Sunday, January 4, 2026 – Day 509

Sunday, January 4, 2026

Good morning, everyone.

It’s been pretty quiet on the home front—aside from some coughing fits and steady nose-blowing. So far, I’ve managed to dodge whatever bug is making the rounds. That’s probably due to a combination of limited human interaction and Cindy being masked up around the house, wiping down any surface I might touch. So far, so good.

We were scheduled to get an IV immunity boost over the weekend, but the home nurse ended up getting sick… hmmm. Timing is everything.

The upside of laying low is that it’s been a good stretch for reading. I finished To Die For by Baldacci, and honestly, it wasn’t time well spent. The plot was underwhelming, the supporting characters were weak, and the storyline just wasn’t believable.

I followed that with The Valley by John Renehan. The story is set at a remote outpost in Afghanistan—“the Valley”—a place that’s nearly impossible to defend. A unit (platoon? not sure I’ve got the military terminology right) with questionable intentions and a young lieutenant assigned to investigate form the backbone of the story. I enjoyed the book, but it was a challenging read. The lieutenant drifts in and out of a stream-of-consciousness narrative, which made some of the dialogue hard to follow. The combat scenes are also very vivid and violent. I’ll leave it at that. At this point, I think I’m ready for something a little more peaceful.

My brother Tim provided me a 9-book series on the Civil War by Shelby Foote. It’s worth while reading and I’ve started, it’s just more difficult to read. My preference is to get lost in a story and bury ALS while I read.

Then my sister sent a collection of mysteries, 15 or so, that she picked up from a resale shop.

Then there are all the books that come in from the local library. So I’ve got choices.

Speaking of books 📚, I never heard from the anonymous sender of the Prey series after I finished the 35 book series. Who are you? People keep asking.

Today is the last day of the regular NFL season…mostly meaningless today.

Maybe I’ll just watch some movies on Netflix, Peacock, Apple, Prime, Hulu, Paramount, or plain old cable. There must be one I’ll enjoy from all those services.

Have a great Sunday.

Love you guys!.❤️

Photo of Wyatt and Coco enjoying the outdoors. It’s good to see kids playing with no electronics.