About Me

Welcome to Salty But Sweet.

True, I’m no longer a sweet, young thing. But, most days I’m vertical and up for new adventures. I’d also like to think I’m more seasoned (translation: interesting) than I was a decade or more ago. I know, if you’re younger than 45 you’ll find it hard to believe, but age does have its benefits. Seriously. Don’t ask me to list the benefits for you right now, but I promise you there is an upside. Usually.

I can also tell you that I’m happily married to a man who, for more than half his lifetime, has suffered my flights of fancy and my incessant need to change direction. He’s a saint. He keeps me rooted.

Our two grown children, their spouses, and my four grandsons make me smile–constantly–whether they intend to or not. They’re a constant source of joy and entertainment as are the four dogs spread across the three households. You’ll find them all mentioned in my posts; but of the animals, Dudley, our Sheepadoodle, will figure prominently.

Although I’ve been lucky enough to do a fair bit of traveling, I’ve lived in the Kansas City metropolitan area all my life. There was a time when I wished I lived elsewhere–anywhere–but in hindsight, this city was a great place to grow up and has been a fabulous place to raise our children. Now, Kansas City is a great jumping-off spot anytime I feel the urge to explore someplace new. Our new airport terminal opens in 2023, and promises to be a huge improvement over the current terminals; at least in terms of amenities for those stuck in the airport. Kansas City has more interstate highway miles per capita than any other city in the nation, making travel by car pretty easy, and Amtrak has a fair number of trains running in and out on a daily basis. “Fair number” being a relative term, of course. The only mode of transportation we lack is boat travel–that is, unless you want to hop on a barge full of corn and head down the Missouri River to St. Louis and points beyond. Your call.

When I’m not exploring new places and writing, I love to read, cook, and play golf. I especially love to fill our house with family and friends. We have a huge–and wonderful–extended family and an amazing circle of dear friends. I’m eternally grateful for every last one of them. As for things I don’t like, I avoid housework like most people avoid liver and beets. With the exception of cooking, all domestic chores around here are done strictly on an “as (desperately) needed” basis.

Until recently, I owned my own contracting company and worked as a technical writer. Before that I was an English teacher. Before that…well, I’ll not bore you with the sordid details of my professional past. Suffice it to say, I’ve never worked anywhere long enough that management was tempted to give me a gold watch. Seems I have the attention span of an adolescent gnat.

This is my fourth blog. The first, Queen Mary Twosome, was written jointly with my aunt as the two of us traveled from Kansas City to her home in Tasmania in February/March of 2009. We wanted our friends and family to be able to enjoy our adventures with us, so we wrote extensively about our experiences both on the Queen Mary 2 as we sailed from Los Angeles to Sydney and about the two-week long culinary tour we did during my stay in Tasmania. We no longer post to that blog, but I will occasionally include excerpts from it here on this blog just because we had so much dang fun I love to share it with others.

My second blog was called Mary’d With Children. There I posted the “musings of a middle-aged mom.” Nothing profound, just my observations of our often frenetic, sometimes now-very-quiet household and the characters who pass through (or live here). Then, after a massive brain toot, I decided to start a third blog, P.S. Wish You Were Here, which I wrote simultaneously with Mary’d With Children and on which I chronicled my travels. Within a very short amount of time, I realized posting to two blogs was making me nuts. So…

When I discovered recently that I could merge the content of Mary’d with P.S., I got very excited. Then when I learned that I could not only merge all my previous content, I could also migrate the merged content into a brand new blog, well…I had no choice. I love new beginnings. So there you are. Salty But Sweet. All in one place. Whew!