Peaches and Herb Friday Round-Up

Somehow, we’ve gone from being a ‘power couple’ to a couple of cuties. This is okay with me since I’m very much into looks, not that I’m vain or anything, just very conscious. I don’t remember crossing that bridge from power couple to cuties, but apparently, we did as was noted yesterday on social media. That’s fine. Truth be told, we are pretty cute.

Speaking of which, I applied for a new passport today. This required that I send a photo of myself with a plain white or off-white background with no shadows or lines. This is harder than it sounds but not the topic of this paragraph. The topic is wow. What a difference ten years makes. I said to my husband while we worked on renewing his, “Don’t you remember ten years ago, we thought we had all the time in the world?“

There are two kinds of people in the world. There’s the type that cross the street the minute they see two big dogs leashed and well-behaved coming toward them, and then there’s the type that keeps walking as they were, smiling, with their hands in their pockets The avoiders and the whistlers. Do-dah.

No matter what, you’re always going to feel better if you go outside. You may not feel better while you’re outside, but you will feel better when you come inside. Why? Because being outside, especially if it’s very cold like it is here today in Milwaukee, is exhilarating. Really, let’s be honest, not much about life is exhilarating, makes you feel healthy and strong. Watching TV doesn’t do that. Reading doesn’t. Having lunch in a fancy restaurant doesn’t. Going for a good hearty walk outside does. Always.

2025 seems like the right time to make good on my big talk about publishing a book of short stories about the U.P. I have a bunch of stories that are pretty okay but could be better with more thought and good editing, and I also need a big goal, like maybe a capstone project to demonstrate how well I’ve learned all the lessons of aging. My writing guru tells me I need to have enough words so that the book would have a spine that can display the title on library racks. I have about 35,000 words and maybe more where those came from. That should be enough for a decent spine. We’ll see.