While I was working, I regularly attended state and national conferences that always included a keynote speaker. Does anyone ever remember who the keynote speaker was or what s/he said? Probably not, unless it was something exceptionally good or exceptionally awful. I can think of examples of both, but even so, I only remember the tidbit of good or awful and nothing else of the speech.

One of my good tidbit memories is the speaker who began by asking audience members to raise a hand if they’ve been thanked too many times. No hands were raised. The speaker followed up by asking audience members to raise a hand if they are just one “thank you” away from too many times. Again, no hands were raised. A little bit farther into his presentation, the speaker said that it’s always good to say “thank you” and that, if you do, people always appreciate it. On the other hand, he continued, “If you write a thank note, they post it on the bulletin board.”

I received some bad news in February. Leila, one of the members of the Orchard Street Gang (OSG) died February 18. She is the first one of us to die, and it will be sad to meet as a group without her in the future.

I met four of the OSG members on my first day at college over 60 years ago (August 1965), and we have been BFFs ever since. Eileen’s dorm room was on one side of mine, and Leila and Barb had the room on the other side of mine. The Orchard Street house had room for six, so Eileen invited two of her friends from nursing school–Carol and Lin–to room with us as well. The six of us had so much fun living together! For all of us, it was our favorite year of college. Even better, we still have just as much fun when we’re together. Four of the OSG members were nursing students; Leila and I were the exceptions, with majors in education. Leila and I frequently rolled our eyes at each other when mealtime conversations turned into medical discussions, and we joked about it being our duty to come up with something to talk about besides blood and guts while we ate dinner together.

With the six of us living in five states (two live in the same state), it’s hard for all of us to get to every reunion. Here’s a photo of our 2018 reunion in Madison. (Back row L -> R: Eileen, me, Carol. Front row: Lin, Leila. Barb is missing.)

Here’s a screen shot of our 2020 Zoom reunion. (Top: Eileen, me. Bottom: Leila, Barb. Lin and Carol are missing.)

The six of us came up with such a good system for coordinating household responsibilities, that all of us applied the basics of the system in our own households. Breakfast, lunch, and weekend meals were on our own, but we ate weeknight dinners together. We had a rotating cooking schedule for dinner Monday through Thursday evenings, paired with a rotating schedule of two people nightly to do the dishes afterward. On the evening you cooked, you were never assigned to do the dishes. Saturdays were for group cleaning and grocery shopping. Each of us cleaned our own bedrooms, but we had another rotating schedule for cleaning the bathrooms and living areas of the house.

Each of us paid one-sixth of the $350/month rent and contributed $5 weekly to a household kitty. Yes, it was 1968-69, but I still find it hard to believe that $30/week paid for the telephone (the other utilities were included with the rent) and groceries for six people. We grocery shopped together from a list. Luckily, Lin had a car at school and we could drive to the grocery store and didn’t have to carry the bags home. If there was any money left afterward, we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts on the way home for a treat. Imagine! A week’s worth of groceries for six people plus one-fourth of the monthly phone bill and we often had money left over from the $30 weekly kitty to buy donuts!

The University newspaper was called The Daily Cardinal. During Fall semester Orientation Week–a madhouse at a school with 35,000+ students–subscriptions to the Cardinal were sold at card tables on campus sidewalks. You wrote your name and address on a list at the table and gave your money to the table attendant who put it into a box. The crowds were huge and the process was very free-flowing and very chaotic. More than a half-century later, don’t tell the University that a week after Orientation Week, one of us (no names here) called the Cardinal office and said we’d ordered the Cardinal during Orientation Week, but it wasn’t being delivered. (This was actually very believable.) The result: we got a free newspaper subscription for the school year. When you’re short of money, you need to be clever about making it stretch.

The last time I saw Leila was in September 2024. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease over 15 years ago and had recently moved to assisted living at that time. At our September 2025 reunion, Leila was hospitalized for a few days while the rest of us were in town, so she couldn’t join us.

One of my favorite memories of Leila was an evening when she came home from her waitressing job (all of us worked part-time) and was counting her tip money at the dining room table. One of the other women asked her how she could make that much money in tips in a single evening. Leila replied, “You compliment the women and flirt with the men.” That memory of Leila always makes me smile. She will be missed.

