Instead of criticizing my driving, just zip it

Many years ago, while driving home from a Canada fishing trip, my buddy Jim and I ran into some road construction in Minnesota.

“Right lane closed 3 miles ahead,” the sign said. Car after car politely pulled into the crowded left lane—and because I was the one driving at the time, I zipped past in the now-much-faster right lane.

“This lane is closing,” Jim said.

“Right,” I confirmed. “In three miles.”

The shed was built for dreaming

The little shed in my backyard was built for me, back when “She Sheds” were featured in magazines and Pinterest boards. I wanted to give it a cute name, something that made it sound like a sprawling estate instead of an 80 square-foot shed kit we bought from Costco. I played around with calling it “Daisy Hill” or “Western Prairie,” but none of those stuck; ultimately it settled into its unassuming identity as “The Writing Shed” or “The Thinking Hut.”

I don’t spend a lot of time out there during the coldest winter months. It’s not too great spending time in there when it’s blisteringly hot, either.

Throwing shade: gardening away from the sun

Change is perhaps the only constant as humans mature and age. While this natural process can bring many unwanted or unwelcomed consequences there are also numerous benefits. Developing a healthy routine, creating stability, and reducing life conflicts are often part of the maturation process. With age comes wisdom is an adage that is actively demonstrated time and time again. Mature adults often have more time to explore interests or hobbies than their younger counterparts. The daily activities of a 70-year-old are often very different than a 30-year-old, and that is a good thing!

Now You Know: May 8, 2025

Please help with a disagreement my husband and I have. Recently, while walking around Wildflower Lake, we noticed a few rectangular picnic tables. I don’t remember seeing them last year, but my husband claims they have been there ‘forever.’ Who’s right?

Maybe the song is right: What the world needs now / is love, sweet love. Love is wonderful. I’m a huge fan of love. But hear me out: Love can be complicated and fraught. Love can bring us together, then turn right around and tear us apart. There’s a song about love for almost any situation, and they’re not all good.

Easter egg mystery solved with a bang

“There’s one missing,” we said, and Jenny, the oldest of the kids, started counting the eggs.

“No, see,” we said, interrupting her, “there were two dozen eggs — 24 — and there’s one missing from these cartons. That makes 23 eggs. There’s one missing.”

Livia and learn

There comes a time in every married man’s life when he has to endure the most diabolical torture ever devised. I am referring to the dreaded time when his wife asks him to accompany her to a quaint suburban town and wander aimlessly through old homes that have been transformed into stores filled with useless dust collecting tchotchke. Such was the case recently when Nancy asked me to go to downtown Geneva for an afternoon of fun-filled shopping. After several hours of my grumbling and pouting, Nancy decided to ease my suffering and take me to an Italian restaurant nearby. This oasis in the sea of shopping was Livia Italian Eatery in Geneva.

Ask an Angel: April 24, 2025

I’m a recently retired widow in my late sixties, and I want to make some positive changes this spring. Now that the warmer weather is here, I feel a renewed sense of energy and a real desire to become more social, especially after a lonely winter.

Wilting flowers

To paraphrase Mother Monster, move or die. The same seems to be happening to Mike White’s series The White Lotus.

Not all classrooms have four walls: Life lessons from the garden

Formal education, while important, doesn’t always translate to success or happiness in life. Education, whether it is at the primary, secondary, or post-secondary level offers us a chance to interact with peers, learn from teachers and create lifelong memories. True education, though, I would argue comes outside of the four walls of a classroom. While I absolutely loved my time at Texas A & M University, I can honestly say that I only use a small portion of what I learned from my professors. In the decades since graduation, it is what I learned from gardeners and gardening that has been my true enlightenment.

Who you gonna call?

The phone rang in the middle of the night and jolted us awake.

Okay, it wasn’t really the middle of the night — but it was late, considering that my husband and I have recently decided that, unlike Cinderella’s carriage, which returns to its original pumpkin state at midnight, we turn into pumpkins much earlier, somewhere between 8:30 and 9.

