Growing up in central Indiana, I’m grateful my dad required me (and my sister) to mow the lawn and bait my own hook. Mom taught us to write thank you notes — I should have thanked her for that. Neighborhood potlucks (or “pitch-ins” as we called them) included cream of mushroom soup in most casseroles, pop to drink, and pie, lots of pie for dessert. While I’ve lived a little south of the Ohio river for nearly 4 decades now, my heart still feels most at home when surrounded by fields of corn and soy beans. So here I am, like a billion other people, convinced I have some interesting observations about life, midlife that is 🙂

I’m not afraid to look at the heartbreaking side of things, and I love laughing at the ridiculous, so I stay pretty busy. My job? Teaching and learning — in higher education, at church, around the dinner table with my girlfriends, in a kayak or a garden — it’s really hard not to learn something new every day — even in — especially in midlife.