Year End 2025

 

Life in the last year has been good locally. This is my annual report on the year 2025. It was active and quiet for me here in Madison while tumultuous nationally with a president who made a lot of changes that didn’t help most people. That’s enough about national life. During the year I had plenty of activity.

I loved the summer days at Washington Island, sitting in the campground woods (yes, still a camper) and going to local musical events and the annual art exhibit at the Art and Nature Center. The island campground is pleasantly rustic with simple cabins for shelter and space to sit outside and enjoy the natural spaces. Multiple visits of four or five days ensued. Back at home in Madison I enjoyed the times during the year when I had supper weekly with John and Sherry at their home with them and their cats and dog; they are a blessing. Dori found time during the year to visit me once a month for a day. She has been very welcome. In addition to all this I continued  to be active at St. Dunstan’s Church where plenty of young families stay active. At least they seem young to me because they are under eighty. I seem to hang out with older people. Not a surprise.

I cut back on my volunteer activities; didn’t have as much energy as when I was younger. But I continued to help my neighborhood library one afternoon each week. Searching for materials on a list of library materials that people placed on hold has a special benefit and that is time spent finding them on top shelves, then bottom shelves where one gets down onto the floor to read the spine labels that are two inches off the floor. I do up-and-down exercise for a couple of hours and my old hips and knees get workouts. Who in a library thinks of exercise when coming to the library to find something? The volunteer for that day must find the materials people request; the items on the list then go to other libraries to fill their patrons’ requests. Not exciting, but helpful.

I drove myself to the Madison Senior Center weekly. “Writing Your Life” was a class to practice writing essays on suggested topics about our lives from Mark, a retired high school teacher. My  story that I liked best was about ice skating in Sturgeon Bay when I was young. I wrote with the classmates at the senior center for several years including 2025 and then took time off from it this fall. I also joined the Verona Senior Center for some of their programs, like short bus trips for events. PLATO offered classes that met weekly in various locations, where I liked historical content like “Biography,” presented by volunteers who seem to be mostly retired teachers and professors. They did research and presented what they had. It’s ongoing.

My artistic endeavors took time off. I didn’t exhibit anywhere, although I attended art fairs. This is a big change of seeing and not participating my artwork. A little more energy on my part would have helped my artistic endeavors. But it was easy to find plenty to do rather than sit and feel old. It’s time to get back to it and do more. My hands still work even if my hips mostly don’t.

This Christmas my adult grandchildren joined together for good times. Andrea and Jed came from Idaho with their baby Teddy who was born last summer. He is my first great-grandchild and being together with them was heartwarming. The grandchildren got together during the holidays for cousins’ gatherings. I love them all. Laura and Ian work hard at their Madison jobs all year, and I see them occasionally. Going to local plays with Laura is always a good time.

And then there is Facebook. This good even if some people don’t like it. Through it I stay in contact with many friends and former colleagues from past and present, especially family and friends from high school and places where I have lived with my deceased husband Rick and late boyfriend Pete. My nephew David is a pastor in Georgia who devotes his ministry to homeless people there; I would not know about it without his nearly daily Facebook accounts of the good things he and his church are doing there.

That’s the year we had. Let’s have another one.