The deep clean begins. I expect over the next three months my house will be cleaner, tidier, more polished, and perhaps a bit emptier. The stacks are growing again. And it’s time for some well-managed deep clean.
On Saturday I took antique oil to most of the old wooden things in the house. The dining room table is gleaming. And the front door is quite nice now that it’s been cleaned and oiled.

An Arts & Crafts style, century-old home on Lawn Place in Saint Louis.
My home office is now the Kawai grand piano. I teach all of my lessons from here, and lead the weekly master class.
Plenty of light illuminates my face for the computer’s camera, and I read music from the iPad. The external mic and headphones give me better sonics.
It’s not perfect, but some teaching/learning is happening!
For meetings, I move to the dining room table, where I have more room to write and for files. Plus, it’s a decent change of pace and a different view.
The cooking continues. Saturday was a full homemade dinner. Plus homemade bread. And these sweet/salty/spicy pecans:
Look closely for the opossum, spotted on Friday as she (he?) was stealthy, sticking close to the flower beds and the fronts of the homes across the street:
The City of Saint Louis Forestry division was busy last week at the north end of my street:
Thanks to the kindness of friends with chickens, I have a dozen fresh eggs, gratefully received.
Getting older is hard.
Dealing with an older house is hard.
Woe is me.
Seriously, this has been a double-whammy week.
I’ve been feeling some overly-sensitive sensations in one of my molars for the last couple of months, and a dentist visit this week confirmed what I had surmised: a teenage-years amalgam filling is finally giving way. The tooth needs a crown. Even with insurance, this is expensive.
And then . . . for several years I’ve been aware that my back-porch addition flat roof needed replacing. Calls to several roofers have gone unheeded; they just don’t show up to even bid on a job! And these are people that have been recommended to me.
Well, my neighbors hired Miguel and his son Brandon to work on their roofing needs, and they are very happy. And I watched these guys work over the last couple of weeks. So I asked them for a bid.
Miguel showed me photos of the shoddy workmanship — no flashing, no sealing around the AC lines as they enter the house — and the cracked roofing material on my porch roof. Here goes a quick grand…. But it needs to be done, and there’s no time like the present.
And as I update this post before publishing, the roof is now complete. Rarely have been happier to spend $1000 than I am right now. These guys were just super!
I am missing photos of the places I lived during the summers of 1981 and 1982, as I worked in Missouri between college semesters. Summer 1981 was at Southwest Baptist University in the Admissions office; Summer 1982, in Tarkio as a summer missionary.
1986. I am missing a photo of the house I rented in Bolivar while I was Director of Admissions at Southwest Baptist University. The building has subsequently been demolished.
1999. I am missing a photo of my townhouse in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I taught college for one year.
And then I bought my own dream home in November 2008. And I’ve been here ever since, with one dog and then another. I like it here.
Here’s a bonus: my elementary school in Lee’s Summit.
Random photos from this past week!
Busy week on Lawn Place.
21 has apparently sold for an extraordinary amount of money, which helps all of us on home value as the comps rise. This is good news indeed!
The house south of me has some foundation repairs in the offing. (How I tremble when I remember my own foundation issues five years ago.)
The house to the north of me is getting all new windows, with ensuing banging of hammers &c.
And my own new windows arrive next week.
Renewal is a good thing.
What a difference a week makes!
We have some cleanup to do, but the new sidewalk is a thing of beauty.
Several weeks ago, I posted a photo of the surveyor markings on my the sidewalk in front of my little house on Lawn Place.
The demolition crew arrived Tuesday.
Three years of patience is about to be rewarded. And I’m told — at NO cost to me, since the cause of my sidewalk deterioration is a big elm tree on the city right-of-way.
The end of another school year is here.
After Commencement Saturday, I spent the afternoon cleaning, mowing, scrubbing the dirt and pollen from the front porch, and generally being spring-clean productive. Tasks deferred for weeks were on the day’s agenda, and continue to be for a few more days.
Busy semesters come screeching to a sudden halt. We finish classes, start juries and finals, and then suddenly I’m putting on full regalia for a commencement ceremony. Hugs, a few tears, scores of smiles, kind words . . . And then silence.
The cycle is ever the same, and ever new.
Meanwhile, in my own little neighborhood, the folks in the house immediately north of me are moving out, and the landlord is moving in. And the house to the south of me sold last week, with the new young couple moving in directly (he’s in the M.D./Ph.D. program at Washington University, so they’ll be here for a while).
Things change at home too.
I’ve finished my ninth year at Webster University. We’ve added eight new members to the full-time faculty in that time. This year we programmed and hosted 178 events in total. We’ve mourned one death and celebrated five retirements over the last nine years. And we’ve educated hundreds of music majors, and introduced two new degree programs to the mix.
And now summer begins. I have stacks of books to read. A bit less travel to do than in some other summers. Sunny mornings and long evenings to enjoy. Two shows to in (June and August). Three days a week at the office, at most. At least 20 cultural events on my agenda this summer here in the area.
And a cute dog to love on.
