The Curmudgeonly Professor

Great Grandkids with Rabbit Ears

A Great Granddaughter, Elise

Granddaughters Melanie, Megan, and Michelle Thanksgiving 2011

Great Grandson Jack Eating His Pumpkin Pie Thanksgiving 2011

Portrait of Granddaughter Melanie

A Daughter and a Great Granddaughter

Photo by Tom Nielson

Portrait of a great-granddaughter

Meet Melody, Another Great Granddaughter

Sadie: My great granddaughter

Photo by Carolyn Nielson

Our Wedding Picture, December 1952

 
After posting the above photos of the Salt Lake Temple, I decided I might as well post our wedding photo.

Sadie

 
Another photo of Sadie, my photogenic great granddaughter.

Meet My Little Great Granddaughter, Sadie

 

I thought while I continue to vacillate about my blog that I should at least share with you one of the photos of my little great granddaughter, Sadie.  She is 2.  She knows all the letters of the alphabet.  I'm not kidding.  Great things can happen if you have a great grandpa who is an economist and passes the economics genes down through the generations.

Father's Day 2011: The Curmudgeonly Professor with his Dad and his Sister Liz in about 1937 (or so).

 
Happy Father's Day

A Thought on Father's Day 2011

I have twitted my five kids and my nineteen grandkids (my 15 great grandkids are too young to twit) for years, saying "If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be here."  The comic strip For Better or Worse sheds new light on this situation this morning.  As the kids in the comic strip jump on their dad in bed, they remind him "If it wasn't for us, you wouldn't be a father."  Point to ponder.

Five Things I Have Learned about Housework

Due to my wife's illness this past winter and spring, I have done most of the housework, laundry, cooking (more or less), floor mopping, etc.  Of course I had an apprenticeship for some of this activity from four years of janitor work at the University of Wyoming while working my way through college, and several years of opening Campbell's soup  and Van Camp's pork and beans cans to stay alive during meager days.  But my knowledge of housework has expanded exponentially since taking over practically everything for the past eight months or so.  Here are a few things I have learned:

1. Housework is much easier for women than for men, and women tend to enjoy doing housework more than men.  Just try that one and see where it gets you.
2. Housework really, really sucks.
3. Housework is really, really boring.
4. Some housewives say they have to redo all of the housework their husbands do anyway, so there is no point in having their lazy worthless spouses even try to do housework.
5. Men are probably much like Hagar the Horrible when it comes to being lazy and making messes. But at least Hagar loots castles and brings home loot.

On the more serious side, the past months have certainly brought a new and deep appreciation for all of the work my wife did in all of the years of our marriage.  Besides finishing her degree, running our businesses, managing our apartment finances, selling real estate, and several years of running a day-care, she managed to raise five kids, work 24 hours a day, cook meals, send kids off to school, manage mountains of laundry, clean house, and still survive.  Now my wife is improving and I am nearly ready to consider resigning from all of my arduous duties and spending more time in my recliner chair.  Moral to the story:  Men, help your wives, clean up your own mess, do the dishes, and don't gripe about how hard your day was while your wife does a slow burn as you head for the TV and the sofa and ask "what's for dinner, hon?"