Blog Posts
Kim and Tom’s retirement dreams were shattered when Tom had a stroke five months ago. Married for 35 years, they live in a small town north of Cleveland. When Kim turned 60 three months before Tom’s stroke, she retired from her career as a social worker. Tom was a heavy-equipment operator, and they planned for him…
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Overwhelmed by the throng of people whooshing past me, I drifted to the outer edge of the pond, unaware that I’d wandered onto thin ice. Suddenly, the ice gave out under me—the next thing I knew I was up to my armpits in water, clinging to the edge of broken ice. The blue sky and…
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My father fumed as he came out of a meeting with the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. It was the early 60s, and he had just pitched the need for the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL) to install a computer system. The Regents had summarily dismissed his proposal. One of the Regents had scoffed at…
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After writing signatures with our non-dominant hands, we agreed that the action was clumsy, unnatural, inefficient—and our signatures turned out distorted. I was taking a certification course to become a facilitator in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) with a group who primarily represented the helping professions (social work, education, counseling). One of my innate, left-brain preferences came vividly…
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Shivering by the side of the pool, my seven-year-old-self did not want to jump into the water. The pool overwhelmed my senses; it was located in the cavernous basement of a 55-year-old YMCA (built in 1909). Kids’ voices echoed off the walls and the damp, rank air assaulted my nose. My sisters were already in…
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With sub-zero temperatures predicted for the holiday weekend, we decided to order a jigsaw puzzle and chose a picture of Santa’s Workshopthat was supposed to glow in the dark. On Christmas Eve day, we set up the 1,000-piece puzzle on a portable table in the center of our gathering space. An hour into the project, it…
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Halloween Night of 2008, my 11-year-old son, Jackson, was the last of my kids to have friends over before trick-or-treating. His older sisters had moved on from the “childish” fantasies at our house to boy-girl parties and teenage antics. Jackson thought he and his friends should trick-or-treat alone, but his friends’ moms were not on…
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I vividly remember the day in third grade when a teacher touched my life. Done with my classwork and tired of staring out at the dreary landscape of late fall in Wisconsin, I wandered over to the bookshelves to browse the books. When Mrs. Athnos came over, I thought I was in trouble … for…
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After enjoying a pleasant picnic on an island in Lake Minnetonka, our friend Cindy and I gathered up dinner gear as the sun slipped into the horizon, leaving a splash of color behind. Busy chatting as we set up for a campfire and tucked gear away before dark, we didn’t notice that the sky had…
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When I got home after receiving my lay-off notice from General Mills, I tossed my severance packet on the couch, joined my husband on the porch with a glass of wine, and started brainstorming names for the business I wanted to start. After working on the naming challenge for about six weeks, I was…
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