Shifting Gears   Baby Boomer…Member Life 2.0…Wife, Mother, Grammie…Bicyclist…GoldWinger…Mensan…Girl Scout…Reader…Knitter…Rotarian

Officially it’s not yet winter but let me declare that I have reached my quota on snow – and it didn’t take much either!  We awoke in Tucumcari, NM yesterday to see lots of white stuff falling from the sky.  The truck was already covered and Mulligan got a very short potty break before we [...]

I understand the whole concept of Thanksgiving Day but I try to remember to give thanks each and every day for the many blessings I have in my life.  We heard a sermon recently that addressed the line in the Lord’s Prayer of “give us this day our daily bread”.  Specifically I need to remember that [...]

On Thursday morning I’m going to participate in my first triathlon.  It’s called a Sprint Triathlon because the distances are short in each event – at least they are short for real athletes.  For someone like me, they are plenty long! The course requires that I run 2 miles which is about the max that [...]

We’ve had a wonderfully long and exhilarating day watching son Mike participate in the Arizona Ironman 2009. We left Mike and Annie’s house shortly after 5:30 and still had trouble getting there for the shotgun at 7:00.  Finally Burl left me off near the bridge so I could watch since he saw it when Mike did [...]

For the last couple of days I’ve been fascinated with watching Mike’s intense preparations for the Ironman competition which is tomorrow.  Last evening he attended the athlete’s banquet and meeting on the campus of Arizona State University.  His best friend, Dan, was chosen to sing the National Anthem so they both got to enjoy VIP [...]

Greetings from Phoenix – the whole family is here which means Mulligan also got in on the family vacation.  He proved to be quite a traveler despite spending lots of time in the back seat of the truck.  Of course Burl put the seat up and installed a platform he built for Mulligan and then [...]

I’ve been checking items off my “to do” list as we get ready for our trip in a couple of days.  One of the most important things I had to do was finish the Christmas dresses for Julia and Lydia so Tammy can deliver them at Thanksgiving.  They were easy to make – the hard part [...]

We usually reserve eating in the dining room for when we have company or on Sunday evenings when I actually use the good china and silver.  But tonight was a celebration of the completion of the last few weeks of chaos and confusion – plus lots of sawdust, noise from the automatic nailer and numerous [...]

When I came to Drury to attend college many years ago, one of the first local icons I heard about was Riverside Inn.  Nestled on the banks of the Finley River just east of Ozark, Riverside Inn was the scene of many fraternity and sorority formals during my Drury days.  My mother-in-law was a huge fan [...]

In this month of giving thanks, I’m thankful for my friends Robin and Vickie.  We three are the Women of Substance – a self-appointed committee designed to critique the rest of the world – or at least those we know – and report to each other on a regular basis.  And of course, all this [...]