…and sometimes win. Eleven years ago, We began a battle with a bureaucracy here in our community. At the time, the worst battle I’d ever fought was with my mother over marrying Husband. So I had no clue how to fight—no armor, no skills, no information. I only knew that our home was in danger and we’d worked hard to make this home what we wanted it to be. I wasn’t about to see it ruined for what I believed was no good reason. The general gist is we live on a small two-lane U.S. highway and the state department of transportation (DOT) had decided they needed to expand it…

…and my back yard is just gorgeous today. Everything is lush and green.  Purple clematis climbs over the arbor by the gardens, vibrant red lilies peek around the pampas grass, which is already taller than me.  Basil and rosemary and lavender fill the air with their pungent scents. Husband just finished the mowing and the trimming, I’ve weeded the gardens, and now we’re sitting on the patio under the umbrella watching a rabbit nibbling in the grass and feeling quite satisfied with ourselves. Later, the neighbors will walk over for our weekly glass of wine and catch-up session. We’ll light the wine-bottle oil lamps, put out chips and salsa, chocolate, …

I’ve had a cantankerous relationship with food my whole life.  Since I became an adult,  I’ve been some level of overweight from really overweight to “you need to lose a few pounds.” And for most of those years, I hated my body. It was fat. Not the American ideal, but curvy and round—not one bit skinny.  For ages, all I wanted was to be THIN. Oh, I’d say, “I just want to be healthy,” but it was a lie. I wanted to be THIN. And I tried every way there was to get THIN–diets, exercise, fasts, laxatives, fiber, you name it…outside of radical chemistry or surgery, I was there. Sometimes…

I’m not sure I have a lot to say about this topic because my parents didn’t actually age–Mom died at sixty, Dad  at seventy-four, and husband’s dad at sixty-five. But I feel compelled to speak to it because it’s a huge issue for so many Baby Boomers. I’m watching my friends’ parents age. Dee’s widowed mom is in her early eighties and lives in an assisted living facility. She sits, sleeps, watches TV, and goes down to the dining room for meals and the occasional game of cards. Dee goes to see her several times a week to take her groceries, do her laundry, and check on her. Emily’s dad…

I miss my kid. It doesn’t matter that he’s almost 32 years old, married, and has been living 2,000 miles away for nearly nine years. I miss my kid. We generally manage to see one another at least four or five times a year. His dad and I get on a plane or the kid stops by here on what we affectionately refer to as a “fly-by.” He comes through town on his way to or from a business trip. We get to see each other pretty frequently really. And why I’m whining I’ll never know because I talk to him almost daily thanks to free long distance on cell…

…you’re turning sixty today! Like you need your little sis to remind you of this fact! Kate is my second oldest sister, which means, yes, I have another even older sister! Because my mom died at age sixty, that number is huge in my life. In a couple of years, it will be my number.  I figure when my time comes, I’ll either be dead like mom or I can safely stop worrying about dying at sixty.  Some days I seriously worry about that; other days it’s just in the back of my hypochondriacal mind. (WordPress tells me hypochondriacal isn’t a word–well, it should be.) Mostly I try hard to…

…is over. About ten years ago, Neighbor Mary and I started swimming at a convent/conference center near my house. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we went to water aerobics at eight-thirty a.m. and then often, I’d swim laps with the sisters on Wednesdays and Fridays. I love to swim…I don’t follow astrology, so I have no idea if Libras are water people, as opposed to air and earth and fire. I just know I love being in the water. I always have. I learned to swim in Lake Michigan. My mom taught all four of us kids when we’d go up to Muskegon State Park for camping weekends.  She insisted we all…