Sophie's Story

        Anyone who knows me well knows that I love the New Year's holiday. I'm a big fan of starting over and taking other chances. The idea of having the fresh slate of a new year makes me really happy. I also like celebrating the new year by eating junk food, staying up late and watching the clock strike midnight.      Something I like to do at this time is to make a list of things I 'd like to do or habits I'd like to develop this year. I don't like to make resolutions because things change during the year and priorities shift. Sometimes I manage to get most of the things on my list done. Sometimes, like this year, I have not.    A year ago at this time I wanted to practice all of my instruments regularly and learn ASL. I wanted to do better with time management and clean up my diet a bit. I also wanted to vary my exercise routine and knot socks.   I didn't get into the habit of instrument practice nor have I made any progress toward learning ASL. My time man

     This has been a different kind of Christmas day for me. Yule log was not on TV this morning. I didn't make a leisurely breakfast of popovers. Instead I woke up a  4 in the morning and tried to get back to sleep. At 20 to five I finally got up, went into the living room and turned on the tree lights. I read a book while Scamp curled up in my lap.    We had practiced our piece for Sacrament meeting a little bit the night before. I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I hoped it would go well.    I fed Scamp, gave him his medicine and sat down on the couch.  I listened to some spiritual stuff on You Tube. I sent Scamp into the bedroom to wake up C and headed to take a shower.    We wanted to get to church around 8:30 so we could practice a little bit. We needed to allow time for our instruments to literally warm up. We were giving someone a ride so we had to leave early.     After my shower I fixed myself a little food. We'd have popovers after church, but I needed a littl

     This past week I did something that I haven't done in a long time. I worked over 40 hours. One of the pharmacists tested postive for Covid which is a mandatory five days off per protocol. At the end of the five days, she still tested positive. That meant that she was going to be gone another five days. Since part of my job is to cover all vacations and time off, I covered her shifts.     It was busy and sometimes hard to keep up, but I also liked it. I got to interact with a lot of people. It was acutally fun.    The downside was that the things I had planned to do at home did not get done. This was compounded by the fact that there was a winter storm this week. I was afraid that when I got off work Wednesday night, we would have trouble getting home due to poor road condtions. Since I had to work Thursday morning, we stayed in a hotel in Hudson.    It was a nice hotel clean and comfortable. There was a hot tub and pool. Had I known about the hot tub, I would have brought a sw

        In the cemetery by St. Anthony's Church in Cumberland, Wisconsin is a small granite stone. The stone says God Bless Our Baby May 22,1935- December 1, 1935. It is the grave of Mary Jane. her parents are my aunt Christy and her husband Jim.     I found this stone when I was in junior high. I'm guessing I was paying my respects to Aunt Christy when I  stumbled upon this small stone. Until then I didn't know about Mary Jane. That isn't surprising since there is a 34 year gap between our births.    I've wondered about her on and off through the years. What was she like? Was she a happy baby or one that was sick a lot? Did she have hair? Did she look like Aunt Christy? Did her older sisters and brother like her? Did she cry a lot?     I wondered what happened to her. She died when she was six months old. Did she get sick? Did she born with some sort of genetic thing that shortened her life? Was there a accident? I'll never know the answers to these questions.

         Over the years I have had a love-hate relationship with Christmas. One thing I always liked to do was bake Christmas cookies. For many years it was the only things that made me happy during the month of December. The bad years were the years when I didn't have time to bake anything.     I started doing the holiday baking when I was un junior high school. I can't even remember the various things that I used to make. One of them was always fudge. The first year I hade it it was very good. Ever since then, I haven't been able to do it. Eventually I stopped trying.    I don't make quite as many things now. One thing I do make is cut out Christmas cookies. I use the recipe that Grandma Story used. I cut them out using the metal cookie cutters we used when we were children. These cookies are always frosted and decorated. I like to have help in decorating the cookies. Sometimes the help comes from C. This year the help will come from my parents. This year I'm goin

     Nearly every time I get my eyes checked, the prescription on my glasses changes. Occasionally it's so small a change that I can get away with without getting a new pair of glasses. Most of the time I have to do something I truly dislike, shopping for new frames.    It used to be that I would save frames that I like and simply have new lenses put into them. Since I now wear progressive bifocals, I had to get rid of the frames I had as they would not work with my current prescriptions.    Finding frames that fit my face is almost as hard as finding clothes that fit my body. I have a small face and not much of a bridge on my nose. The glasses that fit best are children's size, but they are  mostly made of plastic frames that would slide down my nose like a skier on a ski jump. I also prefer something a bit more mature looking.    This means I'm stuck looking in the adult section. I prefer a thin frame since my lenses, even with high index plastic, tend to be pretty thick.

