Silver Planet™ Help Your Parents Age in Place.

A couple of weekends ago, we took a quick day trip to northern Nebraska, and I can highly recommend the scenery. For those of you unfamiliar with that part of the world, let me just say you are really missing a beautiful place. There are rolling hills with pastures just now greening up, as well as bright green alfalfa fields.

Last month, I was at the end of a 12-day house- and cat-sitting stint for our son and daughter-in-law while they experienced London, Leeds, Canterbury, Dover, and Pars. It was raining cats and dogs on the Thursday afternoon we drove the 45-minutes to the airport to drop them off, and it kept raining all the way back to their home. Later that evening, the rain turned to snow. It continued to snow until early Sunday morning, leaving 18-24 inches on the ground. With a pile of books and much work to do, it shouldn’t have been a problem.

Our media specialist went to a conference and returned with some really great tips on using the Internet. I don’t want to be selfish, so I’ll share a few with you.

[amazon cover 0385663404] In The End of the Alphabet, Ambrose is told he has only a month to live. He and his wife, Zipper, have no children or extended family, so his decision to travel as much as he can before dying affects only them.

My thought is to travel as much as I can before I’m given that kind of diagnosis, but I do understand. We often put off today what, we hope, we’ll be able to do tomorrow for a variety of reasons: cost, especially in these days of economic uncertainty; personal safety; time away from home, job, family; etc.

[amazon cover 1555974708] I was speaking with a friend at the office the other day about the book Out Stealing Horses (by Per Petterson). She asked about the title, and I explained about the two young boys talking about stealing horses, although they weren’t really going to steal the horses—they just wanted to ride them in the horses’ pasture. The horses belonged to someone else; the boys’ talk of stealing seemed to make it more adventurous for them.

What’s the best reality series on television? In my opinion, it’s The Amazing Race, a CBS show.

[amazon cover 060961004X] This month I’m reviewing a fun travel book complete with recipes. It brought to mind a book I’ve been looking for in my own collection, Jeanne Ray’s Eat Cake.

I recently ate at a good restaurant in Omaha. If you like Indian food, you might want to try it. It’s called Jaipur, and it’s both a restaurant and a brewery.

I had a chicken dish made with coconut milk, red chiles, and spices—really good, especially served with the basmati rice. My friends and I also ordered some vegetable samosas, and they were delightfully crisp and stuffed with lovely cooked veggies.

In a story similar to Dewey's, the owners of A Novel Idea bookstore had Silas, a large black and white cat they rescued from an alley behind the store several years ago.

I just spent three days with 131 other teachers scoring the state writing assessment given to all juniors in February. Every junior must write a persuasive essay about a prompt provided by the Nebraska Department of Education. This has to be completed in two 40-minute class periods, so their final draft is really more of a working draft—but anyway.