Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Chase had two quizzes today, one in English and one in Spanish. Nanaw had wanted to go through the material with him but it wasn’t set up that way. So she sat with Chase while he read through the material again. He had also done it last night. When Nanaw took Chase to school, she had to drop him off at the gymnasium parking lot because work was being done on the front parking lot and the driveways. Drop-off and pick-up are at the gymnasium parking lot tomorrow also. On Thursday, the other lot and driveways should be available. Nanaw had a challenge in the middle of the day but everything worked out all right. She went to Telegraph Road Schnuck’s to get a newspaper around noon because the Columbia Schnuck’s was out of the Post. As she turned in front of the store she hit a big curb and flattened her tire. She texted Brady’s grandma and asked her if she could take Chase to his house if Nanaw didn’t get there in time to pick him up. She called Mama to let her know about the flat tire, and she volunteered to text Chase about it. She called AAA and a really nice technician named Keith came very quickly to fix her tire. It was the fastest and best response Nanaw has ever had from AAA. She called AAA at 12:56 and everything was all right by 1:23, in plenty of time for Nanaw to stop at Dobb’s to order a new tire and then go to pick up Chase. On the drive home, Chase was delightfully fun and talkative, just like Nanaw loves him to be but which doesn’t happen very often. She told Mama about it, and Mama warned Nanaw not to say anything to Chase about it because that would jinx it. Nanaw fixed the pepperoni Bosco sticks for Chase as a snack but he didn’t like them very much. He had a Math homework assignment, a Biology assignment and an English quiz tomorrow to study for. He got the Biology assignment done at Nanaw’s house and said he would do the Math at home, plus studying for the English quiz. Nanaw will have him go over the materials for the English quiz tomorrow morning before school. Below are some of Chase’s sketches for his Drawing class. The last picture is Keith changing Nanaw’s flat tire.

Monday, October 12, 2026

On Monday, Chase had the day off from school for Columbus Day, and Mama had the day off from work for the same reason. As a special treat, Mama took Chase out for breakfast. They went to Sunrise Pancake House in Millstadt. Chase had French toast and Mama had lots of pancakes. They both said the food was really delicious. Mama brought Chase over to Nanaw’s house around 11. Their adventure for the day was to try to make pizza bread again. Nanaw had gone to Schnuck’s earlier and bought some very soft hoagie buns. This time the pizza bread was almost perfect and tasted really good. Chase worked on his English vocab homework and did a really good job. His printing has gotten very readable, and Nanaw is proud of that and glad because it’s so much easier to read! After Nanaw took him home, Mama took Chase over to Brady’s house to hang out. She went to pick him up at eight. He has a Spanish quiz and an English quiz tomorrow, and Mama said he studied for both of them tonight. He and Nanaw will also go through the material tomorrow morning before school. The last picture below is Brittany’s house where they’ll go Thursday for Chase’s haircut. She’s building a salon but will work from her house till it’s done. Nanaw will take a reconnaissance drive to find the address before Thursday.

Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11, 2026

Uncle Mike spent the night at Chase’s house on Friday night, just like he always does on his and Mama’s special days. On Saturday morning, Mama went to Donut Panic to get donuts for their breakfast. Chase and Daddy left early to get to Affton for Chase’s Bears tournament. Mama came later in time for the first game. Chase’s team lost both of their Saturday baseball games. Mama, Daddy and Chase had Chinese for dinner on Saturday night On Sunday, Chase’s team also lost their only game. But Chase had a fun adventure that maybe helped make up to Chase for the game losses. Chase and his Bears teammate and friend Tucker went to Top Golf late on Sunday afternoon. They went to midtown Top Golf. Chase said he had a lot of fun and was really glad they went. But he also said he wished they’d gone to Chesterfield Top Golf because he liked that one better.

Friday, October 9, 2026

Friday was an Enrichment Friday for Chase so he was off from school. Mama had the day off also to have Special Day with Uncle Mike. Mama brought Chase over to Nanaw’s house around 11:30. Chase and Nanaw's plan was to go to Telegraph Road Schnuck’s to get pizza sauce and pepperoni for the pizza bread they were going to make. They already had hoagies and mozzarella cheese. They also bought Mama a cherry fruit pie. Unfortunately, the hoagies were the wrong choice for the bread. The crusts were hard and after they baked them, they were really hard. Chase said they were too hard to eat. So they’re going to try again on Monday with softer bread from Schnuck’s. Chase and Nanak ate the pepperoni and mozzarella and sauce from the pizza bread, and Chase threw the bread off the back deck for the birds. Nanaw will take the other hoagies out to the little house on Saturday for the animals out there. Mama and Uncle Mike went on the brewery tour today and got to see two Clydesdales, Cash and Travis. Mama put the brewery photos below on her Facebook page. Uncle Mike brought a special dinner: Pirrone’s pizza. It’s one of Mama’s favorites. The dance picture below has some friends of Chase on it: the couple on the left is Drew and Evie who went to ICS with Chase.

