Local not-for-profit focused on supporting people in living their best lives
More than 1 million visitors are expected to visit Grapevine, Texas, (population 50,981) during its annual Christmas Capital of Texas celebration, and the Meadowlark Travelers were 38 of that number on Dec. 6 and 7, ready to experience some Texas-size fun. In addition to tour leaders Becky Fitzgerald and Monte Spiller, our group was composed of residents, Passport members, and family members.
Earlier this year, I attended the celebration-of-life service for an old friend. Hazel had died at age 103, but I first met her in 1943 when she was a young married woman and I was a 12-year-old new in town. Her passing meant the shuttering of yet another window through which I once could see “way back when.” The last living person who knew me during my childhood.
There once was a time when the order of my day included playing with my buddies, fighting with my sister (13 months younger), wishing mightily that this fourth year of grade school were over, doing a couple of assigned farm chores, and putting off homework as long as possible. That arithmetic workbook was the sinkhole of my existence.
I have a confession to make. I don’t like Halloween, and I never have. Even as a kid in the Chicago suburbs, it was not a big deal for me. It was a day to get through. Oh, I participated in the school parties, school parade, and trick-or-treat time in the evening, but I never got excited about it like some kids did.
Kelley Boland’s beaded designs are doing more than catching sunlight. They are catching much attention wherever they are displayed.
Such was the case at August’s Empowered LIVE!, an annual event to empower persons living with Parkinson’s Disease to celebrate life and stay engaged. Boland, a newer member of the Young Onset group supported by Meadowlark Parkinson’s Program, was one of several VIPDs showing off their handiwork and hobbies at the LIVE! gathering, held prior to the Speedy PD Race for Parkinson’s Disease.
A recent late September hike along Meadowlark trails quickly confirmed the obvious: our campus biology is sliding full bore into fall—a wonderful time to be out, moving slowly, or sitting quietly, and watching the changes going on all around. Leaves are dying, preparing to drop, and changing colors as they do. Soil and water microbes and fungi soon will begin the large scale digestion of those leaves into their constituent minerals and chemical compounds.
Oink! Now that the calendar has flipped to October, temperatures are cooling, but activities to benefit Meadowlark Foundation are heating up. It’s HOGTOBERFEST season, and here are a few squeal-worthy announcements!
No. 1 – The 11th annual HOGTOBERFEST, an awareness and fundraising event to benefit Meadowlark Foundation’s Good Samaritan Fund, is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 25!
No. 2 – You asked for it, and you got it! Meadowlark’s Prairie Star Restaurant and Event Venue is once again this year’s celebration location!
The music has faded, and the confetti swept away, as we close out the sweet 16th Annual Speedy PD Race for Parkinson’s Disease. We kicked off the party on Friday evening at the Holiday Inn at the Campus for Empowered Live!: An Evening to Celebrate Living Well with Parkinson’s. Guests enjoyed a delicious dinner buffet and viewed the creative talents of our VIPDs (Very Important People with Parkinson’s Disease) before learning more about Lee Silverman Voice Treatment therapies from Kathleen Depperschmidt, Speech Language Pathologist.
If you grew up in a family that camped or liked to sit around a patio firepit, an open fire was perhaps one of the first memorable outdoor mysteries you encountered. What young mind wouldn’t be mesmerized by that flush of heat on the face, or those flaming, leaping tongues that disappear quickly into smoke and air. Ancient humans probably felt the same reactions.
Our family moved to Manhattan from the northwestern part of Illinois in 1975 when my husband accepted a job at a local bank. Ken and I were excited about the move, our 3-year-old daughter wasn’t actually aware of what was happening, and our Golden Retriever was happy to go wherever the family went.
It was our son, Kirk, who balked at the move. He was part-way through first grade, and he didn’t want to leave his school or his friends. He turned 7 only days before the movers arrived. Even a birthday didn’t soothe his ruffled feathers. His world had been turned upside down.