By Barbara J. Eikmeier For many years I collected sea glass. I filled a small jar with pieces from beaches in Hawaii and California. It took a long time to fill my jar. Imagine my surprise when my sister took me to Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California. I felt like there was more glass […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier It’s back-to-school-time which means it’s time to paint the high school parking lot AGAIN. An annual tradition at our local high school, it’s a senior privilege. My children didn’t attend this school, so I’m strictly an observer of the annual changing of the guard in the school parking lot – a […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier It was the first really hot day of summer. My car didn’t have a chance to cool down between errands. I was hot. My car was hot. Then I stepped into the CVS pharmacy. The blast of cool air from the air conditioned store hit me at the door. In […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier Living in Kansas goes hand in hand with spring storms – usually wind and rain, dramatic thunder, sometimes accompanied by hail, and less often, an actual tornado. On occasion we will see storm chasers on the highway, heading toward the dark spot on the horizon – traveling toward that which we […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier I’ve become a Podcast junkie. It happened rather innocently when, last September, I had eye surgery. For the first 48 hours post-op I had to alternate ice packs 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off while awake. Then I switched to warm compresses for 20 minutes four times a day […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier I have eight siblings. The nine of us were together recently for my dad’s funeral. It was a bittersweet day. My dad was 92 years old and yet, despite the wind, rain, and mud, over 350 people attended his service. The church ladies served lunch at the church hall. They came […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier The Wood Stork lifts off from the edge of the pond. His long slightly curved beak points the way like a menacing weapon, and his shaggy head droops, in sharp contrast to his elegant body. My hostess calls him The Professor. From the lanai I also see the Great Blue Heron, […]
By Barbara J. Eikmeier The Last Waltz was showing at the Sunrise Theater at 730 pm on Thanksgiving night. Our hostess attends every year. I was intrigued. What movie can possibly be so great that a person would go to see it every year? As it turns out, The Last Waltz isn’t an ordinary movie, […]
By Barbara J Eikmeier One of my writing teachers is a poet. I saw him last week in the coffee shop. He wasn’t at his usual table, near the window where the light is best. This day, his table was next to the fireplace, where it’s warmer. Sheets of paper spilled across the table with […]
By Barbara J. Eikmeier My favorite place to find details for a story is on a road trip. My regular job is presenting programs about quilts to small and regional quilt guilds. Bookings take me off the main highways to “Blue Roads”, through tiny communities and sometimes even down dirt roads. Ninety percent of the […]