There have been 48 long hours now to try to grasp the magnitude of what happened to Moore, Okla. Just 24 hours before a massive tornado struck the town about 200 miles to our south, my family and I were hunkered down in the basement of my northeast Wichita home while we listened to updates of a “massive, destructive wedge tornado on the ground approaching Mid-Continent Airport.” The home that I own in West Wichita sits on the northwestern final approach path to…

Continue Reading

I’ve about had it with infirmary. Seriously, all I have is a 3-week-old hairline crack of the kneecap and I even talked my doctor into a minimally restrictive immobilizer. Still, there are SO many things I can’t do, or at least can’t do as easily and painlessly as I am accustomed to doing them. Wouldn’t you know that this would also be the time that one son-in-law is nursing a tear of wrist cartilage – great daddy that he is, he saved the 20-month-old…

Continue Reading

Ah, snow days. It’s been a long time we had snow days in Wichita, let alone two at the end of the week and two more at the beginning of the next week. I hadn’t realized how long until the gorgeous snowfall we woke up to on Tuesday morning hit me as perfect for children on sleds – wet enough to pack down nice and slick, deep enough to last with weather warm enough to making playing outside fun without frostbite risk. When I made calls to the grandkids, however, I…

Continue Reading

I just learned something. You know those jitters you get when your kid is competing at something and you just so badly want her to do well, but it is out of your control and you just have to watch and hope she remembers everything she’s been taught. Here’s the news: When it’s your grandchild, it’s twice as bad. My granddaughter, Alyssa, who is 9 and in 4th grade, was a contestant in the Lawrence K-12 Virtual School all-school spelling bee this afternoon…

Continue Reading

I never cease to be amazed by some of the questions and requests that come my way courtesy of my crowd of grandchildren, who are growing up so fast and expanding their sphere of knowledge at an amazing rate. An example comes from just one day this week. The phone rings and its fourth-grader Alyssa. “Grandma can you bring me some pipe cleaners and some colored cotton balls? At least three colors?” “Sure, Alyssa,” I say. “I can bring you those. What do…

Continue Reading

Saying Good-bye Is Never An Easy Thing My extended family lost a beloved member this week, but we celebrate a long life, well-lived Sometimes time passes and you hardly notice. Then, time passes and you realize that so many things have changed that the world is forever different. One of those changes involves age and the inevitable process that eventually means the end of life on earth. This week, we lost a member of my extended family – someone I had admired long…

Continue Reading

I have a BIG family with lots of small children and I’m reminded as the holiday season nears that I have a great deal to be thankful for. Each and every one of the nine grandkids who will be at my house are a blessing in their own right and loved almost beyond comprehension at Grandma’s house, where the primary rule is “anything you want (insert name), darling.” My second-oldest granddaughter, Alyssa, has developed an interest in cooking and she’s…

Continue Reading

When you are a true horse lover, you just have to appreciate the splendor of the Budweiser Clydesdales, who are one of the attractions at today’s openingC of the 3i Show in Dodge City. Their royal accommodations in the dirt-floor portion of the new Western Bank Expo Center were big enough to make the trailer that transports the giant Percherons look like toy truck. As for the horses, they seemed a heck of lot more interested in the big feed bunker of hay than the landscaped…

Continue Reading

The missing winter turned into the early spring this year and all forms of warm weather flora came to life early. Including my annual nemesis, Bermuda Grass. If I haven't mentioned it before, I hate this stuff. Talk kochia and marestail and waterhemp all you want, my definition of weed, courtesy of a long-ago biology teacher is "any plant that is growing where you don't want it." And in my world, that, for sure, is Bermuda grass. The problem is, you can't kill this stuff. You can knock it…

Continue Reading

Santa found every single most-desired item on the lists this year. No small feat when you are talking grandkid numbers in the double digits. But perhaps the greatest kudos go this year to the helpful people at our local farm supply store -- not where you'd first expect to find the perfect gift for the urban 3-year-old, which is probably why it was there. Baby Geneva, having made what appears to be a full recovery from her lymph node surgery, had one big request for Santa: a springy…

Continue Reading