Once a month, I meet with my Bunco* group. We have a meal – usually accompanied by a drink or two - followed by a mindless game of dice with the tantalizing possibility of prizes.

*For those not yet in the know, Bunco is a social game where players take turns rolling three dice in rounds to score points.

The biggest takeaway from this monthly gathering, however, is how much I learn from this group of smart and fun-loving women.

When my husband and I first moved to Missouri back in 1980 we were pretty poor. If we had a nickel, it would be lonely. Imagine how excited we were to have found a farmhouse to rent. It was owned by an older couple who basically just wanted someone in it so it wouldn’t get destroyed by vandals. It had been the woman’s homestead that she inherited from her parents. They offered it to us for $25 a month during the winter months if we would count their cows and feed them some hay. During the summer when they didn’t need to be fed, we were to pay $50, but they took pity on us and never changed it from $25!

How did you and your family fare during the pandemic? I’ll be the first to admit it changed me and my family. In fact, my husband stood up in front of a large group of people recently and stated, “it changed me! I have a dog now! A tiny INSIDE dog!” Yes, that was quite a change for us. Let me explain how it came about, as she was not a pandemic dog in the strictest sense of the word.

Were you given an allowance as a child? My earliest memory of an allowance was $.35 every two weeks, and I had to put $.20 of that in the donation box, so that left me a whopping $.15 that I could spend on candy, etc., for two weeks. I was recently reminiscing with a younger friend who has four children, ages 12 to 20. He told me he didn’t think his kids even knew money came that small! Hahaha!!!