Out of habit, because bedtime was always such a ritual when the kids were little: bath, jammies, teeth, story, my husband and I have developed our own routine, and even our own vernacular concerning the end of the day.

Double take

Are awards any indication of overall talent? Or are they signs of possible longevity? To paraphrase a line from Frasier; if you can look in the mirror and say you put in the best effort, then let the awards go wherever. It is hard to say, after this last Oscar ceremony, if actors like Mikey Madison will live up to the hype of Anora. But for Best Director winner Bong Joon-ho, there has been a filmography to back up his rise. And what a weird ride it has been, none so weird as Mickey 17.

Food for thought: creating beautiful, lush plants through fertilizing

Chris, my husband, and I began a healthy habit this winter. Each morning, with breakfast, we mix a packet of Emergen-C in a glass of water. Emergen-C is a powder that helps to boost the immune system and provides nutrients such as antioxidants and electrolytes. Since we began taking Emergen-C we have not been sick. While I fully admit, this may be a coincidence, I do appreciate the feeling that we are starting off our day by doing something healthy.

Now You Know: April 10, 2025

My husband and I use both of the gyms, at Prairie Lodge and Meadowview, but we prefer to go at non-peak times. I’m curious, how many individuals use the fitness centers and are there times when these facilities are routinely less crowded?

The early bird gets the deal

They say “the early bird gets the worm” and Rosie has been getting a lot of choice worms since, like clockwork, she wakes us up every morning at 6:15. Seriously, you can set your watch by her. This is followed by her early morning nap at 7:15.

Ask an Angel: April 10, 2025

I’m exhausted. I love my family, but I feel like I’m being pulled in a million directions, and there’s never any time for me. I’m the primary caregiver for my aging parents and in-laws while also raising three kids. My husband helps when he’s home, but he travels for work, leaving me to juggle everything on my own. I don’t resent my responsibilities, I just don’t know how to keep going without completely burning out.

And yet, somehow, here we are

Digging through the junk drawer the other day, I found one of those plastic plugs you shove into an electric outlet to keep the grandkids from getting zapped. It was in the junk drawer instead of in an outlet because my grandkids are now all high-school-age or older, and if they haven’t learned by now what kinds of things belong in an electric outlet and what kinds of things don’t, then maybe it’s time for them to learn the hard way.

But when they were little, my wife insisted that every treacherous death-dealing outlet be blocked from the grandkids’ imaginative explorations. I actually wrote about it once in my column, long ago.

300,000 decisions

My parents, still enjoying good health and living independently in their 90s, are sorting through their belongings in their home of nearly 40 years as they prepare to downsize to an apartment.

It is a big job, and my sister and brother-in-law are doing a lot of the heavy lifting, by virtue of them living nearby. In their spare moments, of which they have very few, they go to Mom & Dad’s house and pick up boxes to take to the donation center. They offer moral support. The job of sifting through a lifetime of belongings is not only physically strenuous, but each unopened box holds the potential of releasing a flood of memories, good or bad: a letter from a long-gone relative; Mother’s Day cards on brittle paper with “I love yous” scrawled in crayon; a serving bowl that brings back a long-forgotten detail from their wedding day.

New blooms: a look at the latest plants of 2025

Mary, my adult daughter, and I recently went shopping. Thanks to her patience and good decorating abilities, I now own a few new home décor items. While certainly not extravagant, each time I walk into the kitchen or living room I smile because these new items that seem to make the rooms more inviting and pleasing.

Spring brings the chance for us to add a few new things to our garden. Much like adding new items to the inside our home, adding something new to the outside of our home will often add interest and brings joy. Thankfully, plant growers and hybridizers have spent years researching and developing new plants for our yards. Often times these plants have been growing in trial gardens across America as a way to ensure that when they are planted in our yards, they will thrive.

