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…
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…
Arranging the space in our new house continues a year-and-a-half in. While we have significantly pared down from our previous house and business, we still have more to jettison. We’ve also discovered that the garage isn’t quite big enough to hold lawn tools and equipment along with vehicles, so we decided we needed a shed. Longtime readers of this blog might suspect that Hubby and I are fairly handy, having torn out plaster and lath…
Hubby and I had occasion to visit San Diego last week. While there, we visited a shop called the Sea Hive. It was a combination of a maker’s market and antiques store, with the floor divided up among numerous sellers. One seller, whose area had a sign that said “Gentleman John,” was selling old books. Laying on a round table in Gentleman John’s space were numerous books wrapped in blue wrapping paper. By the blue…
I am surprised I haven’t written about this before, but I love practical Christmas gifts. While some might open a present of socks and groan, I’m like, “Socks? Sign me up!” Here is the funky pair of Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation socks Eldest Son and his partner got me this year for Christmas. They picked this particular pair because they know of my penchant for circles. What makes a gift practical in my eyes is…