In January, we got a new washer and dryer. More than one person told me I’d hate it, because the new washers and dryers are awful compared to the old ones. I said I wouldn’t, because every consumer site I checked for reviews and ratings put Speed Queen in first place, noting that it comes with a 5-year warranty and has a life expectancy of 25 years. Why? Because Speed Queen makes a mechanical model, as opposed to a hi-tech model. I have dials to turn, not electronic panels with a zillion settings to choose from. Fewer parts, fewer things that break.

Unfortunately, my dryer did not do a good job of drying my clothes, and everything came out damp. Only the timed settings worked, so I couldn’t use permanent press, etc. Before a serviceman came to the house to diagnose the problem, we were advised to have our dryer vent cleaned out. If we didn’t, the first thing he’d tell us to do would be to have the dryer vent cleaned professionally, and he’d charge $115 for the service call to say that.

Although Ted regularly uses our leaf blower to blow out the vent from the laundry room to the outside, it’s been a number of years since we’ve had it professionally cleaned, so we made an appointment for that service. The serviceman said he wasn’t removing much lint compared to what he usually does, but he did hit a blockage at one point. This might be better than most of his customers, but I don’t think having the vent professionally cleaned was a bad idea even though, as it turned out, that wasn’t the problem with the dryer.

With that completed, the dryer warranty serviceman came to the house. Everything he checked seemed to be working properly. He asked me for a damp dishcloth that he could put into the dryer to test it and then diagnosed the problem as a faulty thermostat. How could he tell? When he started the dryer, it indicated that it was heating. He told me the heat cycle turns on and off to avoid overheating, but mine didn’t turn back on. He pointed out that there’s a barely audible click sound each time the heat cycle restarts and my dryer wasn’t making that sound.

He ordered a new thermostat, came back and installed it, and all is well. I did laundry over the weekend and all my clothes dried. Oh, happy day!

I love to see all the blooming flowers and trees in the spring. Unfortunately, we have two “stupid” trees–our two early spring magnolias. Every year, they are as eager for spring as I am, so as soon as we have a few warm days, they open their buds to show off how pretty they look.

Except for one year in the 15 years we’ve had these trees, there has always been a severe frost while these trees are in bloom and, the next day, all the blossoms are wilted and brown. This year, they were happily blooming and, 3 or 4 days after they opened, the overnight temperature dropped to the low 20s and the daytime high afterward was in the upper 20s. Naturally, all the blossoms turned brown. Again.

Our daffodils, on the other hand, must be among the hardiest bulbs in the universe! In Fall 2024, we had warm temperatures through most of November. When the first snow fell, some outdoor growth was still green. Enjoying the warm November, our daffodils started growing and were about 4 inches tall when the first serious frost hit and winter arrived. I was disappointed, because I assumed that, since they had already sprouted, we could forget about seeing daffodils blooming in our yard in Spring 2024. Unbelievably, the 4 inches they grew remained green and above ground all winter and–lo! and behold!–they burst into full bloom in the spring.

This year, they were happily blooming again when we had that killing frost (above). When I looked out the window the next morning, every single daffodil stem had fallen and was lying on the ground. I was surprised to see that the blooms did not look wilted or brown. I was even more surprised when the temperatures warmed up (we topped 90 degrees 3 days after the frost) and the daffodil stems started rising. Only a few lacked the strength to stand, but they all continued to bloom brightly.

Years ago, we had some crocuses at the front door. I loved them, because they were the first announcement of spring, blooming in February, often while there was still snow on the ground. Last fall, Ted planted some more crocuses for me. They weren’t eager to come out into the cold to start growing, so the daffodils bloomed before the crocuses. We had a few blooms, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I hope we have more next year.

Every spring, when the forced bulbs appear in the grocery stores, Ted buys me a pot of spring flowers. This year, it was red/white tulips.

I’ve never seen tulips with an edge like this on the petals.

Flowering spring bulbs are one of my favorite treats from Ted. You can see why I love that guy so much–he plants and cares for all these spring flowers to bring joy to our yard during my favorite season of the year.

