I begin a month of travel this coming Friday when I head down to Langhorne, PA, to meet up with the Liberated Learner Crew at our sister center Bucks Learning Cooperative for our annual conference.

Except for the two pandemic years and last year, I have been traveling to the Liberated Learner conference (generally held near Amherst, MA. at North Star) since 2013 - before LL was even really a network - just a big (good) idea. It is honestly the highlight of my year.

There are new people to meet and old friends to catch up with at every conference. The best part is being with folks who understand on an unparalleled level what I do and the multitude of challenges I experience as the face of an organization that embraces a philosophy so far from "the norm" that we must explain it as a new paradigm. To say that these are "my" Peeps is an understatement.

From the east side of PA, I will head to Chicago to spend time with my son and his wife, and then I will drive across a few big states to Portland, OR, to stay with kiddo number two and their partner for a week before retracing my steps back to Chicago and then home.  

I have not been to their places to stay since 2019 (except for my son's wedding - mid-pandemic). They have come home a few times since then - I am so looking forward to hanging out with them in their environments for an extended time.

And as much as I love and appreciate all "my peeps" here, I am excited to travel alone with no other human or organizational responsibilities - simply enjoying each moment/experience as it comes - (just me and my brain )- allowing all the cool ideas to come forward in the monotony of those thousands of miles.

There will not be a Blog Post next week. I may catch up with you all from Chicago - but I'm not making any promises. Until next time - Happy Summer!

A few weeks ago, I stayed with my mom for two nights. She is in her early 80s, but no one believes her age due to her incredible genetics and determination to continue doing all the things she loves.

My mom is passionate about nature, flowers, and decorating. Though I don't think she would call herself an artist, she has an artistic eye and adores a good aesthetic. During my visit, she spent hours turning a small open lean-to into a beautifully decorated "she-shed" next to her outdoor patio and small water tank swimming pool - where she can hang a curtain for privacy and use it as a changing room to get out of her wet swimsuit. (Oh, yes, she also loves water.) Her yard is a haven for birds and small critters, with a small pond that my brother built long ago. Mom has birdhouses scattered around her yard - occupied by young bird families. She delights in watching their antics.

She recently bought an electric riding lawn mower with a small wagon attached to the back that she uses to do all her own yard work. She had a clear vision of her shed and knew she had all the necessary pieces around the property. While I was working on my weekly blog post at the patio table under the umbrella, she brought out the mower, attached the wagon, gathered all the components onto it, and drove them to the patio.

She wanted a piece of lattice (leftover from a long-ago project) hiding behind the barn, attached to the back wall. Before she loaded it on her wagon and brought it over, she measured the space and then the lattice. She thought it was exact. But when she got it in the shed, she struggled to make it fit - it was a tad too long. Between the two of us, we bent it and forced it to fit into the space - perfectly.

Indeed, I know where my natural perseverance and "can do" attitude come from. My mom is a natural problem solver. If something isn't quite right - she will experiment and find the best solution with what she has.

She then spent a few hours painting half of the lattice (reluctantly saving the rest for another day) after discovering that she had a quart of paint left from another project and a small roller. I have not seen the finished product yet, but I can only imagine it is set up exactly as she had envisioned.

As mentioned, she loves nature and water. She goes camping and kayaking in the mountains all through the summer - sometimes alone and other times with friends or my siblings. (I don't like camping because - BUGS!)

A few years ago, she learned about Hornbeck canoes. They are ultra-lightweight, locally made (in the Adirondacks), and perfect for one person to load onto a car for transport. Before she purchased one, she had been putting her kayak inside her Prius - it fit from back to front diagonally with zero room to spare. (She only cracked her windshield once when she put it in on the wrong angle and pushed it a little too hard. And then there is the hilarious story of her picking up my six-foot-tall son to go camping together forgetting that with the kayak in the car, Ian would have to scooch under it in the back with the seat down - all the way to the camp.) Now, she can put her Hornbeck on top of her Prius - by herself (and have passengers).

In recent years, she (hesitantly and cautiously) has forged (dipped her toes) into the land of technology. She has had success, which has allowed her to Facetime with my siblings almost every day and talk to her grandchildren (who all live out of State). She also knows how to "Google" to seek information and scroll through FaceBook and Instagram. Although she sometimes struggles with her phone and iPad and comes up against things that frustrate her -  she sticks with it and figures things out (or waits until one of us can come and fix or explain it to her) -  I am proud of her for not giving up.  

Staying active through her interests and being curious and open to learning new things has kept her young at heart. Yes, she moves a bit slower, has to take breaks, and has learned (mostly) when to put things away to be picked up another day - so she doesn't exhaust herself (something we should all learn to do) - nonetheless, she is excited about exploring all the possibilities that every day presents. I can only hope that in 20-odd years, folks will be able to say the same about me.

The sewer line debacle continues. I am waiting to hear how much of the total we are responsible for and about the grants I wrote.

Thank you to the American Legion in Massena for the $1000 donation to be used for operations and programs.