Thursday, October 8, 2026

This morning before they left for school, Nanaw logged on to Schoology with her iPad and went through Chase’s assignments with him. It only took a couple of minutes and both of them knew what was coming up in the next week. Nanaw thinks they will do it each morning. The deal that Chase and Nanaw made was that she would help him study for tests. Eventually, Nanaw will see if he’ll let her help him study for quizzes, which he still hasn’t agreed to yet. He got a 99 on his Algebra quiz and was happy about that. Nanaw read on the Gibault website that Chase’s friends Drew and Evie are on the math team. They had a match the other day and both did really well. Nanaw’s friend Darlene’s grandson is also on the team, and he also did well. After school, Nanaw took Chase home, and he changed clothes for hockey practice. Then Nanaw drove him there, and Daddy was going to pick him up. Mama was going out with some friends tonight to do the Witches’ Night in Columbia. Chase is looking forward to his four-day weekend. He’s probably going to have breakfast with Mama Friday morning and then come over to Nanaw’s house. Their plan is to make pizza bread. They have to go to Telegraph Road Schnuck’s to get pizza sauce and pepperoni; they already have the hoagies for the bread part, and Nanaw has a lot of mozzarella cheese.

Wednesday, October 7, 2026

Today was a white button-down Oxford cloth shirt day for Gibault students. They were having a mass for one of the priests who had been at Gibault. Chase and Nanaw didn’t look at the school menu this morning, and that’s just as well. The menu listed ravioli for lunch but when Nanaw picked him in the afternoon and asked what was for lunch, he said they changed it to bratwurst. Brady rode home with them, and they dropped him at the Columbia Library for his session with his tutor. Nanaw took Chase back to her house and then went to Telegraph Road Schnuck’s to get a newspaper. On her way to pick up Chase at school, she had stopped at Columbia Schnuck’s to get the newspaper but they were sold out. She got the newspaper and also bought a bag of hoagies because Chase had requested bread. They can use the rest of the hoagies for their pizza bread on Friday, if they do that. She looked for Bosco sticks or cheese-stuffed bread sticks but they didn’t have any. But she did find some pepperoni cheese-stuffed bread sticks, and bought them for Chase. During the day, Nanaw had looked at Schoology on her iPad (the only place she can access it. Her computers give her privacy warnings and won’t let her log in.) It looked like Chase hadn’t turned in one of his Biology worksheets that was due at 8 a.m. this morning so she asked him about it. He said he’d done the worksheet and turned it in. But when he looked it up on his laptop, he found out he had forgotten to turn it in so he did. So Nanaw decided she’ll look at the homework assignments on Schoology each day the way she used to look at the homework assignments on Homework Central at ICS. Chase said he had a drawing assignment in Drawing that he was going to work on tonight. When Nanaw took him home, he showed her the cute little ghost that he was going to draw. Nanaw will take a picture of the drawing and the ghost and include the pictures in Days.

Tuesday, October 6, 2026

On Tuesday morning, Chase and Nanaw went through the study guide for today’s phrases test in English. Nanaw thought he knew the material and would do well on the test. When Nanaw was talking to Debbie at pickup time, Debbie said Brady wasn’t going to the Homecoming Dance. Debbie said it was probably because Chase wasn’t going. When Chase got in the car, Nanaw’s first question was asking how the English test went. Chase said he thought he got a 100 on it. Nanaw told him that if he did, he should pay his tutor. Chase said if he got a 100, he would give Nanaw $5. Then he said, if he didn’t, he’d give her a hug. Then he followed up saying he’d give her a hug no matter what happened. His only homework today was in Drivers’ Ed, and he finished that up fairly quickly. He ate the last of the Bosco Sticks as his after school snack, and Nanaw said she would buy more tomorrow at Walmart. When Nanaw got home from taking Chase home, she checked her email and found a message from ChatGPT, saying her account showed her as being under 17. It gave her a link saying if you’re older than 18, you can verify your age. She spent the next two hours trying to do that with no success. The ChatGPT Bot she was working with finally had her contact the Support area, and they said they would give this to a support person – so I get to talk to a real person who works for ChatGPT – I think. I also think that this all came about because of the Python coding class Chase and I were doing this summer. I told them my 14 year old grand son and I were doing it and somehow they must have marked the account as being used by a 14 year old. So once they get me fixed, I think I’ll have Chase set up his own ChatGPT account and not use mine anymore. The second picture below is the pumpkin that Nanaw bought from Stuckmeyer’s on her way home from Chase’s. They have the pumpkin area set up on an honor system where you put your payment in a big mailbox. Hopefully, everybody does that. Nanaw had her eye on a really big pumpkin but it was too heavy for her to carry so she got a normal-sized one.