with SH at caravanserai in Iran, August 2016

This year will be an important one for me and my darling SH as this year on June 6th we will celebrate 30 years of marriage. And how lucky I am to be married to this man who has always been loving and giving and affirming. I anticipate that we will make a couple of trips together in the next year depending on where he has been invited to give a talk. Certainly the highlight for 2016 was spending a week in Iran because he was invited to give a talk in Tehran about his research.

This year will be one for our three children to continue finding their ways through life. None of the three have any major markers for this year (such as a graduation, etc), but they are all individuals of whom we, SH and I, are proud.

This year will be one for me to spend more time with my family. During my 30 years of marriage — working to earn my Ph.D., raising three children, working as an educator — I have not spent enough time with my mother and sister. This year will be different. Thanks to the many frequent flyer miles my SH has racked up with gallivanting all over the world giving talks, my sister and I are going to spend a week in London in March. This is a delayed present for her 50th birthday and I am so grateful to SH for making this happen. I also want to spend some time with my mom, who lives in Minnesota. In August of 2016, my grandmother died. You don’t have your parents forever.

This year will be one for me to embark on the challenge of running for an elected office in my township. The results of the election were shocking and devastating for me and many others. I predict that more folks are going to start engaging in politics in many ways because we want to fight to bring the United States back to sanity and civility and rationality.