The public outdoor pools closed for the year yesterday in our area and, with that sad and impossibly swift seasonal ending, came the realization that my husband Vince and I had not gone down the water slide across the street from our house even one time this summer. Now, you might point out that our [...]
If regions had a flower, I'd like ours to be the sunflower. Friendly, unassuming and resilient, sunflowers meet raging storms with a wink and a Midwestern shoulder shrug. Then, they shake the rain off their petals, straighten their stems and stand tall again. They start each day with enviable cheer, turn their faces toward the [...]
Many will remember the summer of 2020 for its terrible cacophony of pandemic and politics, reckoning and rage. But I am still struck by its silence, the eerie stillness of its streets, the sad spectacle of silent swimming pools and limp park swings, the mute stages and empty playing fields. That’s why, even more than [...]
We ducked under the specter of autumn this weekend and sailed with the wind through one final, determinedly summer day. Sail might be a generous verb for what we did, which involved some tugging and yanking, but eventually we found our flow and let the current carry us for a time. How often do we [...]
Turns out we were a smidge too late for the Sunflower Festival at Bergsbaken Farms this year, but we had one of those summer-perfect, Wisconsin-classic, is-this-a-great-state-or-what days anyway. We started our Saturday with the Cheesehead 5K (which was so fun it deserves its own post). Then we hit the Appleton Farmer's Market, headed Up North [...]