Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

Last summer I spent some time in Forest City, Iowa doing some research for a travel story I hoped to write. In the process I discovered that the owner of the local B&B, The Elderberry Inn , is a distant cousin of mine. Through my new-found friendship with Carolyn, the B&B owner/distant cousin, I found out that she and five other women gather twice a month to paint on porcelain and have been doing so for 30 some years. "There might be a story there," Carolyn said. And she was right. At first I thought I simply had a story about six women who painted together, six women who were keeping the nearly lost art of porcelain painting alive. But upon meeting the ladies - Janice, Marian, Florence, Carolyn, Delores and Marj - I knew there was something extra special about this group of painters. In fact, this group of ladies was so full of life and laughter, kindness and fun that I decided that I had to make another trip to Forest City to do more research for the s...

Wednesday evening (June 13th) Ryan and I had the fun of joining fellow Cannon Valley Velo Club member, Griff Wigley (aka Mountain Bike Geezer ) to learn a little about mountain biking. My mountain biking experience is almost nonexistent - I rode some trails last fall with Ben Witt of Milltown Cycles when  I test rode a Salsa Mukluk . To say that I had fun is an understatement! Since then I've hit some gravel and dirt paths on my hybrid with my daughter, Rose, but I haven't had a chance to actually ride any mountain bike trails since my outing on the Mukluk. My opportunities have been limited, for one, but the other problem has been my lack of a mountain bike.  But then Griff arranged for a beginner's mountain bike for CVVC members and friends at Salem Hills Mountain Bike Trails  at Harmon Park in Inver Grove Heights - I decided that I HAD to go. So I called up my younger brother, Joel, who has an old Specialized HardRock to see if I could use it for th...

Yesterday my son, Ryan, had a birthday. Ryan's been on this planet, a part of my world, for ten years now. And my life is so much better because he is here. With his kindness, intuition and frequent reminders to unplug and relax, Ryan reminds that life is good. That time spent with family and friends is far more important than time spent checking Facebook on my iPhone. That life is about people, positive connections, reading books and talking about dreams way more than it's about things. I fail at unplugging, at living in the moment, on a daily basis. I get stressed easily. I try to check email during dinner. I am easily distracted and discouraged. But I'm making progress. And a lot of my progress in this department is because of a little guy who is not so little anymore - My son. Ryan. One one hand he's a boy so grown up that he takes my phone out of my hands and covers me up with a quilt and tells me to take a nap. And on the other hand he's sti...

I went on a very important bike ride on Saturday - Owen and I biked the Bike MS: Twin Cities Ride to raise money to help people living with Multiple Sclerosis. This ride was extra important to me because I rode in memory of my Grandma, Edith Anderson, and in honor of my Aunt Elaine. Most of my memories of my Grandma are of her in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Why? Because my Grandma was diagnosed with MS when she was in her late 50s. She spent fourteen years in a nursing home and MS took her life when she was only 73. My Aunt Elaine is now living with the disease and MS is making life a challenge for my Aunt, my Uncle and my cousins and their families. I don't often say that I hate things but I'll say this - I hate MS. I hate what it does to people. What it did to my Grandma. What it takes away from families. I don't want to see this disease continue. I don't want to see families suffer as their loved ones struggle with this disease. And that's why I decided t...

April 1st 2012 - April Fools Day - is going to be a big day in my life - and I'm not kidding! First, as most of you know, I'll be staring my 5th round of 30 Days of Biking on April 1st. 30 Days of Biking is a challenge to ride your bike every day for 30 days. I did my first 30 Days of Biking two years ago  during April of 2010 and it really changed my life. Seriously. I'm now a way more active person than I ever was before and my whole family has taken up bicycling. We now spend a lot of family time with bike-related activities. Just today we biked the Midtown Greenway so we could stop at a bike shop/coffee shop called Freewheel Midtown . While at Freewheel we visited with Patrick Stephenson (aka @patiomensch), one of the 30 Days of Biking founders and got fun spoke cards for our bikes. After that, we headed over to another bike & coffee shop, Angry Catfish , for a benefit bike art auction called Big Ring: 2nd Gear . The art auction is a benefit for an organization...

At various points in my life, way more often than I like to admit,  I think of myself as not very productive. Uh, that's so not true but I get it in my brain that I’m sitting on my arse half the time. I’m not. I do think I need to reprogram that part of my brain, though, that part that tells me I’m doing not enough. All I need to do to remind myself that I’m doing “enough” is to look at my kids and see how cool they are - and remember that though luck has an awful lot to do with how people turn out I have also worked hard to be there for my kids and to be as good of a mom as I can be for them. I believe this does make a difference. But sometimes, even with the cool kids as a reminders, it’s difficult to believe that I am doing enough, especially when it comes to my writing work - probably because my writing work doesn’t bring in a ton of money and this darn world we live in puts so much value on the almighty dollar. And sometimes I get caught up in that line of thinking - that a pe...

I celebrated my 45th birthday on the 25th of March. We're pretty low-key about birthdays in my family but always have a fun time. My family - that is my family of origin -  makes a point of going out to eat together to celebrate birthdays. Our dining experience is more about family time than fine food - our favorite Birthday dinner spots are Perkins and Q. Cumbers - and if we give gifts they tend to be somewhat silly or practical. This year on the day before my Birthday I, Owen and the kids met my parents, my two brothers and my two-year-old nephew at Q. Cumbers for a fun birthday dinner. It may sound silly but while I was up loading my plate at the salad bar buffet I had this overwhelming feeling of being loved - not because of the salad bar offerings (which were wonderful) but because my family members all took time to have dinner with me. In our busy world, spending time with people is one of the best gifts of all! Then we walked around Centennial Lakes Park and talked while...