The idea of a routine is anathema to my way of life. All the same, one of the most significant struggles during and after the coronavirus pandemic has been making my days productive. While economic concerns have not disappeared after retiring on Social Security, I don’t want to be locked into a routine. Personal preferences aside, there is a scientific reason to develop and follow a routine.
Routines are linked to better health, academic success and even resilience. We can all take simple steps to synchronize our activities with our circadian rhythms and biology. Small tweaks in the timing of things can pay off. (As a doctor, here’s my simple, science-backed schedule for a healthier day, Dec. 1, 2025, Washington Post by Trisha Pasricha, M.D.)
That damn biology! How limiting!
Working with ChatGPT, I developed a daily plan to help structure my time at home. I had not thought about compartmentalizing routine activities, yet this plan does so and has produced better results that free me of worry about how I spend my time. The three morning and two afternoon work sessions with a short break between them has been revolutionary.
I began developing this Daily Plan a few years ago. Then, it included only items in the first three bullet points. By expanding it to encompass the whole day, and implementing some basic science about circadian rhythms, my life has been better. It’s a never-ending process to refine this. My daily plan will get its first major test as I finish my second book this winter.
In general, I take Sundays off a plan and let my life free-form for a while. That has proven to be a useful break from regimentation.
Booklet filled with automatic writing, September 1990.
2025 has been a decent year for my writing. I added 26,000 words to my autobiography, posted 20 times on Blog for Iowa, and produced more than 300 posts here, including cross posting my letters to the editor. It’s hard to digest everything, especially when I’m in the middle of writing more. This post is some links to posts I believe are significant.
On January 5, I wrote Right to Repair. This post starts with a high school friend and hot rodder who was building his own car to ride the ones in Davenport. It includes my maternal grandmother repairing her stove, and ends with her parents and grand parents settling land bought from the railroad in the late 1800s. Can we get back to a situation where people know how everything in their home works and repair it themselves? This post explores that idea.
If It’s About Workforce was posted on January 7. It’s about the Iowa Legislature restructuring the regents universities to purge diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education. Among the things they did was eliminate the American Studies Program from which I have a degree. There was talk about improving the workforce, yet I don’t believe higher education is about placing people in work. I also have a modest proposal.
2025 is a year I gave increased attention to photography. On July 24, I posted A Life of Photos, which serves as my introductory process. There was a time when popular photography was used primarily in two ways: it recorded memorable “moments,” and it provided a method and technology for creative expression. A third purpose has come into being and the series that began with this post explores what that is.
My 55th high school class reunion took place in September. Afterward, I posted In the Shadow of Hotel Black Hawk on September 28. This year’s reunion was better than others I attended in that by eliminating any formal program, the planning committee furnished a venue for classmates to socialize. I found the format refreshing and actually had a number of memorable conversations. This post remembers some of them.
Are people mixers or layerers? Eating Alone — Mac and Cheese, posted on November. 10, explores the difference and in doing so created a repeatable main course dish head and shoulders above the dozens of available boxed mac and cheese meals. I have become a layerer.
When I worked at the oil company I had no idea what was behind their big move to consolidate records in Oklahoma. Time to Change Hats, posted November 12, is about that and more. I wrote, “With increased visibility of my history, I should be a better family member, citizen, and writer. It should be easier to navigate through the stuff of memories.” I’m not yet on a single platform with visibility, yet that’s where I am heading. That’s what makes this post significant.
These posts only scratch the surface of my writing. I appreciate everyone who follows along here.
The storm was brewing while we were in Des Moines enjoying a meal on Thanksgiving Day. In Iowa, we have excellent storm system visibility as they develop. This one was expected to dump 8-12 inches of snow beginning the Friday after the holiday. We made sure to get on the road in plenty of time to beat the storm home.
Snow cleans up the landscape and muffles neighborhood noise. Everything looks pristine for a while. We need the moisture this snowfall brought.
I got a good workout of a different set of muscles while blowing the snow from the driveway. I dispatched the first 6 inches on Saturday as it continued to snow. That made it easier to finish the rest on Sunday after this storm had finished. Snow is welcome for the changes it brings to our daily routine. Snow removal can be one of the few forms of outdoors exercise during winter.
