Like a warm hug, laughter echos through the dining room as a group of ladies gathers for coffee, gleefully cajoling cookies from the kitchen staff inside the Mott Health Care Center (MHCC).
The scene is the culmination of a mighty community effort.
“Perseverance is never giving up and never losing hope” was once scripted onto a wall of the physical therapy room in the center. That seems appropriate.
“What’s to eat?” our kids would say when they were younger and living at home.
Actually, they still say that when they visit.
When our son was a rapidly growing teenager, he sometimes made multiple trips to open the fridge within 30 minutes.
“The food hasn’t changed since the last time you checked,” I’d say.
When I went to retrieve some food from our basement food pantry, I’d pick up a box of crackers. My hand would fly upwards at no resistance. The box was empty.
Diamonds may be formed under intense pressure, but we are flesh and blood, and sometimes pressure can crush us.
Stress. It can result from the day-to-day rush to get out the door in the morning. Deadlines. Workplace pressures. The weather’s impact on crops. Spring calving. Financial worries. Even mindless scrolling through the phone, getting agitated about information we don’t agree with or negative posts.
Daily living can be stressful, but recognizing stress and taking steps to simply breathe can sometimes reduce the long-term effects of stress.
Marlo Anderson is living proof there’s reason to celebrate every day. As founder of the National Day Calendar – the official, authoritative source for fun, unusual and unique national days – Anderson has built a wildly popular national brand around celebration.
Anderson’s curiosity popped in 2013, as he searched for information on the internet about the national day dedicated to his favorite snack – popcorn (the movie-theater buttered kind, preferably).
Going into last winter, with many North Dakota waters lower than they’d been in some time thanks to severe drought, N.D. Game and Fish Department (NDGF) fisheries managers worried that declining water levels and other factors would lead to significant winterkill.
Turns out, it wasn’t nearly as bad as anticipated.
Rhonda Gilbertson-Evans wrote those words in a poem called “Why I Do This Work.” The poem explains her reasons for serving people experiencing homelessness, including a man dear to her heart.
“It’s not that easy for many of our community members who are homeless. Some hills are unsurmountable,” she said.
Many of us are so connected to our phones, tablets and laptops we panic when the battery nears the dreaded 0% mark.
We want our device batteries to perform well for as long as possible. But taking care of them can conflict with why we have our electronics in the first place. The point isn’t to fret about battery life; it’s to read and send emails, scroll on social media, take photos and countless other pursuits.
The city of Dickinson reimagined a downtown site – a former banking center – to create a vibrant outdoor space for the community.
Pat Traynor believes he lives in “the most generous part of the planet.” Since 2008, he has witnessed hundreds of thousands of generous donors give $165 million to more than 500 local charities in primarily North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota.