Tag: Reading

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4th Friday Retirement Adventures – August

Retirement officially began four weeks ago, and there are both upsides (travel in the RV) and downsides (having to replace a wheel – not a tire – on the RV) to this new chapter. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook like the one in the image above to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well.

Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in my first official four weeks of retirement, as teachers and students have returned to school (#1-7 I blogged about two weeks ago):

1. Mahjong 101

2. Rag Quilting

3. Morning Walking

4. Yoga

5. Friends of the Library Book Fair –

6. Local Bookstore Book Club

7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club

The past couple of weeks have included two getaways in the Wayfarer along with a few other new endeavors. Everyone kept asking what I would do in retirement, and I’m so eager to share the ways I’m enjoying it! I have 100 things on my list…..so I continue sharing the list:

8. Postcard Poetry Fest – I signed up to send at least 31 postcards out to those who joined the Postcard Poetry Fest 2026. I have written over 31 original poems and have mailed them to my assigned recipients. It has been exciting receiving postcards from all around the world – many with original works of art on them by the artists. I’ll share the postcards I mailed and many of the ones I received in the coming months.

9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping….and…..10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert – We went to our favorite nearby state campground for a weekend on a remote campsite and enjoyed the fun and frustration of an unplanned hike. The following weekend, we took the Wayfarer to Lake Lanier to camp at Margaritaville RV Resort and saw the Eagles tribute band The Long Run. We rented a golf cart to get to the venue, and we learned the next morning that Boo Radley is not a candidate for riding in the golf cart because he cannot mind his own damn business and loses his mind and acts a fool.

11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play – I added a new segment of learning Mahjongg by attending the second course of lessons and engaged in an evening of open play at the McDonough Truett’s Restaurant with my friend Christian. We are riding around places meeting new friends and sharing the joys of “going Mahjongg.” I won my first game last Friday, and Christian swept all three games the night we drove over to McDonough.

12. Zinnia Arrangement – my sister-in-law who grows zinnias has brought me several batches, and I love arranging and rearranging them in my mother’s pitchers. I received an extra-special arrangement when I checked the mail last week. My friend Glenda Funk from Idaho created a watercolor painting of zinnias when I wrote a poem about them, and she framed the print with my poem as a retirement gift, along with a gorgeous boho blanket from Natural Life, a really cool pen and toothbrush holder, and a bracelet from Thailand – and the most heartfelt card ever! I shed tears of joy opening it, thinking of my friend who is so giving and has been suffering such pain in her leg lately. These are treasures I will cherish – so personal and meaningful.

13. Fabric Postcards – I’ve been working on creating fabric postcards for Postcard Poetry Fest for the next round. I sent out a few to see how they would hold up in the mail, and my small group of Stafford Challenge writers all received them and they held up fine.

14. Porch Sitting – I’ve enjoyed late morning coffee with my sister-in-law Bethany and an evening visit with my friend Jayne, who brought me a retirement t-shirt gift. Porch sitting and visiting is a great way to adjust pacing.

15. Lounge Pants Spree – I ordered lounge pants for each day of the week so that at least I could change into clean pajamas each day, but I ended up keeping only one set. I’ll add them more gradually so I can be sure of the fit instead of ordering online. My writing friend Margaret is changing my thinking, though. She says she replaced loungewear with activewear, and perhaps I should consider the same. There are some yoga pants that do not fit quite as tight as leggings, and those would work for me better than the tighter fit.

16. Novel Writing with Nick – I met a friend and fellow writer in Eastman, a couple hours south of here, to go through the first round of edits for the unfinished book left by my father that we are co-authoring. We look forward to bringing this novel to print in the coming months.

17. Kindred Spirits Book Club – I have a Goodreads personal goal of 60 books this year – – (it’s fitting….it’s the year of 60)…..and my Kindred Spirits sisters (missing one of us in the photo below who are the regulars) and I met at our local coffee shop to discuss the August selection: Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden. Our book choice for September is The Sideways Life of Denny Voss. Currently, I’m finishing Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth and I can’t turn the pages fast enough to see what happens next.

18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club – I was looking for a way that my daughter in Nevada and I could connect in a book club, so we participated in the reading of a Brazilian thriller author’s latest book, The Secret Dinner. We downloaded the book on a Tuesday and had 48 hours to read it before the Barns and Noble Monday Mystery event. It’s definitely a great way to participate with family readers across the miles. The novel was disturbing in its subject matter, but reading outside the comfort zone is what readers do sometimes.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be busy. One excursion that we will take this weekend will likely be one of my favorites of all time….. (hint: It will take place in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday night).

Art borrowed from a Facebook posting

Retirement II Haiku

it’s a fresh chapter

new adventures, living strong

~ sing love like Dolly!

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Time Around Tables

One of the things I’ve looked most forward to in retirement is an unhurried pace to be able to enjoy time together with family and friends with a sense of full presence and my mind not on a million other things I’ve got to get done. Since I have retired, that has happened more and more. I’m not checking the time as much. One day I even had to think about what day it was. That’s a nice feeling. It’s got me thinking about all those dementia checks they give older people by asking them what year it is. There might be better questions for that, since I think that one is a little biased against retirees. We don’t care, and we don’t want to keep up with those minor details anymore.

My husband and stepson

In the past week alone, we’ve met family members for meals and spent time around tables catching up on life and enjoying food and fellowship. We picked up a grandson and took him to Longhorn Steakhouse to talk golf, life happenings, and what he’s reading in school – The Crucible, and how the classic witch-hunt still happens. We have celebrated a birthday with my stepson two counties northwest of us and met my aunt and uncle an hour north of us for lunch because they’ve been hoping to see our RV and see how we set it up. We met my stepson at Il Porto Di Venezia in Senoia (where The Walking Dead was filmed) and found a parking lot with both a Panera and a Barnes and Noble (places to fill two appetites AND space to demonstrate setup of the RV for dry camping) to meet my aunt and uncle.

And besides all the time around tables with those we love, retirement offers the blessed gift of time to browse and pick the books I want to read next. I’ll be meeting Tayari Jones next month when she comes to a University of Georgia campus near me to talk about her latest book, Kin.

Yes, the unhurried pace is the best thing about retirement. Someone told me it would be sleep, but for me it’s the quality of the time awake that I get to enjoy in this chapter.

One of these will be my next book…..I’ll see the author in September at University of Georgia Griffin Campus for a book talk.

Retirement Offerings

time to enjoy meals,

fellowship, conversations

rooted in presence

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Kindred Spirits Book Club

Book Club T-shirts

Once a month, our Kindred Spirits book club meets at our local coffee shop on the Zebulon, Georgia courthouse square to discuss our monthly pick. Last year, we chose our next book month by month when we met to discuss the current book. This year, we each brought two book choices and created a schedule for the year so that we could read ahead if we finished our book ahead of time.

We are a group of six colleagues who became reading sisters through shared interest and choice, and even though two of us have retired and one has taken a position in a different place of employment, we still come back together to read, discuss, and have adventures together.

We discuss reading guide questions, but we always ask what the book inspired us to do and how it changed our lives. Generally, there is some kind of adventure that follows – whether it is to see the movie or do some kind of activity mentioned in the book. For example, after reading The Book Club Hotel by Sarah Morgan last December, we decided to take our own girls’ winter getaway and will be doing that in January 2027 to a place a couple hours north of where we live, where there will be a big fireplace so we can lounge around sipping coffee or Kindred Spirits cocoa concoctions and have girl time in our pajamas and talk about books and life and go shopping. We haven’t named our book-related adventure for Dear Debbie yet, but we all decided that it will not involve infesting anyone’s rose garden with Japanese Beetles or using poppy seeds to impair anyone’s faculties. Nor will it involve visiting any fraternity houses.

If any readers have suggestions about what to consider reading for 2027, please share! We follow Goodreads and The Book Girls and are always looking for our next great read.

We were missing one of our sisters at last night’s club meeting at our local coffee shop

reading together

strengthens our sisterly bond

of Kindred Spirits

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VerseLove Day 21: Reading Haiku

Hop over to http://www.ethicalela.com and click on VerseLove to read Sharon Roy’s prompt for today! She’s inspiring us to write haiku poetry inspired by our reading lives – and is actually writing War and Peace in haiku. She blogs at Pedaling Poet. I’ve been spinning my wheels since February trying to get through Forth Wing, and I’m glad I did. Other than Harry Potter, fantasy is not my preferred genre, but it did stretch me. I definitely am not a fan of romantasy, especially spicy romantasy. But at least no dragons died. I would have been in the floor for days, crying over their deaths. And I finished in the name of book club because it was only fair that we each picked 2 books for all of us to share in reading together. And we do things in the name of book club that we would not do for anyone else! But now I want a t-shirt with the logo below.