     Ellen has been a friend of mine for several years. She's very artistic and likes to paint. She's come with me a couple of times to visit my parents. When she visits she bring paints, brushes and canvas and helps my Mom to paint a picture. With Ellen's guidance, Mom painted a picture of a poppy that was so good, I had it framed for her.    While they paint, I'm either baking some cookies or making other food. I would watch them while I was cooking. It looked like Mom was having fun. I asked Ellen if she and I could do that sometime.    Sometime finally came on Tuesday. Mac, Ellen's husband, and C decided to go to a movie. It was a historical war picture that Ellen was not interested in. I thought this would be a good time for us to paint. I found a picture of some lavender  and pink flowers that I liked and asked her if we could paint them. She found a corner of the picture that she thought would look nice. The first thing I did was paint the canvas dark green s

     A year or so ago I found a pattern for a 10 Stitch blanket. It is a blanket where you knit a ten stitch strip in a spiral. I liked it because it doesn't matter what kind of yarn you use and it allows for a lot of variation and creativity. I had several skeins and balls of bulky yarn that I wanted to use up. I couldn't think of any other way to use them. This seemed like the perfect project.    There are a few things I have learned in the process of doing this project.     The first is, follow the directions. My blanket has a hole in the middle of it because the first few turns require that you count rows. You knit a certain number of rows rows, knit the turn and then knit the same number of rows again. The reason for this is that you have to join the rows sideways to form the blanket. I didn't do this so I couldn't make the joins hence the hole. I can sew the hole shut.     The second lesson is that things are not as complicated as they seem. I figured out how to d

     The turkey breast is in the crockpot. C made the dressing the night before. We have potatoes and C has agreed to make some brussel sprouts. We have two pies for C and a nice piece of German Chocolate cake for me. Scamp is napping on our bed after a thorough grooming which he enjoyed.    Most of the time when I write my Thanksgiving Day column, it turns out to be a list of what I am thankful for. It's not bad to do this, but I don't want to get into the habit of tying gratitude to things. Today is going to be some assorted thoughts about gratitude.     This week I spent some time with my sister Dana. I brought her some fudge from Door County, something I've done for several years. We sampled the fudge but the best thing was that we got to spend some time together. She also helped me figure out a knitting challenge. What I didn't realise is that I got more out of that help than the ability to make the corners of my ten stitch blanket. It made me realise that sometime

     I am one of those crazy people who likes pumpkin flavoured food in the fall.  I drink pumpkin steamers, make pumpkin bread and smoothies and am game for just about anything pumpkin for about two months. One of the towns that I used to live in had a wonderful bakery where they made pumpkin donuts. I liked these donuts al lot and would buy a half dozen any Saturday that I wasn't working. They would be my breakfast Saturday and Sunday. I haven't lived in a town with a good stand alone bakery since then and I miss those donuts.    A while ago I found out that it is possible to bake donuts. They don't have quite the same texture as fried cake donuts, but it looked interesting. I toyed around with buying a donut pan, but didn't want to spend money on a kitchen thing that would just sit and collect dust.    Last week I was buying some things on Amazon when I decided to see how much a donut pan cost. There were a lot to choose form. In the end I bought a set of two silicon

     I'm so grateful that the midterm elections are finally over.  I can now watch TV and Youtube again without having to see political ads.     I've never liked political ads but every year they get worse and worse. Maybe I'm dreaming, but it used to be that two candidates argued about how public challenges should be dealt with. Now they are too busy slinging mud at each other to say anything about ideas they have to make things better. (Assuming they have are any....)    I'm pretty sure I wrote about this a few years back. If I had the ability to dictate how campaigning would be done this is what I would do. The first thing I'd do is limit the time candidates could campaign to two months. I really don't think that more time is needed. The another thing I'd do is to have a job application for each elected office. Each person running for office would have to fill out this application which would could include a maximum of five references. These references co

     I'm someone who likes to stay in her comfort zone. It's an inherited trait I'm sure, my Dad had one radio engineering job his entire life. He stayed at the same station for 50 years before he retired.    The past several years I have pondered my inclination toward familiarity. It's not a bad trait, but I do need to make an effort to do different things once in awhile. Today I'm going to write about some things I've done (or would like to do) to get out of my comfort zone.    The other day I had lunch with my friend, Wendy. We went to a popular soup and sandwich place near her home. While I was waiting for her I studied the menu. Usually I order the same soup and sandwich combo. Today was the day I was going to try something different. There was a pumpkin soup on the menu. I was going to try it. I've never eaten pumpkin soup before. I've had pumpkin bread, muffins, donuts and smoothies. I've had pumpkin spice steamers. I have even had buffalo mea

