Values – FindYourBuriedTreasure

Gobble, Gobble!

I first saw it in an email ad from Kroger about a week ago. The email featured coupons, menus, recipes, tips, and even a timetable for preparing Thanksgiving dinner, including appetizers, side dishes, and desserts. I was drawn first to the recipes, of course, and that’s where I saw the photo of a turkey-shaped cheeseball, complete with pretzel feet, cracker face, and a colorful bell-pepper tail. It made me laugh just to look at it, and I could tell it would be fairly easy to [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 23rd, 2024|Columns, Family, Holidays, Values|Comments Off

Life Lessons from Stan the Man

There are times—like right now, on election day—when I worry about the state of our country and the world. I’m concerned about all the angry rhetoric, the threats of violence, and the explosive tempers that seem to be the norm these days. It makes me wonder what kind of example we’re setting for our children, and what kind of lessons we’re teaching them. Then I come across someone like Stanley Tucker. And I’m comforted and relieved to know that because of people like him, there’s [...]

By bettyliedtke|November 5th, 2024|Accountability, Columns, Making a Difference, Respect, Values|Comments Off

Lighten Up!

My book club meets once a month, and each of our twelve members takes a turn hosting the meeting—serving snacks and lunch before we sit down to discuss the book. I always try to work the menu around the theme or environment of the book we’re discussing. Book Club was at my house this month, and the book we read was A Shadow in Moscow, by Katherine Reay. I highly recommend it, by the way—and since it’s a spy novel set in Russia, I researched [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 27th, 2024|Columns, Health and Well-being, Holidays, Organizing, Values|Comments Off

Name Blame

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare wrote in Romeo and Juliet. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Maybe, but I’ve got some new thoughts about names. I have a cousin named Katrina. I’ve always loved that name—and my cousin. But today, if you say “Katrina,” it’s not my cousin that comes to mind first. It’s the devastating hurricane that killed more than a thousand people in 2005. The city of New Orleans was one of the hardest hit, and damage from the [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 21st, 2024|Columns, Quotes and Sayings, Values|Comments Off

After the Storm

I hadn’t even heard of Hurricane Helene until a few days before it hit. That’s unusual. Normally, there is a week or more of weather reports saying something is developing somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean that may turn into a tropical storm or a full-fledged hurricane. We always pay attention to hurricane news, even though we live so far inland in Georgia that hurricanes usually don’t affect us directly. There have been some exceptions, of course, such as Hurricane Irma, which left us without power [...]

By bettyliedtke|October 5th, 2024|Columns, Values|Comments Off

A new candidate has a new agenda

During a visit with our daughter eight years ago, conversation turned to the coming election, and inspired a tongue-in-cheek column in which I appointed members of my family—myself included—to different government positions. Some of what I said is as relevant today as it was then, so I’m printing it again. I hope you enjoy it. The Department of Nice. That’s the federal agency I’m going to be in charge of after my daughter is elected president. My husband and I spent last weekend in Florida, [...]

By bettyliedtke|September 8th, 2024|Columns, Family, Gifts and Talents, Making a Difference, Values|Comments Off

A Summer Social

“I feel like I’m in a Norman Rockwell painting,” I said. The lady behind the counter, the one dishing out homemade peach ice cream, laughed. “Boy, that brings back memories,” she said. I was at an Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social sponsored by Eatonton’s Old School History Museum, whose tag line is “Preserving the past for the future.” When I first got to the event, I said hello to a friend who was handing out lemonade near the front door of the building. “Did you get [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 25th, 2024|Columns, Values|Comments Off

On the Road Again

Although we’ve been home for a few weeks now, I’m still humming the Simon & Garfunkel song that starts out, “Gee but it’s great to be back home.” After three weeks on the road and almost 4,000 miles on the odometer, it was, indeed, great to be back home. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat. In the three weeks we were gone, my husband and I visited with family in Chicago and Minnesota, then drove down to Dallas for a convention, and finally [...]

By bettyliedtke|August 9th, 2024|Columns, Family, Travel, Values|Comments Off

One More Time

I had numerous feelings of déjà vu recently when my husband and I flew to Phoenix. From there we rented a car and drove to California to visit our daughter, then back to Phoenix to visit some friends there that we haven’t seen in a long, long time. The déjà vu kept popping up because this was the same itinerary we had last November, when we had to cancel our plans after learning that a tree fell on our house and punched a hole in [...]

By bettyliedtke|June 22nd, 2024|Columns, Family, Travel, Values|Comments Off

Travel Time

It’s been seven years since my husband and I moved to Georgia from Minnesota. The first summer we were here, both of our kids and their spouses came to visit over the 4th of July, and we all had a great time. In fact, our son said, “I know where we’ll be going every year for our summer vacation.” It didn’t turn out that way, however. By the next summer, our daughter-in-law was pregnant, and long-distance travel would have been uncomfortable at best. By the [...]

By bettyliedtke|June 5th, 2024|Columns, Family, Holidays, Travel, Values|Comments Off

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