This afternoon, Ted handed me a wrapped gift. It’s not my birthday yet, so I asked him why I was getting a gift. His answer: To celebrate the great news we received on March 6–and also maybe an early birthday gift. I couldn’t imagine what it would be, and he said he didn’t think I’d ever guess what it was. He was right.

After I opened it, Ted showed me how it had arrived. The lumpy white things are cooling packs; the inner lining of the box is insulation to keep the bag in the center from melting. Ted said it was still cool when it arrived today.

I was shocked and might have gasped when I saw what it was: Läderach candy from Switzerland! Later, Ted showed me the enclosure that listed all the places it’s for sale in the U.S. The closest to us is Chicago.

We bought some of this candy when we were in Geneva on our 50th anniversary trip. If it’s not the best chocolate in the world, I can’t imagine how any other chocolate could taste better.

Ted was right. I never would have guessed what was in the box. We occasionally still mention how good this candy was, and it’s nice to know that we can get more of it closer to home. Ted chose the perfect gift to celebrate March 6.

P.S. Ted said it’s all for me, but I couldn’t enjoy it without giving him half. It’s a taste experience that’s much better if it’s shared.

While I attended grad school, I worked full-time, had 0-3 children living at home (depending on the year), and carried 6 graduate credits. That meant I had 6 hours of class plus a 30-minute drive back and forth to the campus every week after my workday, and my study time at home was at least 20 hours per week. The result: I pretty much gave up exercising because I didn’t have time for it. I achieved three post-graduate degrees–two master’s degrees and a doctorate–and graduated for the last time in December 2005. I love to exercise and I missed doing it, so my New Year’s resolution for 2006 was to get back to regular exercising.

One of the employee benefits at the community college where I worked was free use of the Fitness Center and free classes. It was winter, so I started by going to the Fitness Center at the end of my workday and doing “the circuit”–a series of equipment arranged to work out at one piece of equipment, then move to the next one through the circuit, gradually warming up and working every part of your body. One day, while I was doing the circuit, a Fitness Center employee invited me to do Pilates with her, so I did and I loved it. Eventually, Theo (the employee) had a group of 5 people informally doing Pilates with her. She decided to become a certified Pilates teacher so she could be paid to teach Pilates classes and after that, we were able to exercise in a dedicated exercise classroom, complete with mirrors to monitor our form, rather than in an open corner of the Fitness Center.

Ted and I were getting older by then (shocking!) and we were beginning to feel a little stiff when we got out of bed in the morning. I’d been doing some stretches at home to loosen up, but Pilates was even better, so I invited Ted to join the class too. He and I are now in our 21st year of attending twice-weekly Pilates classes taught by Theo. In fact, we’re her longest-term students. The result: we are no longer stiff when we get out of bed in the morning, and we’re both far more flexible than friends and neighbors our age. A few days ago, Ted sent me this screenshot.

The woman on the T-shirt is doing Pilates with a machine called a reformer. Ted and I do classical Pilates, where our body does the work. Our only equipment is a stretch strap, a ring, and some free weights. Regardless of the version of Pilates, the slogan on the T-shirt is so true, that I asked Ted to video me doing some of of the Pilates moves we regularly do. At every class, we stretch for about 15 minutes to warm up and then we do the “hundreds.” We hold this position and repeat the arm motion 100 times in unison as a class.

We don’t do traditional sit-ups; we do three different styles of roll-ups, one right after another, with 5 reps of each style, totaling 15 roll-ups. This is one of them. If you want to try it, keep your hands on your forehead and touch your head to your knees, then slowly roll back and lie down. Slow and controlled is the Pilates motto. We don’t use upward thrust to overcome gravity, nor do we do quick drops to take advantage of gravity. It’s all about our very own core strength.

This is a rollover. We do a variety of rollover styles. Theo saves this until the new students in the class are strong enough to do it without injuring their backs, and then she has us do 3 different styles with 3 reps of each style for a total of 9 rollups. Again, slow and controlled.

When we finish our hour-long sessions, we stretch. I don’t know if this stretch has a name, but we put our hands behind our ankles and pull our foreheads to our knees to loosen our backs and the muscles we’ve worked in our legs.

Yessireebob! The best of us still do Pilates in our 70s–and we love how strong and flexible we are.