       The weather report for Wednesday showed that it was going to be warm and sunny. C and I try to have a date day or at least a date afternoon once a week. This week, Wednesday looked like it was going to be our day. It was perfect because I had a eye appointment in the morning and might need some cheering up afterwards. (My glasses and contact prescriptions always change and not for the better.) C looked around the northern part of the metro for places we could hang out. There really wasn't much within a decent driving distance. (Wednesday night is church night So we had to be home early.)    In the end we went to our favorite hang out place in Minnesota, Red Wing.    There's a lot to like about Red Wing. They have bike trails and bluffs to hike in. The Mississippi River runs along the edge of the downtown area. There's a lot of good places to eat and lots of cute little stores to shop in. There are beautiful parks along the river and on one of the bluffs overlooking t

     I've spent nearly half of my career working in grocery store pharmacies. I chuckle at that now, because when I got out of pharmacy school, I swore I would never do that. Pharmacies located inside other businesses were not really pharmacies, in my opinion, they were just another cog in the big business wheel. While I do still feel that big business has no place in health care, I've also come to realise that health care needs to be where it is accessible. That means places like grocery stores where people can get their groceries and medication in one stop.    The vast majority of the time I've liked where I work. (The ability to get a quick sandwich from the deli doesn't hurt either.) One of the complaints about social media is that people post only the rosy happy things that go on. No one mentions troubles or not so good things. Today I'm going to write about two not so good things that happened in my store recently.    A few weeks ago one of the staff noticed t

        There is a restaurant that we like to go to in Door County.  It's an older one, decorated in an old English style. It reminds me of the fancy restaurant my parents took my siblings and I to eat once to learn manners at fancier restaurants. C and I used to dress up to eat there, in later years we have become more and more casual to the point where I wear a nice pair of jeans and a good sweater. (I've seen people eat there wearing shorts and T shirts.)    We like to get a table by the window because most of them have a good view. We've been seated near the fireplace which is also good.     Mindful of the staffing difficulties that most restaurants in Door County are still experiencing, C made our reservation for an early time when the restaurant would be less crowded. We looked forward to our meal there with anticipation. We had not eaten there in a couple of years.    We were seated shortly after we arrived at a seat near the back window. It didn't have much of a

     There was no trip down Maple Grove Road for us this year. No drive under the yellow canopy of leaves that led us to our former home away from home. Instead we pulled off the highway and drove to the small white building that was the office for the hotel we are staying  at this year.  After we checked in we brought some things things into the hotel and found our room.    It is on the first floor and facing the back of the hotel. The bushes in front of out window give us some privacy.  Inside the room was a large bed, a chair, a table with two chairs, the jacuzzi and the wet bar. It wasn't the homey room we had enjoyed before, It did look comfortable and it had plenty of space. We found a cart and got the suitcases.    After we brought out the suitcases we went to find something to eat. When we got back to the hotel, I did a little exploring. The website said there was a pool and a hot tub. I found both of them. The pool was small, but large enough that I could swim some laps if

     October is American Pharmacists month and today is Women Pharmacist Day. This is the day set aside to celebrate women in pharmacy and the gains they have made.    It's not academic for me. I have lived through some of these changes. When I started working as a newly licensed pharmacist in 1993, there were not many women pharmacists. My graduating class was maybe 60% men and 40 % women. As years would go on the ratio would become 50% and then women would be the majority. When I started precepting first year pharmacy students women by far outnumbered men.   In 1993 it was a whole different story.......    There were doctors who would not let me take prescriptions (back then prescriptions were called in) because they didn't believe I was a pharmacist. Pharmacists were men. I remember arguing with an orthopedic physician who asked me when were women "allowed" be to pharmacists? I blurted out 1963 which is when the first woman graduated from the NDSU pharmacy school.

