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

It was late last Saturday afternoon.  I was home alone fixing dinner for the troops who were scattered about while I had a few quiet moments to myself.  The iPhone rang but I didn’t get to it soon enough – but since it was one of my kids I immediately dialed back while multi-tasking away.  [...]

Last week was my official Celebration Week – it was my Birthiversary or Annivirthday – whatever you want to call it!  It’s the one day of the year when I not only become a year older but more importantly, celebrate the day I got my best birthday gift ever – my dear sweet husband, Burl.  Burl [...]

1995.  The hot romantic movie for single ladies that year was “The Bridges of Madison County” starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep.  I saw the movie with my friend Becky and we joked that if some handsome stranger strolled into our lives for four days we probably wouldn’t know how to act.  We were both [...]

Even though I’m 1300 miles away for the winter, Women of Substance know how to keep connected.  So when Robin and Vickie spent an afternoon at the outlet malls in Branson, I demanded a full report.  Here’s the scoop on our lives for the last week or so: Even though they fit like a glove and [...]

Our annual westward migration is behind us and no matter how much I wish the drive would be less than 1300 miles, it’s not!  This year we loaded the trailer with goodies for ourArizona home which meant there was no room in it for the motorcycle – so Burl got to play Easy Rider while [...]

Vickie scored a coupon from 417 Magazine for free queso at Cantina Laredo so naturally as Women of Substance we couldn’t pass up a great deal from Gary and Joan!  Vickie also offered to drive to tonight took us south to Branson for our first-ever out-of-town dining experience.  Not only did we get super yummy [...]

David Selznick’s 1938 cinema masterpiece has always been one of my favorites so we couldn’t pass us an opportunity to see it on the big screen at the historic Gillioz Theatre last weekend.  When I was in college, the Gillioz was one of the four movie theatres in Springfield – the others being the Fox, the [...]

It’s the last night of summer 2011 so Women of Substance marked the occasion with al fresco dining at Touch.  The mild weather made it a perfect night to be outside and away from the noisy bar area and we had our side of the patio to ourselves all evening long.  Vickie and Robin got [...]

Continuation of blog titled “Honor Flight”…………. We left Abe Lincoln and as we descended the stairs of his memorial we saw evidence of a movie being filmed.  Naturally we had to investigate and discovered they were filming an episode of the TV show “The Firm.”  We didn’t get to see much action and since I’d [...]

Sometimes an experience is so emotional that it takes a few days for me to digest it and be able to put my thoughts in words.  That’s been the case for me for the past couple of days after Burl and I had the honor of acting as guardians for two World War II veterans [...]