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

The dog days of August have produced zilch in the way of blog inspiration – in fact, the constant 90+ temps and lack of rain are reminding me of Groundhog Day.  The real variables have been weather-related with one or two nights of sleeping under open windows and shorter days which always are a clear [...]

Tonight the Women of Substance decided to take advantage of the 417 Mag August dining experience where the special 3-course meals are $20 per person.  Our choice was Metropolitan Grill which as always was excellent!  Vickie and Robin chose the house salad while I had the Caesar.  I opted for the appetizer of flash-fried spinach [...]

Last year our special toy didn’t run.  Burl fiddled with it and then forgot about it – just left it sitting in the barn, unlicensed and uninsured.  When we got home this spring he started talking about selling it and I told him that was fine with me – we need to start getting rid [...]

It’s been over a week since we went to Joplin to help with the tornado recovery efforts and I still am haunted by the images of that day.  We worked with over 100 Rotarians from Tulsa, Broken Arrow OK, Parsons KS, West Plains and Joplin – a sea of yellow t-shirts proclaiming “Rotarian At Work” and [...]

July has been a busy month for us with Vickie going to church camp and me hosting Camp Grandparents but we managed to squeeze in our monthly diner tonight at Avanzare.  Vickie came with a LLLLLLLOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGG list of topics but sadly many of them aren’t blog fodder.  Here’s what made the cut: Vickie stopped at [...]

If anyone has missed me, it’s because I’ve been hosting the Summer 2011 version of Camp Grandparents for our grandson, Alex.  Alex and his dad, Len, arrived a couple of weeks ago and have split their time between us and the other grandparents.  The idea of Camp GP is that wherever Alex is, his dad isn’t!  [...]

I certainly didn’t forget the birthday of my second-born yesterday – I just never got around to posting a birthday blog for her!  That’s to be expected with the second child – the baby book never gets updated, photos are taken less frequently and they generally learn to fend for themselves at an earlier age.  [...]

Plan A for today was a long bike ride with Jill.  I put air in the tires, filled my water bottle, put on my biking clothes and as I wheeled my bike to the front of my house, here came the raindrops!  GRRRRRR!  As I checked the weather map online, Jill called en route to my [...]

Today my dear friend, and fellow Woman of Substance, Vickie was installed as the president of the Rotary Club of Springfield.  Naturally Robin and I were there to support her along with “Woman of Substance In Waiting” Hannah who is Vickie’s beautiful daughter and my adopted granddaughter.  The new Rotary Queen and her daughter after [...]

I love the 4th of July!  After all, how can you miss with a holiday that features my favorite color combination of red, white and blue?  A holiday when it’s almost always hot – when the primary activities are eating and drinking – when I get to see a parade with a band playing “You’re [...]