked that up (separate sites) and it's true. It's called capitalism, ambition, hard work, entrepreneurship, and wealth accumulation through family networks (i.e. marriage). Other sites quibble. I looked back 20 years in my blog (Dec. 2005) and the Democrats were saying the same ugly things about the George W. Bush economy, only then we called it BDS. Democrats prefer Communism so 99% of us can be poor at the same time and they can acclaim a victory for equity and inclusion.

"The United States 2025 population is estimated at 347,275,807 people at mid-year, equivalent to 4.22% of the total world population." Worldometers.info

 
Aljazeera wants to quibble with Moore using a figure of "adults" but I'll take Moore's word for it. His books explore the impact of taxes, energy, and worker freedom on economic outcomes. The U.S. is the land people are dying to flee to for opportunity. Maybe people are sneaking into China or North Korea and the media just don't report it?

Why is there a Bye Week?

I hear a lot about bye/buy/by week in football chatter. So today I asked the coach at our breakfast table. And he explained it, but I wanted to know the origin, not the meaning. I've seen it spelled three ways.

This is what Why Do We Say Teams Get a 'Bye'? | Merriam-Webster site says:
"In sports, bye refers to a team automatically advancing to the next round of tournament play without competing and bye week refers to a scheduled off week for a given team. The term is not related to goodbye but is instead believed to be an alteration of by, as in the team is "standing by" to play later, or "bypassed" while other teams play. One early sport to feature a bye is coursing; the b-y-e spelling is likely influenced by an existing term from cricket in which a wicket-keeper misses a ball."

By vs. Bye: What's the Difference?: Grammarly says:
"The term bye is commonly used in informal conversations as a short way to say goodbye. Additionally, it has a specific application in sports, referring to a situation where a player or team advances to the next round of a competition without having to play."

So "advancing without playing" (which still doesn't make sense to me) seems to be the meaning of "bye" in tournaments, and it's not just football.

Where I live, I hear more sports talk in a week than I used to hear in a year,

Phillip Markwood, architect, 1937-2025

I see that local architect Phil Markwood died December 20. He was well known for his churches in the Columbus area and was a Christian. I seem to remember that he may have been the architect for a past remodeling of UALC. Bob knew him through AIA. I liked this testimony in his obituary,

"During the firm’s 47 years existence, Phil was always designing a faith-related project. He described his passion for church design as follows: “I gravitate towards church work for two reasons. I am a believer, so I get a chance to work for ‘The Big Client’ while working for His servants and I get to create spaces that touch the spirit. We’re all spiritual beings and churches are places that prepare you for your own experience with God.” He said he found that what he was doing was bigger than the project, the people and himself and that the main authority is God. He always felt like he was working for Him.

Those who knew Phil recognized him as a man of humility, patience, kindness, and selflessness. He was a deep thinker, a wise counselor, and a committed man of faith. He connected with people through compassionate listening, always more interested in learning about others than talking about himself. He led a purposeful life evidenced by a deep devotion to wife and family, commitment to his relationship with Jesus and studying His word with close friends for years, and application of his God-given abilities to create enduring spaces to enjoy life and worship. And if he was at a gathering where a prayer was required, he was inevitably asked to speak, as he was also informally known as Pastor Phil to many." 

Phillip Markwood Obituary - Columbus, OH

What's for Christmas Eve dinner tonight?

 What's for dinner tonight? "Holiday foods are especially powerful because they’re tightly bound to episodic memory – the brain’s record of personal experiences. “When we taste those foods again, the hippocampus and amygdala bring those emotional memories back to life,” said Traster. Experiences encoded in childhood are particularly durable, especially when they’re paired with strong emotion and repetition. Christmas foods often meet both criteria, becoming deeply embedded early in life."

Maybe, but we're having Italian restaurant take-out for Christmas Eve dinner from DaVinci's in Upper Arlington, not traditional (in our family). We're living in a retirement facility called The Estates (formerly The Forum) so hosting is a bit difficult for us. But we do have our 1963 dining room table that has a leaf on which we can eat our non-traditional dinner. On Christmas Day we'll all be eating in the dining room for a traditional buffet with Italian left-overs for the evening.

Why Christmas Food Tastes Better – The Brain Science | Technology Networks

https://youtu.be/y1xFD89xio0?si=Tzchxn8caMBsORra  Holiday dinners in 1961 -- remember Jim DeMott's oyster dressing and deviled eggs?

Sharing Legacy Recipes: A Holiday Potluck in Memory – Oaktree Memorials