Our fundraising thermometer for this year is sitting at $22,500. We have two weeks to the end of this fiscal year - won't you help us reach our goal of $25,000?

Any individual or business - who donates $1000.00+ will have their names/logos added to our "Thank You Tree Mural."

You can contribute to our plumbing fund here or our general donation page here.  Thank You!

*Note - credit for the title and inspiration for almost everything I have done over the past few weeks and documented in this post goes to the brilliant content creator Elyse Myers. If you have not seen her video about doing it scared, take a look here.


Just do it...scared, anxious, overwhelmed, & exhausted...is a message seemingly intended just for me that I needed to incorporate into my days. Because, frankly, I often find life itself overwhelming, anxiety-producing, scary, and utterly exhausting.

Thanks to my spicy neurology, I have a plethora of contradictory characteristics but for the sake of brevity, I will only list a few that regularly come into play.

• I appear super confident and behave like I can do anything - yet I likely won't do something someone tells me to do (PDA). Additionally, I always expect that people are upset with me and that I have forgotten a pertinent detail and failed them (RSD).
• I am a problem solver; pushing up my sleeves, brainstorming, experimenting, getting inventive, and getting the job done is second nature - yet, inside, I am overwhelmed and need to bargain with myself to do all the things I know need to be done - unless it is one of my purely creative projects, then I will get lost in it forever.
• I appear organized (everything has a home and goes back to it when I am done with it - a necessary hack that I have developed over time that is now automatic) - yet I struggle to keep files, important documents, and receipts in order - they have a way of hiding from me when I need them to complete grants and other critical forms.
• I refuse to wallow (blame others) or be defeated by the hard stuff - yet I have panic attacks at the mere thought of picking up the phone to call someone (anyone), meeting with people, and admitting that I need to ask for help.

Despite all that - over these past few weeks, I did all the difficult tasks (calling, meeting, explaining, searching for necessary files and documents, and asking for help) while scared, anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Yes, I took this Thursday off to rest and recover - but I was back at it on Friday and will be again on Monday.

And, as I explained to one board member when they commiserated, "...this sewer line crisis has forced me to explore options and talk to people I should have - a very long time ago." Yup, just one more example of a contradiction: I despise drama, hyperbole, and exaggeration - yet I am at my best when the stakes are at their highest.

If I can do life...scared, anxious, overwhelmed, and exhausted - you can too. Just remember to follow your intuition and rest when you need it. However, knowing when you are hiding (escaping, avoiding) instead of taking a required break to recover is invaluable.

DRC News

Thank You
Gratitude to the J.M. McDonald Foundation for funding $3000.00 toward our "Healing through Mentoring and Free Creative Expression" Project.

And thanks to the Massena VFW for the recent $500 donation.

Thank you to everyone for the concern and suggestions on our social media posts about the sewer line debacle. Many have expressed disbelief that the homeowner is responsible for the pipes in the middle of the road. As I explained, this is the way Canton deals with it. Apparently, it is a common practice.

That green circle with the X indicated where the sewer line break is. The contractor came out Monday and informed us that he has to cut through the pavement, dig all the way back to the tree line, remove the debris to off site, replace the old line with new, fill it in with fresh dirt, redo the side walk and repave the road (oh, and remove and replace the road sign). He said all together it is a $10k job! This is not a simple fix. The village has agreed to help. The contractor was going to meet with the DPW to find out what that would look like - as of now, I have not heard back from him.

I learned on Friday that our homeowner's insurance will not cover it. Apparently, they didn't even have that type of coverage when our agent wrote the policy nearly 6 years ago.

I have written a couple of grants to cover the costs - now we are waiting to hear from them.

In the meantime, you can help by contributing to our plumbing fund here. Thank you to those who have already contributed - we are currently at $575.

The potentially insulting adage "Keep it simple, stupid," is advice I can enthusiastically get behind. The main reason is my ability to get easily overwhelmed and confused by unnecessary (at least in my opinion) complexity.

This is why I am hyper-aware about creating visual breaks in anything I write. Short paragraphs are my signature. They create space around the ideas for people to take time to digest the information. I appreciate simple, straightforward language and presentation of ideas so everything is accessible to everyone. Not to say that I don't have a fondness for crafting a well-turned phrase or using - what I call "chewy" words - the ones you can sink your teeth into - that are expressive and the total opposite of boring.  

Over the last few weeks, I have been inundated with convoluted language in instructions, forms, grant directives, and bureaucratic documents. Which translates in my brain as inaccessible gibberish. No amount of rereading and honest attempts to decipher allows me to understand what is being presented. Besides overwhelming and exhausting me, this has the unfortunate result of making me feel dense or just plain dumb.

Accessibility is the key. It is disappointing, frustrating, and mind-numbingly infuriating that people (companies and government entities) go to the extreme to make things unreachable, ultra-pretentious, and exclusive to a particular closed demographic which intentionally keeps a large portion of the population feeling stupid or unworthy without the means to get clarification or achieve the results they need to move forward. Folks shouldn't need to jump through hoops or seek out someone in the social services sector to be a translator.

Please - Just Keep it Simple...