February 21, 2014 I dropped the remote from my fingers and replaced it with my phone. Wait until Bob hears the seven-day forecast I happened upon: highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s—and this in mid-August! I implored him to arrange an escape from his office for a mid-week hike. This weather was too good to waste. He did, we planned, and three days later we met at the trailhead at East Fork State Park. We set off from there at 1:00 pm, prepared to stay overnight and return to our cars sometime …

December 23, 2013 My brain reached its saturation point fifteen years ago; unfortunately, it was about five years before my retirement date. Lesson plans, parent activities in the evenings, organizing the yearly Mary Ingles Festival in town—my plate was piled so high that I couldn’t keep track of everything in the heap. So I did what Bonnie does to maintain her sanity: I made a to-do list. I recoiled at the idea at first. It seemed much more adventurous just to deal with life as it happened. But I could see that I couldn’t put …