Four dragons standing on a castle tower holding signs that say 'I survived Fourth Wing'
A group of dragons proudly hold signs claiming they survived Fourth Wing on a castle tower.

In the Name of Book Club

Fourth Wing fantasy~
not my genre, but I did
it for my book club!

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VerseLove Day 1 ~ Landscapes of Our Lives

Today is the first day of VerseLove at http://www.ethicalela.com, and many of the Slice of Life writers and Stafford Challenge poets will be joining this robust group of poets who write during Open Write throughout the year and VerseLove every day in April. We’ll be joined by writers from Poetry Friday and Spiritual Journey Thursdays and those belonging to many other writing groups – from all across the continental United States and from other countries as well. I love March and April because there is a convergence of writers from different groups all coming together.

Today’s host is Sarah Donovan, creator of EthicalELA and human being extraordinare. You can read her opening prompt here, inviting us to write about the landscapes of our lives – along with the response poems of others throughout the day. By the afternoon hours throughout April, there will be an amazing collection of poems all on a theme. Come write with us. Or come read what we’ve written.

the page and the pen

inside me there is a boxcar
bent fork and family
there is a farm
radiant web overhead
there is Golden
Fedder Fountain and Verbivore
there is River Heights
old clock and mystery
there is Mitford Village
Barnabas and covered dish
there is a mountain
Swiss cabin, goats, grandpa

Inside me there are pages
some filled, some blank
where the reader writes the story
but I

I hold the pen

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Falling In Love with Theo of Golden

I’ve recommended Theo of Golden to everyone I know, with this sense of urgency: stop whatever you’re doing and read this book.

So when my sister-in-law had turned the last page and both scolded me for not revealing the impact the book would have (I won’t give specific spoilers) and in the next breath thanked me for recommending it, she was eager to visit the coffee shop and see the portraits that became the inspiration for the book. Fountain City Coffee is an hour from our family farm in rural Georgia, so we made plans to take our husbands (who are brothers) and go to the coffee shop on Sunday, February 15. Though we’ve been to or through Columbus, Georgia on many occasions (my own brother was born there), we wanted to see it through the lens of this amazing book – the art on the walls of the coffee shop, the Riverwalk and adjacent bike shop where Theo and Ellen go for a ride and talk about the bird nest on the bank, and the little bookstore.

It was a stroke of magnificent timing that my writing friend Sally Donnelly of Arlington, Virginia sent me the link to Katie Couric’s interview with Allen Levi, the author of Theo of Golden in the comments on her blog post. I’d hoped to watch it but had an event with my in-person book club in my home that evening and couldn’t watch the live interview. Sally knows what a fan I am, and it was simply the best Valentine ever to watch that interview. I’d hug her if she were here!

I’ll be taking plenty of photos and maybe even doing a few recorded clips as well, and I’ll plan to blog about this experience on Tuesday morning. As I write, the rain is pelting down in heavy waves on this 48-degree morning here in rural Georgia, so I hope it has blown over by the time we make our jaunt west to the state line that divides Georgia and Alabama. If you’re having the same weather we are having, it’s a great day to run by the bookstore on the way home from church and grab a copy of this book and then sink down into a chair by the fireplace and devour it!

Happy reading ~may

all your books take you down new

trails and adventures!

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Falling in Love with Silent Book Club

I have another new book club, and I hear that this kind is sweeping the country. It’s all the rage right now. I’d heard of Silent Book Clubs, and the idea was intriguing. My first thought: I can read silently at home in my pajamas in my favorite chair; why do I need a silent book club? Then I was invited to one, and I went as a guest. I was delighted to be surrounded by readers who were completely immersed in the joy of actual reading – – something we don’t see at most other book clubs, since we read ahead. It feels reassuring to glance around and see others taking in print, not distracted by the dryer buzzer or the dogs or the kids or anyone asking for anything.

