After a 30-day trial of wintering in warm weather, I’m not convinced. I find this humorous because this is something I’ve long wanted to do. When we lived downtown Chicago, leaving didn’t make sense, because we could always get out in the winter: public transportation and an undercity pedway made moving around relatively easy. But …
Category: retirement
Starting Over at Seventy Four: Finding Friends
As we say goodbye to 2016, I invite you to consider, along with me, how we've met our friends, those special people in our lives who are there for us no matter what... *** “What about your friends?” my six-year-old granddaughter asked last spring when she was visiting us in our Chicago condo overlooking Lake …
Continue reading Starting Over at Seventy Four: Finding Friends
Our First Day of “Brutal”
We'd been warned, of course. "Just wait," we'd heard. "Winters here are brutal." So it happened; winter started today. I awoke to my usual news station: sections of I-90 closed; schools closed across the state, from Rapid City on the west to us, Sioux Falls, on the east. All schools, I think, but my grandchildren's' …
Drowning in Applesauce
I never dreamed I’d complain about applesauce. But picking apples and making applesauce have become my husband’s new BIG hobby. It started when he helped his sister pick her apples while visiting in MN a few weeks ago. When we got home, he started on our daughter’s trees. And then the applesauce binge started. After …
OLLI, Apples, and Books
Fall: a new season, a new home, a new town, a new everything. Now what? We spent our first three months in Sioux Falls getting settled in our twin home and often feeding our kids and grandkids whose kitchen was being remodeled. We’ve completed those tasks now, and I look out the window of our …
Cartwheels in my Living Room
My daughter reminded me on Facebook that four years ago now I blogged about my husband and I spending Labor Day at Navy Pier in Chicago. She wondered what I would be writing about this Labor Day from our new home in Sioux Falls. Well, it’s this. My life has changed. It’s not been my …
From City Walker to Granny-on-the-go
After six weeks in our new home, I’d say most things are good but some things not. I’ll deal with a few “not’s” today. In my effort to be open to new experiences, I joined my daughter’s fitness center. To my surprise, my husband joined too. Not a problem really, but yesterday we had our …
Writing Essay at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival – 2016
I spent last week at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival taking a class in writing essay, using process pedagogy and taught by Nancy Barry. Look at it this way: the writer explores (writes into) a topic, several iterations, to find out what they really want to write about, and the writer also uses feedback to …
Continue reading Writing Essay at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival – 2016
The Move (8) — Settling In
I’m sitting here at my newly configured desk in our joint study in Sioux Falls that looks out on grass and trees—at least three evergreens and some maples, I think. I will learn more about the terrain as I go along. For now, I see green; no more skyscrapers, Lake Michigan or Millennium Park. Green …
The Move (6) – You Are Where You Live / Setting as Character
As an on-again-off-again dieter, I know the meaning of “You are what you eat.” Depending on the era, I’m hot fudge sundae pudgy or Rye Crisp slim. Now, as an older gal in the process of moving away from my urban high-rise life, I’ve become hyperaware that “You are where you live.” It won’t be …
Continue reading The Move (6) – You Are Where You Live / Setting as Character
Write Along with Me 