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Teaching two fully online classes at two different universities has been an unexpectedly meaningful experience. I’ve taught hybrid courses and plenty of in‑person classes, but never exclusively online. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it—or if my students would—but it turned out to be both energizing and rewarding. My students are scattered across the United States, which makes the learning environment wonderfully diverse. To help them build relationships across the distance, I

Loneliness among seniors is a growing concern that often goes unnoticed. This week, a simple phone call from a friend’s mother, who received a Christmas card but chose to call instead of sending one back, brought this issue into sharp focus. Her husband passed away this year, and through helping my mother-in-law prepare to sell her house, I realized how many elderly people live isolated lives. At the same time, I spoke with a friend planning to start classes for parents facin

I plan to teach systems theory and system engineering in the spring at two universities. It is always a challenge to estimate how much you are asking students to do, especially in a new class. I found this tool from Wake Forest that helps plan a course load. I have taught online and in person, but now I am teaching post-AI and COVID. The systems theory is a new class for me, and it is all online. Every student is different. I can read really fast, but I write slowly. If you

Right now, I am coordinating chaos, I’m working to build a new consulting business, preparing to teach two courses in Spring 2026, cleaning out a house to sell, and reinserting myself into Sage Studios—the business my husband and I have nurtured for 20 years. And then there’s QuickBooks. After a decade of only running profit-and-loss reports, I’m back in the trenches, relearning the system. Our beloved bookkeeper retired at 82 (rightfully so!), and she was the kind of person

Revisiting General System Theory As I prepare for my upcoming course in Systems Theory and Systems Engineering, I’ve been rereading General System Theory by Ludwig von Bertalanffy — a book that laid much of the groundwork for modern systems thinking. Bertalanffy’s writing can be dense and opinionated at times, but his ideas are undeniably thought-provoking. Concepts like teleology , open systems , and closed systems still hold up when you start applying them to how people,

Over the past week, I’ve been juggling two big projects: ✔ Preparing a family home for sale—estate sales, hiring help, repairs, contracts ✔ Laying the foundation for my consulting business through market research Here’s what I learned and why it matters: ✅ Industry 5.0 & Supply Chain – Daniel Stanton and I discussed how additive manufacturing (like VRC Metal Systems, LLC ) and advanced tech are reshaping operations. ✅ Finding My Why – Jennifer Landis reminded me that