So I just wanted to say thanks again to Michigan Diaries for hosting that event yesterday. As part of the MSU Science Festival, Michigan Diaries had kind of a booth set up. Didn't – it was a little chilly, so didn't get the full Listening Garden experience, but that's okay. Yeah, met members of the team for the first time, met Dr. Sneller, met Dr. Wagner. Very cool. Met some members of the team. It’s – I don't know, I was sort of on the fence, whether I should drive up. It's a little bit of a hike, but I mean, it was the first time that the Michigan Diaries had invited diarists to do something in-person. So, you know, figured I'd take the opportunity. I'm glad I did. Definitely glad to come up and meet some of the team.

Science fiction is said to inspire a sense of wonder, you know, if it's done, right it is. Is there moment where I felt a profound sense of wonder. Well, I see that one of your team members looked up at the Milky Way for the first time. There's there's a couple of things that give me sense of wonder. There's been a few times where I've been fortunate enough to be able to just sit in the dark here in the UP, which, of course, we're far enough North, and there's not a whole light pollution. You know, if you know where to go. Like on Lake Superior for example, which is really an awesome place to do this on a clear night to watch the Aurora Borealis, you know, the northern lights. They are absolutely amazing. And I swear I can hear the rush of the universe as it swirled above, you know, over my head and off and towards the horizon and stuff. It's just that really still just instills me with wonder. Seeing stars as a kid and you know, I don't do that too much anymore, but seeing stars in the Milky Way that is another thing that's just, you feel insignificant, you know. I mean it just it's just amazing. Another sense of wonder I have is at again the Lake Superior. The lake is just fantastic, you know up here we call it the lake and everybody knows what lake you're talking about. But when she's roiled up and she's just beating on the shore, she's amazing. When she's calm as glass, she's amazing. It's just a presence, an absolute presence that strikes one as almost a living thing and I don't know I guess you kind of have to experience it. You know, sometimes we wonder where we don't, you know, we're not looking for these little things. I don't know as I'm getting older, I appreciate stuff like that, you know, stop and smell the roses type thing. Another thing speaking of stop and smelling flowers, when we get the first dandelions in spring. If I'm walking down an alley, or taking a shortcut some place or something, you'll see this one lonely, little dandelion just poking its head up through the concrete and blacktop and just sticking its way up. It's just really kind of cool. I don't pluck the…

I've never had a supernatural experience per se. Well, I guess maybe you could consider this a supernatural experience. I don't know. When my husband and I first moved in together, we were living in a different house than we are in right now. And I will preface this by saying that we did not move out because of this experience. It happened a solid two years before we left, but the house that we lived in was a two-story house and our bedroom was kind of on the opposite side of the stairs, the upstairs landing and the it used to have carpet on the stairs and the landing. But then the previous owner had removed the carpet and so it was hardwood floors, you know, but it was original hardwood floors from the 50s, so they creaked a lot. And so it was the, the staircase had a very distinctive sound. We always joked that if we were to raise kids there and they became teenagers, they never would be able to sneak in and out of the house because the staircases were loud. Or that particular staircase was pretty loud. And we had gone to bed one night. We had just like gotten ready to go to sleep. We sleep with our door shut, and we have a white noise maker, and the white noise maker was turned on. The door was shut and locked, we had shut off all of the lights, and then all of a sudden we heard the stairs creak. So we turn off the white noise maker and saw under the door jam that there was light on in the landing and we both looked at each other and we went upstairs together and I saw my husband turned out the light. But it was on and there was a distinct sound of what sounded like a person walking up the stairs and across the landing to the light switch next to our door. And obviously, we were freaking out. We have an alarm system. We have security cameras. We had everything, and none of those were turned on. And we also have the keypad door locks that we can check through an app and all of those were locked. It was probably one of the freakiest things. My husband and I got up out of bed and we checked every single…

Have I ever had a supernatural experience? What happened? Well, let me tell you. I lived in an old old old house for twenty-five years. It was built in 1897, and the original house was. There was a kitchen added and there was a backroom added for laundry, and when I bought it, nothing happened. Months into my ownership of it, when everything was settled and all the boxes were put away, there was an old lady. But before I felt her presence, I smelled cookies. Chocolate chip cookies, to be exact, baking in the kitchen. So I went and checked and nobody had baked any cookies, the oven was cold, but I could smell these cookies baking. I went and sat down. It was about 2:00 in the morning off and I just felt like somebody was poking me telling me to go to bed and ever since I lived there, there was always this. She would announce herself first with chocolate chip cookies. And then you'd feel her or I would feel her presence. As the kids grew up in that house, they come to tell me that she was a nice old lady. My son told me about a time that he was hot and he kept uncovering himself and he was kind of half asleep when he felt the covers being pulled up on him again. My daughter tells me all the time, this was after my son moved out and her and her husband were in the big bedroom upstairs, and the baby was in the small bedroom upstairs and they had a monitor and they looked at the monitor and he was uncovered. And so, she was getting out of bed to go cover him up, and she looked at the monitor and he was covered. And that was the old lady, she would cover him up. She took care of my kids. And the one night, though, that she was poking me at 2 in the morning, telling me to go to bed it kind of made the hairs on my neck stand up. That was as vicious as she ever got. So we lived with an old lady in the house.