My friend Janette is one of the most avid readers I know, so it’s no surprise she has begun hosting the Silent Book Club Flint River chapter here in middle Georgia. You can check out and join the page to follow all of our book adventures and see what folks are reading by clicking here. It’s not the only book club the two of us attend together, but rather than being a club with a common title and established meeting location for discussions each month, the meetings are created pop-up style in various locations, and each reader brings whatever book they’re reading at the time. We know there’s going to be a meeting when we follow the Facebook page and see the time and location. We show up with our book and read for an hour in a room full of old friends and new friends. Some read from Kindles, some listen to audiobooks, some read hard copies, and some, like me, even bring noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones to play nature sounds as they read.

Reading downstairs in 1828 Coffee Company in Zebulon, Georgia

If you don’t have a Silent Reading Club chapter near you, consider starting one. Until then, join us – no matter where you are in the world. Find out when and where we are reading, then do the same from your favorite comfy chair….or bench….or beach towel. Send a picture of you and your book and say hello on the Facebook page. Let us know that you read for the hour. We can’t wait for you to be a part of all the fun and to create new opportunities for reading wherever you are!

Silent Book Club reads

in adventurous places

world page-travelers

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January 31: War and Peace

My friend and writing buddy Glenda Funk of Idaho joined the slow readers’ group of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy for 2026. I’d read about this on a blog post by a writer in our Tuesday group and been intrigued. Sharon Roy was choosing to write a haiku after each of the 361 chapters., where readers read one chapter per day and listen to a podcast about it. The irony! War and Peace in haiku! I smiled and secretly wished I’d joined but feared I was too late. Next year, I told myself.

Then, I sent a picture of a stack of books through a text exchange asking Glenda which poetry book I should read next. Glenda is the most voracious poetry reader I know. She is a fast reader and is a good matchmaker to suggest the next book based on poets she knows her friends like and those she thinks they will enjoy next. She shared that she was still reading Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan because she is also reading War and Peace.

And that’s when it happened. Her next text had me joining a Substack group to be a slow reader this year.

Here is actual text footage of how a reader gets sucked into a challenge like War and Peace :

Screenshot

You know those movies where someone misses the train and has to run down the tracks and make a jump for it, praying they catch hold of the book party caboose? That was me. Instead of getting on at the station when it was pulling out on January 1, I waited until the last possible time to feasibly begin – – around 8 p.m. on January 30. Flailing hands and flying hair in a flurry of free-spiritedness like who cares if I have to read 31 chapters of War and Peace to catch up with everyone else? Like I’m some sort of reading ninja. I’m not. I have 31 chapters of War and Peace to read, and now I’m in a war zone with myself looking for some peace.

Perhaps I will use my silent reading hour this morning that I was going to use at the Silent Book Club on the Zebulon square in 1828 Coffee Company to catch up. Extreme weather caused its cancellation, so now, instead, I’ll be reading all all day at home, apparently with snow falling, by the fireplace with my own home brewed coffee in the way I always dream,. Or maybe I’ll finish Reminders of Him by Colleen Hoover, this month’s Kindred Spirits reading group pick. Or, perhaps – just perhaps – I will pick a poetry book to devour. A Bit Much by Lyndsay Rush has my eye. Let’s face it: most likely it will be all of the above.

What are you reading today?

Tossing you a snowball – stay warm!

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January 26 – A Found Poem

Today, I’m using a comprehension strategy to get to know a book character by writing a found poem. I’m taking words and snippets off the page and writing a character poem about Basil Cannonfield from Theo of Golden by Allen Levi. In a classroom, this can help students remember characters; in the adult world of reading where we read books with so many different characters, a journal of character notes comes in handy to keep them all straight.

Basil Cannonfield

street performer

tips welcome

soulful, folksy voice

Chalice regular

total-body singer

teacher-turned-musician

poor either way

girlfriend Katrina breadwinner

in his thirties

tousled, shoulder length hair

scraggly beard

attempted mustache

sister’s caregiver

robbed by her ex

eccentric or genius?

both: definitely both

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January 25 – Mallory’s Birthday

she’s growing up fast

thirty nine years old today……

still my baby girl

Happy birthday to my first-born child today! She’s a kid at heart, and she loves to read. When she was little, we’d pile up on blankets or beds for book picnics – – she, her sister and I would do nothing but read all day long while the boys were out fishing. Last year, she read 144 books, stomping my 20 down to a pancake compared to her skyscraper. She still calls them her “chapter books.” Today, instead of raising a glass to my daughter, I open a book. It’s what we do best in our DNA.

Happy Birthday, Mallory!