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

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 [...]

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 [...]