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#Schummer14: Day 27-28 recap ~ the end of Summer of Schnyder
Our last two days of the Summer of Schnyder (#schummer14) road trip were spent driving through familiar territory – from Cincinnati, Ohio, we went across Indiana, Illinois (which we passed through at the beginning of the trip, although farther north) and then into my home state of Missouri and finally Kansas. We arrived in my hometown of Columbia, Mo., on Sunday afternoon in time to have dinner with my step-dad, my nephew and his wife and my sister-in-law at G&D, a small, family-owned steakhouse that opened a year before I was born. I remember having meals here every Friday night with my parents and aunt & uncle in the late…
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I found a time capsule in my basement
I opened a time capsule today. It wasn’t an intended one, but it sure took me back in time about 12 years. The capsule was in the form of a cheap, white plastic bag that was buried inside a cardboard box that once crated a microwave. I was looking for a camera lens box that had important warranty information on the lens. I opened the large microwave box, sitting atop a wardrobe that my grandparents once owned, thinking maybe it contained a bunch of smaller boxes. Instead, I found a hodge-podge of decorative tins and other reusable containers, and the plastic bag. For some unknown reason, I’d stashed the cards…
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Remembering that I forget my birthdays
Birthdays make me stop and really think about how I’m spending my time. That’s why I quit my job just a few weeks after turning 30 … and quit another job a few months after turning 40. Both times I didn’t have another job lined up yet. The milestone birthdays seem to move me beyond thinking and into taking action. They put me in the whole life-is-too-short-to-not-be-doing-something-you-really-enjoy mindset. Today I’m just turning 42, so there won’t be any monumental announcements. Plus, I couldn’t just up and quit on my current boss {I can’t quit myself!}. Overall, though, my memories of birthdays are lacking and this bothers me. I recall very…
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Trip Guide: Sea Life Kansas City & Legoland Discovery Center
On our trips across North America, Central America and the Caribbean, we often seek out zoos, aquariums and other opportunities to get up close with wildlife and sea creatures. So when I heard an aquarium had opened in April 2012 in Kansas City, Mo., I was happy to finally have an aquarium to visit within a three-hour drive from our home in Wichita, Kan. Then I found out it was a chain … and I have to admit that I was a little deflated. Well, I shouldn’t have been an aquarium snob! While it’s not going to land in the Top 5 of U.S. aquariums, Sea Life Kansas City is…
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Lessons learned on Valentine’s Day 1992
I learned a couple of valuable lessons on Valentine’s Day in 1992. I was a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of Missouri. D.T. was also a sophomore, but he was about 8 months older. It’s not a huge age difference but significant because it meant he had turned 21 years old the past December and was now able to go to bars … without me. We’d been dating about 18 months and this was my first long-term relationship, unless you count my torrid affair with J.V. that spanned fifth and sixth grades at Benton Elementary {lots of intense dates at the Skate-or-Bowl in Columbia, Mo.!} <– sarcasm font goes there…