Last week, I went on a road trip with some of the board members and staff of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (MCN). I serve on the board and we were carpooling in a giant van to Fairmont, Minnesota, for a board retreat. Because MCN’s St. Paul office is about two-and-a-half hours from Fairmont by car, we planned to make one pitstop during the drive. Prior to the trip, our parking lot conversation led to…
Last Saturday (August 31), as Hubby and I were trying to decide what to do with our day, he made a suggestion that surprised me. He wanted to visit Fort Snelling National Cemetery. His grandparents are buried there and he’d never been to see their graves. The weather was gorgeous, so the visit was pleasant. Upon arriving, I was struck with how very many white stones there are, all lined up with military precision from…
Forewarning: I touch on politics in this post, so if that isn’t your thing, go ahead and skip this. Author John Scalzi, whose work I’ve read a lot of this year, recently wrote a blog post called “Please Don’t Idolize Me (or Anyone, Really)” in response to people searching for a new creative person to look up to after several allegations of sexual assault surfaced against author Neil Gaiman. If you have a tendency to…
I recently returned to an old fiber arts project that I started probably 20 years ago. It’s not uncommon for artists to have multiple projects going at any one time, or for us to start a project and either set it aside for a [long] while or abandon it altogether. This particular project started with a challenge fabric. I was part of a quilting group at the time and that’s where the challenge came from.…
Summer has been busy. It’s been close to two months since I last blogged and I’ve missed it. Work, family obligations, and household operations have kept me away from the keyboard. But I’ve been jotting down ideas for blog posts in that time, so hopefully I’ll be able to share them within the next few months. Today’s blog post is about my experience in breaking a stress ball. Hubby brought home a stress ball several…