The change is welcome for the reminder it provides: it is time to buckle in and finish the book. The last five weeks have been a time of figuring out where I am with the structure. I now know. My first focus will be drafting the remaining eleven single-topic chapters. After that, the entire book needs review and a re-write, taking it from draft closer to the finished product. Winter cold and snow makes it easier to focus on this indoors work.
Snowfall reminds us we are heading into another winter. This year, I welcome it.
Here are my current favorite photos from the thousands taken in 2025.
Ice on the lake — February 2025.Chili and cornbread — March 2025.Time to start seeds — April 2025.Spring brush fire — May 2025.No Kings Day demonstration in Mount Vernon, Iowa –June 2025.Zestar! apples were first harvested — July 2025.Garlic was late getting out of the ground — August 2025.Pears were special this year — September 2025.Red Delicious apples — October 2025.Foggy sunrise — November 2025.Moon set on March 14, 2025.
In late November I’ve read 63 books this year. Not all of them were good, yet many of them were exceptional. This post is about books I am glad to have read this year.
The Politics of Resentment by Katherine Cramer
Cramer’s examination of rural political consciousness — and the resentment often directed toward “liberal elites” — is essential reading for any Iowan trying to understand where our politics may be heading. I remember the mass demonstrations in Madison during Scott Walker’s tenure, and Cramer uses his administration as a springboard for a broader exploration of government’s place in everyday life. Her account is grounded in the many conversations she held with rural Wisconsinites while conducting her research, giving the book both texture and credibility.
Queen Esther by John Irving
Beginning during my university days I had a small number of authors whose work I read with great anticipation shortly after a new book was released. First it was Saul Bellow, and then Joan Didion. When they died, that author became John Irving. Queen Esther is what I expect from an Irving novel.
The reason I enjoy reading Irving is when he writes about his time in Iowa City, it is the place I came to know. The Water Method Man was set there and he specifically mentioned 918 Iowa Avenue, with which I am very familiar. That feeling, along with other common experiences, gives me entree into the world he describes in his latest book.
There are some naysayers about Queen Esther, yet it is familiar fare which I am glad to access. Having traveled there myself, I particularly enjoyed the chapters about Vienna and Amsterdam. He describes the same Vienna I came to know and that draws me into the book. My review is here.
The Siren’s Call by Chris Hayes
There are other books about the attention economy, but Chris Hayes The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource comes at a time when we need to hear his message. I hear the word “distraction” multiple times each day from friends and family. There is more there and Hayes gets to the heart of it. My review is here.
Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates
Source Code: My Beginnings is a straight up autobiography of Bill Gates’ early years through development of Microsoft. The early coding he wrote was impactful in my life and in the broader society. To hear it directly from the source was a quick, informative read.
This is for Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee is credited as being the inventor of the World Wide Web in 1989. His autobiography explains what happened. It is something that affects most people and worthy of reading.
Apple in China by Patrick McGee
The relationship between Apple and China is part of the news each day whether mentioned explicitly or not. I remember Iowa firms establishing a business relationship in China when I was in my 50s and found it curious that China would not let them own a majority stake in businesses they managed there. Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company explains the risk and what happened to the company because of it.
Breakneck by David Wang
While China is an engineering state, relentlessly pursuing mega-projects, the U.S. has stalled. America has transformed into a lawyerly society, reflexively blocking everything, good and bad. This book makes the case why China is so far ahead of the United States in manufacturing and in other areas of the economy. When we consider the United States, the concept of “lawyering up” is a negative for the betterment of society. Just look at our president and the number of lawsuits in which he is engaged.
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky by Garrett M. Graff
I previously read many of the stories in this oral history of the making and use of the atomic bomb. What sets Graff’s book apart is collecting first person accounts of that history. It brings a form of immediacy to a topic modern people tend to forget when discussing nuclear weapons and disarmament.
Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
I know many people looking for work without much success. Jessica Bruder wrote an autobiography about her experiences in a workforce unhinged from a predictable, daily schedule of work. She worked all over the country in seasonal or part-time positions, the most recognizable of which is the Amazon CamperForce program. Amazon leverages people displaced from regular work and have taken to living in recreational vehicles. They have a formal program to hire them in their warehouses during peak sales activity. This is just one example. This one is well worth your time for its window into a world most of us didn’t know existed. My review is here.
