My favorite Saturday morning plan is brewing a pot of dark joe from freshly ground beans - with the goal of settling in with my cozy pajamas by around 8:00 am to watch a favorite news show.  If my husband isn’t golfing, he grabs a plate of fruit and joins me.  I love my laid-back Saturday mornings.

This past weekend, while waiting for Mike to get his cup of coffee, I turned to the wrong channel and caught a “The Mo You Know” survey on Mo Rocca’s Henry Ford Innovation Nation. 

His survey question displayed the picture below and asked what it was called. In my mind, I answered “Bottle Cap!”  And, after waiting through a commercial, I discovered I was right.

Mo shared a bit about the bottle cap inventor, William Painter.  And suddenly, I didn’t miss my news program at all! 

William Painter was a civil-war era, self-taught engineer working in the carbonated beverage industry – beer bottlers.  At...

The infamous 1964 Jim Marshall “Wrong Way Play” has been redeemed.

Ranked #5 in NFL Film’s 10 Top Worst Plays, the Running-the-Wrong-Way playbook has been rewritten by Fairfield, CA High School football Team Captain, Kah'Ron Thrower!  The story landed on my iPhone’s news stream last Saturday evening while watching the Huskers battle an undefeated Minnesota team. It wasn’t pretty and I welcomed the distraction!

Jim Marshall was one of the Vikings’ historic Purple People Eaters whose motto was “Meet You At The Quarterback.” Today, Marshall still ranks 2^nd in the NFL for most consecutive starts – surpassed only by my Chicago Bear’s rival, Brett Favre.

But in 1964, Jim ran the wrong way and he is still remembered for this, rather than for his significant accomplishments.  55 years later, High school senior Kha’Ron Thrower provides a leadership best practice for all of us who get confused watching a...

It’s 9:02am, Monday, January 11, 2016. I’m focused on the new emails in my inbox when my cell phone beeps. It was a two-word text from my little brother in Chicago.

It's cancer.

My just-turned-12-year-old-niece -- who at the adorable age of 3 decided I should call her Munchkin 1 and her elder sister Munchkin 2 -- my little Munchkin 1 had been diagnosed with rare, advanced stage synovial sarcoma. Life for all of us changed immediately.

Immediately.

This Sunday, June 23, 2019 we’ll remember her last day of intravenous chemo, celebrated in this photo of a beautiful, bald, beaming Warrior Munchkin and the posters she created the night before to mark the milestone.

It was Tough But I was Tougher

“It was tough. But I was tougher.” The wisdom of a 12-year-old.

Ally’s first cancer-free scan was the day after the Cubbies won the 2016 World Series - Holy Cow! And today she is thriving as a high school student. 

So What Does This Have to Do with...