Hi Y’all, I’m Beth
I’m Beth Gramling Sanders, an empty nester, married since 1986, and mom of two wonderful grown women.
Way geekier than most women my age, along with my oldest daughter, Elizabeth, I stood in line for 12 hours in 2007 for the very first iPhone.
Hi Y’all, I’m Beth
I’m an empty nester, way geekier than most women my age. I consider myself too old to be a hipster and too young at heart to be a geezer. I’m a Christ follower, life-long St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan, crossword puzzle nerd, wordsmith and all-around technology freak and early adopter.
I was a stay-at-home mom for 14 years, as my husband, Jim, and I raised our two daughters. I enjoy my girls as adults more than I ever dreamed and love being free from enforcing curfew, nagging about homework, and throwing down a four-course dinner every night.
This blog is my personal thoughts and insights on life, family, faith, the expression of experiences and wisdom gained through 60+ years of life, and things I enjoy.
My professional self is on my website, aptly named BethGSanders.com.
Latest Post
Challenges
I have four family members who have run marathons. I'm simply in awe of this accomplishment. Our oldest daughter Elizabeth has run three and I'll never forget her first one, the St. Jude Memphis Marathon. The whole family went downtown on a very cold December morning,...
Chemo Didn’t Quite Go as Planned
Boy, this sure isn't the post I thought I'd be writing. I didn't think it would be September before I wrote it and I didn't realize it would be this hard to write. This is the toughest one, because it's a different kind of trauma than I've ever experienced. But here...
Crappy and Rotten
This isn’t going to be a feel-good post. Because I’m feeling crappy and rotten. So if you're here for daisies and rainbows, you're in the wrong spot today. I had colon surgery on July 6 and was recovering well. I felt so much like myself that we went out Thursday...
When Life Throws You a 12-6 Curveball
Y’all know what a 12-6 curveball is? You do if you’re a baseball fan like me. Imagine you’re at bat and you see the ball coming toward you. You can tell it’s not a 100-mph fastball and it looks like it’s just in the right place to connect with the sweet spot of your...
When it Rains …
it Pours. :: Heavy Sigh :: Yesterday, just as I'm beginning to recover physically from surgery, I log on to my patient portal account and see the report of my lymph node biopsy from the procedure. I had been waiting for it, but felt pretty confident that my prognosis...
Bye Cancer. Now Lose My Number.
I'm a richly blessed old chick. The summer of 2023 started with my first ever colonoscopy on June 13. The gastroenterologist who did the procedure was a real jerk. It's bad to be a jerk, but I think it's a lot worse to be a doctor and a jerk. This particular ass in...
The Waiting
This is the toughest part of the cancer thing. The waiting. Waiting for surgery. Waiting for another scan (a PET scan, the one after which I'll be radioactive) in two days, waiting to know about treatment. I'd like to say I'm waiting patiently, but that would be a...
Cancer is Overwhelming
Oh, here we go. Now I'm overwhelmed. Things are moving pretty quickly. Today I saw the oncologist and my head started spinning. He's a very nice man, and is from Ecuador, so he probably speaks much better Spanish than I do. My sister Sara says oncologists are always...
Uncle Taco
Uncle Taco is a relatively new local restaurant, occupying the space formerly held by Eleanor's Pizza, if you remember that. Their menu isn't huge, but they have a nice variety of tacos and other dishes. I like it when a restaurant doesn't feel like they have to have...
Damn Cancer
If the title of this post offends you, sorry. Cancer offends me. I hope you're more bothered by cancer than by the word damn. I'm a 25-year breast cancer survivor as of this writing, and I thought I was finished with cancer. My tumor was very small when diagnosed and...
What I’ve Learned About Caregiving
Above: Mom with several of her nine grandchildren Since December of 2021, I’ve been a full-time caregiver for my mom, 87, who suffered a stroke in November 2021. I’ve learned a few things about caregiving — and am still learning — so I thought I’d share some things...
What Weird Times These Are
Oh, boy. Please, 2022, be better than (at least the last part of) 2021. I'm looking back over the past month or so and thinking that if I tried to write it as a story, any decent editor would reject it as far too improbable. Here's a (not so) quick timeline: November...
Home for the Holidays
For 40 years, the holidays started for me the week before Thanksgiving. It was a short work week, and I'd start packing on Monday for my one-and-a-half-hour trip to Jonesboro, Arkansas from Memphis. I couldn't wait to get in the car and drive over one of Memphis' two...
Charlie
It's 2008. Me, to my 16-year-old daughter, broken hearted after the end of a friendship: Sweetheart, I'm so sorry you're hurting. What do you think would make it better? I expected to hear "cookies," or "a sweet tea from McAllister's," or even "a new top." Instead she...
House
I grew up in a house that was built in 1902, on a tree-lined block in an older neighborhood in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
What I Hate (And Love) About Halloween
Curmudgeon alert: I hate Halloween. I always have. No, I was never traumatized by a goblin on Halloween, I just don't like scary things. I don't like scary movies, books, or TV shows. I don't like the dark. I don't like rides that make me feel as if I could be risking...
Goodbye, House
Yesterday was happy/sad. Happy/sad because we closed on the sale of the house we lived in for 28 years. Where we raised our two girls and a few dogs along the way. The kitchen in which I made approximately 2160 peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for school lunches....
How We Use the Paprika App to Plan Meals
We’re empty nesters and we use the Paprika app on Mac and iOS to plan our weekly meals and keep track of recipes we like and want to repeat.
Moving: Final Phase
They are pretty darned, cute, no? You know how sometimes you are in the middle of something stressful and you focus on one little, tiny thing? Yeah, that. So I splurged on new shower curtains and those cute little rings that hold them up. You can get some really cool...