Silver Planet™ Help Your Parents Age in Place.

What author is prolific, fun, testosterone loaded, and a great read? Clive Cussler. If you haven’t read any of his works, I highly recommend that you start. They are great fun—nothing heavy, but there’s lots of adventure and action. I’ll grant you that some of the premises are a little over the top, but, hey, what’s wrong with that in a work of fiction?

In my hometown of Hastings, Nebraska, we have a number of fun, affordable events during the summer. In June, the Cottonwood Festival makes its appearance at Brickyard Park, a lovely city park with an outdoor amphitheatre and rolling hills.

Well, as I write this, I am worried about getting my bag packed for two weeks in Italy and Greece.

Julie Bohlen, who works for Silver Planet, and three of her daughters are going with me on a 10-day tour of Italy with ACIS, and then the five of us head off on our own for three days in Greece. Both are places that I have always wanted to visit and thought I probably never would.

[amazon cover 0385340990] My friend Nancy Jelinek, who also reviews books and maintains a blog on Silver Planet, has already posted a review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows; however, I just finished reading it myself and had to let you know what I think of it too.

When was the last time you attended a dance recital? Aren’t they fun? The granddaughters had one this weekend, and, of course, Grandma and Grandpa were more than happy to go.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.