The sobering thing for me about turning 76 is that I'm getting closer than ever to 80. Eighty! My head tells me I'm 29, my body says 99 on some days, and the me that's hanging around between these two ages is now on the way to 80. The most joyful thing about turning 76 …
Category: aging
Changes in Nursing Since I Retired
Sitting at my husband's hospital bedside recently, I marveled at the changes I saw in nursing since I retired just seventeen years ago. I know I sound really old, but here's a list of what I saw being done differently: The endless use of gloves: I only wore gloves if a patient was in isolation. …
Coincidence Anecdotes for the New Year
"Room 373," the hotel clerk said. I sighed with relief. I'd been staying at numerous hotels in the past year and trying to remember room numbers had become a nuisance. But 373 instantly registered as the number of the hymn, Beautiful Savior, in the red Psalter Hymnal of the church of my childhood. The hymn …
Growing Older: Relationships
We've just returned from a trip to MN, followed by a trip "back east" to Michigan and Chicago, to see family that included my first visit back to the cemetery where my sister Esther was buried last April. Bittersweet, for sure. And we saw a lot of friends. Just before those trips, I hosted a …
An Apple Hobby
What do neighbors, gas stations, construction sites, churches, and nonprofit homeless shelters have in common? No guess? Each has been the site of repeated visits from my husband this fall in his second year of apple picking. After a lot of non-farm activity in our eleven years of living in downtown Chicago, last fall, during …
The Move (10) — Musings at a Year
Are you someone who does not feel old but has awakened one day to discover you are old? Do you know you’re entering another phase of life but don’t know what to think about it? Are you facing life with no career plan after living a life filled with plans? I hope if you’re like …
Preparing for Death
Morbid, right? In a sense, yes. In another, no. Around twelve years ago, my four older siblings and their spouses started planning for their funerals by buying cemetery plots. I followed their actions via our email chats. Since I’m five to eleven years younger, I saw no need to start planning. Now, unbelievably, six of …
Caring Lessons Book Signing – July 22, 2017, 9-12 noon
Run on over tomorrow morning to Reach a Reader Bookstore in Sioux Falls for their July sale. Located at 101 N. Minnesota Ave (on the lower level of Canfield Interiors), this inspiring bookstore supports adult literacy programs (and appreciates their many volunteers). I am happy to have the opportunity to be there also for a …
Continue reading Caring Lessons Book Signing – July 22, 2017, 9-12 noon
Write Along with Me #2 : Tell It Slant
When I read that a suggested reading for my recent Write-by-the-Lake workshop with Amy Lou Jenkins was Miller and Paola’s Tell it Slant, I immediately got gut pain. Some years ago, during a writing workshop, the teacher had shown a page of an essay I’d written on a screen and asked the group of about …
Write Along with Me…
The fun is yet to be! Come with me, in spirit, to the Write-by-the-Lake Writer's Workshop & Retreat at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. I’m getting ready to attend this retreat next week. And oh, what fun it is to prepare. I want to remind you, as I’ve done before, that your words will …
Write Along with Me 