Who or what else could M be for? None other than my late husband. Especially since I’m writing this at O’Hare on my layover home from Michigan. It’s about a 3000-step walk from where we landed to the distant concourse and gate that will take me home to SD. I’ve picked out just three of …
Tag: moving in retirement to be near family
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 …
Join South Dakota Authors Saturday – 3-25-17
Support many South Dakota authors on Saturday, March 25, from 10-3 at Prairie Hills Covenant Church off Hwy 11. Come for lunch and help out the PHC youth! My Caring Lessons: A Nursing Professor's Journey of Faith and Self will be there, along with a new collection of essays: Starting Over at Seventy-four: From a …
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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 …
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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 …
The Move (7) — Leaving Five Places
Fifty years ago we moved to the Chicago area, and as I’m contemplating moving again next week, I’m skipping through the five places we’ve lived in my mind. It was a hot sultry summer in 1966 when we took up temporary residence in our Aunt Jennie’s basement bedroom on 57th Court in the western suburb …
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 …
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Growing Older: The Move (3) – “Gloriously Blinded”
I sit here at my desk, overlooking Millennium Park, with a pile of mail, including renewal notices for Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Art Institute, Grant Park Orchestra, a few museums, Lincoln Park Zoo and more. And I’ve had two calls in the last week, Am I renewing or not? If not, they will give my seat …
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Growing Older: The Move (1)
Just six months ago I Kon Mari’d our home, following the advice of bestselling declutter author, Marie Kondo, and picked up each item from ceiling to floor and closet to drawer, asking it if it gave me joy and pitching it if the answer was no. My items talked back to me; my friends who …
Growing Older: Moving to Grandchildren
Yes, you read that right. After eleven years of high-rise living in Chicago’s Loop, my husband and I are moving to a ground-level ranch in Sioux Falls, SD, in an area with lots of grass and evergreens near our little grandchildren. We’ve just told our family and friends. Responses have at first been shock, then …
Write Along with Me 