A burger round-up

Ah, the wild west!!! A time in American history of lawlessness, cattle rustlers, and gun slingers. This was immortalized by such historically accurate TV shows (NOT) such as Have Gun Will Travel, Bonanza, and our personal favorite, Gunsmoke. This show had memorable characters such as the 6’7” Marshall Dillon, the vivacious Miss Kitty (who we always suspected of running a promiscuous business on the side), and comic relief provided by Chester who was desperately in need of orthopedic work. With this in mind, Jim put on his chaps and spurs, which for reasons we won’t go into, he just happened to have lying around the house, jumped on our faithful steed “Mini,” and blazed a trail to Cattlemen’s Burger and Brew in Algonquin.

Money Matters: March 27, 2025

The good news is that most of the products we are watching were the same price on March 15 as they were on January and February 15. The bad news is that the two exceptions are whoppers. Ground beef was $5.84/lb in March, an increase of 25.86% since January 15; and eggs were $5.97, an increase of 43.51%.

It’s in the bag

How does a relationship last? This is a question that has plagued smarter men than myself. Marriages are tougher. You promise to stick it out through thick and thin. Then there’s the needling and bickering; the yearning for your own individuality while maintaining a unit. And don’t get me started on how to hang the toilet paper roll. (It is over the roll, welcome to my Ted Talk). However, what if your respected jobs require discretion and even a bit of duplicity?

Ask an Angel: March 27, 2025

I’m in my seventies and trying to take care of myself, but I feel overwhelmed by all the conflicting nutrition advice out there. One day, I hear I should cut carbs, the next, I’m told to eat whole grains. Some people swear by high-protein diets, others say too much meat is bad for me. And don’t get me started on all the different opinions about dairy!

A once-in-a-lifetime Law of the World

All the great thinkers of the world have come up with Laws describing how the world works.

Adam Smith devised “The Law of Supply and Demand” in 1776 to explain why some things are expensive and other things are cheap.

Sir Isaac Newton came up with “The Three Laws of Motion” in 1687 to explain why objects either sit still or move around.

Less house, more home

It was 2015, we were in the middle of a pay freeze, and our life was generally chaotic with four little kids, a floppy-eared puppy, and a house that always seemed to need fixing. Toys were everywhere, our savings account was barely worth mentioning, and we hadn’t taken a decent vacation in years.

There were nights I couldn’t sleep, worrying how we would pay for school fees and music lessons and clothing for our children. Something had to change.

Ten years ago next month, we made a big change: we moved into a house half the size of our previous home.

A corned-beef bonanza

Let’s be honest, St. Patrick’s Day is not really known as a culinary holiday. Most people prefer Guiness and Jamesons over boiled potatoes. A perfect example of this is Nancy. If there’s Guiness on tap, she’s there in a heartbeat. She actually survived in Ireland on Guiness and flights of Irish whiskey rather than eating such delicacies as Piggy Cheeks and the delicious blend of oatmeal, pork, bread, and suet known as White Pudding. However, we digress. We found an Irish pub in Downers Grove with an interesting menu with lots of creative and authentic Irish dishes. We jumped into the Mini-Mobile, followed the rainbow hoping to find a pot of gold at Ballydoyle Irish Pub.

Ask an Angel: March 13, 2025

I’m worried about my mom and could use some guidance. She’s always been fairly active, but after having knee surgery last year, she went through physical therapy, made great progress, and then… just stopped. Now she insists she’s fine and doesn’t “need” to exercise anymore, but I can see how much less she moves. She’s more sedentary and complains about stiffness. Even simple things like getting up from a chair are becoming more difficult for her.

Now You Know: March 13, 2025

We moved into Neighborhood 3 a little over a year ago. During our orientation we learned about the Del Webb neighborhoods, and we have a question about the neighborhood numbering. Whenever we meet someone at tennis, or in the Prairie Lodge, one of the first questions that comes up is “What neighborhood do you live in?” Once I’m told, I still have no idea where they live; the neighborhood numbers make no sense to me. Am I missing something, is there a secret decoder ring that will clue me in to where a numbered neighborhood is?

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