Eleven Days by Donald Harstad
The county sheriff recommended this book about a crime in the area where I live. I don’t read many crime novels, yet the local setting drew me in, and the tightly written narrative had me turning every page as quickly as I could.
2025 was a good year for reading. In retrospect, I should have read more poetry, so I’m making that a goal for 2026. To conserve resources, I expect to read more books from the public library and my own collection. I maintain my daily reading target of 25 pages, although that creeps up when I find a compelling book.
I’d be interested in what readers are reading in the comments.
I did not receive an advance reader’s copy of Queen Esther by John Irving. I emailed the bookstore in the county seat to make sure they would have it on publication day. On Nov. 4, I drove there and parked on Iowa Avenue, the same Iowa Avenue Irving described in The Water Method Man. I walked to the bookstore and couldn’t find it among new arrivals. After my inquiry, a sales associate found it in the back room and I bought it.
After Saul Bellow and Joan Didion died, Irving became my favorite author. I thought The Last Chairlift was his final novel and was pleasantly surprised and hopeful about this new one. It did not disappoint.
Anyone who lives in modern society has some familiarity with the issues that brought about the Hamas-Israel war. No book on those issues will have universal support, much less fiction. It seems risky for Irving to have tackled that and I admire him for it. Frankly, successful at age 83, what does he have to lose?
As someone who began reading Irving more than 40 years ago, I highly recommend Queen Esther. It is classic Irving.
When visiting my sister-in-law’s home I bring my own coffee. It’s instant espresso I can make without a lot of noise in an unfamiliar kitchen while the rest of the household sleeps in early morning. Even though I sleep on a cot I bought for these visits, my sleep pattern from home was duly replicated: I got eight hours after retiring early.
I have a buzz on from the caffeine as I type on my mobile device.
A winter storm is coming–expected to snow nine inches in the next 48 hours. We should arrive home before the first snowflakes fall.
In the meanwhile, we will prepare for departure while being as productive as possible. Away from home the routine is different. The meal we all helped prepare was satisfying. Another Thanksgiving is in the books.
How do I feel now that the Democrats won the election? I feel it is the dawning of a new era, full of potential to make the country a better place for us all. It is a time to take control of what is lagging in my life and make something in the active days remaining. (Personal Journal, Nov. 19, 2006).
When Barack Obama won the presidency two years later, these feelings deepened. It affected me personally in that I felt I could leave my employer of 25 years and strike out again on my own. The country was going to be okay.
It was a false landing.
The reaction of the electorate in 2010 was brutal. It got worse. With today’s trifectas in the state and national governments, Republicans have been dismantling the world we knew. If in 2006 I felt Democrats had arrived, that feeling is gone today as we struggle our way back into a majority, or at least into breaking the trifecta. We can do that, yet the old ways are unlikely to work.
Iowa has been a Republican state for as long as I can remember. As Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan pointed out,
There were only two windows EVER – one in the 1960s and one from ’06-’10 – where Iowa Democrats held a trifecta of the House, Senate, and Governor. Democrats typically did not run things, but made up a large enough minority that the GOP needed them to govern. So compromises were struck. (Sullivan’s Salvos, Nov. 27, 2025 by Rod Sullivan).
I remember the landslide victory of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and the coattails he had in Iowa and everywhere. The election replaced ten-year incumbent Republican Congressman Fred Schwengel with Democrat John Schmidhauser, for whom my father campaigned. However, the landslide did not have staying power and Schwengel was reelected after Schmidhauser served a single term.
During the 2006 election, Dave Loebsack was elected to Congress and served until January 2021. Notably, Loebsack won in part by running up the voter margin in Johnson County. His successor in the Congress, Mariannette Miller-Meeks buffered the effectiveness of that liberal county, margin-style strategy and won three elections. Loebsack was an effective congressman, yet his success has not yet been replicated.
Where do we go from here? We go on living our best lives.