     I was going through my jewelry armoire when I saw something I didn't expect. It was a necklace. The pendant was a clear glass heart. Inside the glass heart were two small hearts touching, one blue and one green. The pendent hung from a red silk cord.     It was lying there along in the back of the drawer. I was a bit taken aback seeing it there. I didn't realise that I still had it. I had bought it at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival a long time ago. In those days I went to the festival a lot. So much so that I bought a noblewoman's costume to wear when I went. This was before I met C when I was dating someone else. I bought the necklace because it was a romantic gesture. Two little hearts touching in a big glass heart.    Once C and I were engaged, I got rid of all the pictures and memorabilia from that relationship, except for the noblewoman's costume (because it is beautiful and I like looking at it in my closet) and a blender that I got as a present on Valent

     Last week a friend gave me a loaf of bread that her husband made. Bread baking is a hobby of his. I was very happy to receive this loaf. I like homemade bread.    It wasn't always like that. I grew up eating bread that my mother baked. We kids always got a slice when the bread came out of the oven. Sometimes we would put butter on it. I liked to roll the inside of the bread into a ball and eat it. (I was always a weird kid.) One it cooled, I didn't like it so much. Many times I wished we could get store bought bread. Store bought bread isn't as dry as homemade bread and the crusts is not as thick.    Bread baking is something I've always wanted to try. I'm a little nervous because it seems so complicated. You have to let it rise the right amount so that it won't be too light or too dense. The water has to be at the right temperature so the yeast grows but doesn't die. I want to try it because it looks like it might be fun. There's something about ge

     C called me from the garage. "I'm good, Let's do it."     I knew what that meant. We were going to do the 40 miles bike ride that we had dubbed "The Full Enchilada". We had planned on doing it Friday, but Thursday morning, C went for a net shot playing pickleball and injured his calf muscle. I was sure the ride was not going to happen.  Especially since we promised my parents a trip to the Arboretum later that day which would involve some walking.   I resigned myself to the fact that this wasn't going to be the year. I'd have to try to keep myself in riding shape and try again next year.    Instead of preparing for the ride as I planned to do Friday morning, I watched a tech replace the cracked windshield on C's car and did the dishes.     After the tech left C decided to try riding his bike. Maybe he'd still be able to do it after all. He rode a short distance to the library and back. Then he made the call to me.    I hung up the call p

       I spent part of last week watching all the pageantry surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II. I've always enjoyed watching the pageantry of the British monarchy.     There was one member of the Royal Family that really caught my eye, Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise otherwise known as The Princess Royal. She is the second child and only daughter of the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.    When her mother's coffin was brought into St. Giles Church to lay at rest so that those in Scotland could pay their respects, Anne along with her brothers stood vigil over their mother's coffin. It was the first time that a woman had stood vigil. She also walked next to her brother, King Charles III, in any procession where family members walked behind the coffin. This was also a first. She did these things wearing a military uniform as she holds several military titles mostly naval.    I've always liked Princess Anne. She is the sort of woman I can identify with. She dr

     I was visiting my parents when I got a text from C. Queen Elizabeth II passed away in Scotland. I paused for a minute in disbelief. I didn't realise that she was ill or significantly more frail. She just met with the most recent Prime Minister (a woman).     Even though I live in the United States, a country that fought a war in order to be free of things like monarchy, I felt a little sad. To be honest, I liked the Queen. Even though she had no role when it came to actual governing, I liked seeing a woman in a position of power, even if it was because of birth. I was hoping that she would live to be 100 like her mother and husband.     One thing I do like about the monarchy is the ceremonial role that they play and that that role is stable. I sometimes wish we had an equivalent here. We have a President, but that changes every four to eight years and at any given time there is a portion of the population that does not support him and sometimes actively works against him. The

     C and I have had a goal all summer. We want to bike the entire Cannon Valley Trail both ways. This is a distance of about 40 miles. It would be the longest ride we've done. We started calling it "The Whole Enchilada".    We have spent much of the summer training for it. We've ridden half the trail using my Runkeeper app so we would know our average speed. We've started our rides from various places on the trail so we could decide where the best place to start would be. We've talked about whether it would be best to power through or if we should plan some rest stops. We planned to take extra drinking water and some snacks with us in a small backpack.    We were getting close to ready when the accident happened with my bike. Once my bike was repaired, we decided that we would have to delay a bit. I needed to get used to my new seat and handlebar grips.     Finally we decided the day had come. Our route was planned. The snacks had been purchased. We felt rea

     It started with a sore throat, so sore that swallowing hurt. They don't happen very often, but I have had them before. No big deal. A couple ibuprofen and get on with the day. This went on for a couple of days.    Then came the fever. That was when I realised that this what not my usual very bad head cold.  We had several Covid tests in the house but they were all outdated. We opened them up to use them anyway and found out that the vial of liquid for the sample had dried up. I suppose that we could have put on our N95 masks and gone to get new tests, but we felt it was best to stay home.    I knew it was going to happen someday. I'd been vaccinated,boosted and careful. However when you work with the public, especially sick people you're going to catch something, it's just a matter of time. All of the staff at the pharmacy had it already except for me and one tech. I have to admit that I was hoping that I'd be one of the asymptomatic ones or that my O blood typ

