GREAT RIVER speaking event in Big Lake is cancelled due to our snow storm. I’ll keep you updated when we decide to reschedule.
One of the television channels announced what we are to expect to happen in the next five-six weeks–St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, income tax day–and in less than three weeks we turn the clocks ahead. When I taught, I hated the time shift. I liked longer daylight, but my mind was muddled for a few weeks until sleep habits shifted. Now, I sleep in!
This year, I am springing forward in different ways–some health, some writing and researching, some presenting my hometown, Clearwater, Minnesota, topics. I am looking forward to a few of special dates already on my calendar.
I am finishing up a paper about the first woman who was an ordained Methodist minister in Minnesota, Rev. Mary MacNicholl. I thought this would be a small research and writing project. This essay has been so full of surprises and learning opportunities for me. It is 3/4 completed and 25, documented, pages so far. The people I have met that have helped with this project have been amazing. I can’t help think about Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go:
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places! (and meeting Great People)
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy (GAL) who’ll decide where to go.
Frank and I decided we would take a winter trip. We drove to Florida. A decision we have re-thought for future use. We will fly from now on, especially if the trip is going to take us four days of driving. We don’t race on trips anymore. Our bodies can’t handle being cramped in a car. So we stopped along the way for bathroom breaks, food and fuel fill ups, and good nights’ stays. Once we reached our destination south of Venice, Florida, we had wonderful pre-spring vacation on the Gulf side, and the Atlantic side in Florida and Georgia. My goodness, the capris and short sleeve shirts were so comfortable, yet now, a distant but happy reminder of what will come soon. The “Blue Moon,” was bright and beautiful off the Atlantic Coast at Jekyll Island, Georgia.
We had to spring back, though, to reality when we returned from sublime to Super Bowl Sunday and drove through snow storms from Illinois to Wisconsin.
I am deciding and re-deciding what I am doing and where I am going with my writing. I am re-editing Pins & Needles. I’d hoped that would be ready for publication long before now–that has been a story unto itself.
AND, I’ve already scheduled a few events to present historical Clearwater, Minnesota, my historic and fictional study of some of the impressionable women in the community. My first is next Monday in Big Lake, Minnesota at the public library– https://griver.org/locations/big-lake. I start speaking at 5:30.
I’ll keep you up-to-date on where you can find me as I spring forward.
GREAT RIVER speaking event in Big Lake is cancelled due to our snow storm. I’ll keep you updated when we decide to reschedule.