While Iowa voted for Richard Nixon in 1960, our family was proud to have supported John F. Kennedy and claim him as our president. The national impetus after JFK’s assassination was to elect LBJ and Iowa voted for him and other Democrats like Schmidhauser. It was a landslide like no other in American politics. There will be a similar impetus in the electorate as Republicans overstep their mandate in our present political life. What Republicans are doing already negatively affects so many people I know. Our lives are poorer for their governance and that will not stand.
This time, Democrats must realize any victory lacks permanence. There is no landing platform. If anything voters are more fragmented than ever with the help of computer applications we all use. If Democrats break the trifecta, or gain a majority, we must do everything we can to advance our agenda as quickly as we can, knowing the period of opportunity will have a short half-life. We can win an election, yet permanent change does not appear to be part of the bargain. With staying power off the table, we must work at it both before and after the election. I believe we can do that.
I am hopeful a good life is still possible in Iowa. What I have come to know is it must be lived outside party politics. That’s hard for me to say as I’ve been a partisan most of my life. However, I will grasp the opportunity for a better future wherever together we can make one.
Since my youngest days, the time between Thanksgiving and the Feast of the Epiphany has been a time to spend with friends and family away from broader society — a tribal time. This year, the number of days will be cut short. As I age, more of my days turn to tribal concerns. Now more than ever, there is motivation to do more with my writing, cooking and home work projects.
That said, I don’t know how much I will be writing here. Before New Year’s Day I hope to post about books I’ve read this year, photos I’ve taken, and a review of where this blog has been in 2025. The premise of late has been that blogging is an ersatz journal or diary. I am drawn more to the written word, especially to write about personal things, so the editorial content here may change in 2026.
Because of the influx of Chinese views, it is hard to know who is reading my blog unless they hit the like button. A concern is people in China are stealing my work and will publish something of it before I have a chance. I don’t know if this is a legitimate concern. If the Chinese viewers are in fact located in China, and they are scraping my blog to train artificial intelligence, then it is a bit scary to think artificial intelligence will resemble my writing in any cogent fashion. I may hide this blog and start a new one to deal with this. That will be contemplated while I am in tribal time.
I just finished reading my 2006-2007 written journal. It was written before I became a blogger and when social media was in its early years. In some ways, that time held the same concerns I do today about my health and furthering my writing life. I’m not sure a complete return to written journals is what I need to do.
I look forward to a retreat during the coming days before December. I wish those who celebrate it a Happy Thanksgiving.
I’ve been meaning to get out on the eastern part of the state park trail and Saturday I did. When we moved here, I said to my spouse that all of the land between us and the nearby city to the east of us would eventually be developed. It didn’t happen in the first 32 years, yet it’s got a good start.
My normal walk is designed to be 30 minutes along the same part of the trail. The walk I took Saturday afternoon was much longer at 80 minutes. It was no hill for a climber.
Road leading to the Hoover Trail.
The Hoover Trail has been a tremendous perquisite for those living in the area. The paved trail is wide enough for bicycles to pass each other going in the opposite directions. It is also clean. During the coronavirus pandemic I rode my bicycle on it almost daily. One of the first things to see is this old barn.
Historic barn in Big Grove Township.
The trail was made in the bed of an old railroad track. The power lines have been moved, leaving the old poles to decay in the encroaching woods.
Trail runs along the former railroad tracks.
There are only a few glass insulators left on the poles. I found one blue one and these clear ones.
Note the clear glass insulators. These are some of the last ones left on a pole.
The worst part of the trail walk is the development. The homes in this photo were not there the last time I was on this stretch of trail.
This construction is all new since last time I was here.
In addition, a lot of the wooded and prairie areas were cleared and mowed. We are moving the opposite direction from a nature preserve.
Pond near a rest area along the trail.
There is a fancy intersection where the Lake Macbride State Park Trail intersects with the Hoover Trail.
Busy trail intersection.
Waterfowl like the east end of the north branch of the lake. Probably because the growth prevents we humans from getting too close. That and the relatively shallow water makes it easier to catch fish.
East end of the north branch of Lake Macbride.Pelicans like the shallower water at the eastern edge of the lake.
Development may be encroaching, yet there are still plenty of good photos to be taken.
These trees were mere sticks when I first saw them.Another view of the lake.Heading toward home.Sun setting.
Journey Home 
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