     On Friday I could feel the beginnings of it. A dry scratchy throat and a thirst that never seemed to be quenched. I don't get sick very often, so when something is about to start it's very clear.    By Saturday the laryngitis had set in. I was lucky I was working with Chrys, who was willing to answer the phones so my voice could be spared for the things I had to do. I had taken some ibuprofen to help with the inflammation in my throat and drinking as much water as I possibly could. I got through the day and went home to rest.    Sunday was a little bit worse. My throat was sore in addition to being dry and scratchy. My voice was definitely worse. The occasional coughing spells did not help. Thanks to Chrys, I managed to get through the day. My next shift was the closing shift on Monday, I was not looking forward to it.    After dinner on Sunday night I started to get cold. Things were getting worse. I was now running a fever.    Clearly I had caught some type of virus. I k

     Gardening can be a frustrating hobby. For most of my life I've been able to keep only extremely hardy plants alive. When we moved into our house I acquired a garden along with a wish from our next door neighbor to "do something with it". (It was a mess of out of control plants and weeds.)    Over the years I've managed to grow things in it, some years more successfully than others.  Lately I've had a desire to grow more vegetables and more kinds of vegetables. My Dad suggested we try growing carrots. Since carrots are my favourite vegetable, I thought this was an excellent idea.    There were a few problems starting out. The first one is that carrots are grown from seed. I hadn't grown anything from seed since I was a kid. I don't have any place in the house that has enough light to start things at the end of winter. When it is time to put the garden in, we buy plants from a local nursery. We got the garden in late this spring because of cold weather

   A few months ago I saw the father of a woman used to know in the store. Once he figured out who I was, I asked him about Lily, her husband and children. I only remember on line from what he told me. "They are not together anymore." We chatted for a couple more minutes and then he went to check out.    I stood there for a few minutes, stunned. They are not together anymore. Lily and Rick were dating at the same time C and I were. In fact, they had been together longer. I remember going to a Toastmaster event where Lily was there and Rick couldn't attend. She put a picture of him on the table near her so that he could be there in spirit. I thought it was very cool and romantic.    I'm not sure when they got engaged, but I know that they got married in April a few months before us. C and I attended their wedding dance. They both looked happy and ready to start their new life together. Ten years later, we had dinner together to celebrate our mutual ten year wedding ann

     This is one of those days where I am sitting at the computer with no clear idea of what I want to write about. I have a few random thoughts, but nothing that would make one long column. So today is just going to be a few unrelated things that have been sitting in my head. Enjoy them (or not)    For the past few months I've been reading about the adventures of Kate and Meghan or to give them their correct names, The Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex. I really don't want to read about them, but I allow myself to get sucked in. The one thing that catches my eye when I read some of these articles is how they don't like each other. Most of what's written is critical about one of them. Kate is unfriendly and unsupportive of Meghan. Meghan plays is picked on, bullied and treated badly or is always trying to get attention.     I really dislike the way the media seems to pit these two women against each other. I suppose it generates more attention for the sites

     As part of an effort to get the know the women in Relief Society better, each of us in leadership were given a list of names of women to reach out to. It didn't have to be anything big, it could be a text, a letter, or maybe bringing a treat of some kind.    I struggled with what to do. I wanted to do something meaningful, not too expensive and not too time consuming. I asked Wendy, the other counselor, what she had planned to do. She was going to make a treat and deliver it. I'm a pretty good baker, but I decided against that mainly because of the time it would take to deliver the treats.    An idea came to me while I was talking to Wendy. It seemed small and silly, but I told her anyway. She liked the idea so much so that she said she would not mind getting one. What I thought of doing was making an origami heart and writing a small note on it to give to the women on my list. With Wendy's encouragement I decided to do it.    Origami is something that fascinates me. T

     It's August which means that I'm getting emails from a few places I patronize offering me something free on my birthday. There are some people I know who sign up for various things so they can collect on their birthday month. I'm not one of them. Too much work.     I would like to take issue with two such offers that I recently received.     The first is from a company that makes natural hair and skin care products. I have a lot of strange allergies some of which I've not been able to nail down to a certain compound. So far, I have not had any allergic reactions to anything I've used from this company. I joined their loyalty program and I get something for free on my birthday. It used to be a vial of perfume. I like the perfume, but I never used up the vial before my birthday came around again I got another vial. Now it is a bottle of scented oil.    The problem is that I have no use for the oil. You are supposed to use it for your cuticles, in a bath or as a m