THE COMPANY OF WOMEN

 I was just thinking about how blessed I am to be surrounded by so many wonderful women. From family to close friends to women I work with and write about, attend church with, and speak to at their social and service clubs and events, I enjoy them in all their differences, talents, tastes and stories—always stories! That is the currency of a writer.

If you live in greater-east-central Indiana, consider picking up a copy of the Sunday, Jan. 31 issue of the New Castle Courier-Times. Inside will be a print bonus: the winter issue of Her Magazine for Women. On the cover is Cindy Oler, owner of Dance With Cindy – a business she founded as a child, and it continues to thrive 47 years later.

For decades I have had press releases from Cindy about recitals and even in those brief online encounters, found her to be charming, kind, and grateful. Sure enough, when I interviewed her for the cover piece (surprise! She didn’t know it would go on the cover) I found her to be all those things and more. And, I felt like we could be personal friends.

I liked her. A lot.

January was a worker-bee month for me both at work and at home. Along with getting the magazine out the door, the newsroom heated up the phone and Internet updating our annual Answer Book with corrected listings for all the social, service, government and leisure contact information helpful to those in and around Henry County, Indiana. We also had extra stories to produce for last Sunday’s HOPE edition, and our usual workload.

At home, we got two rooms of carpeting so juggled furniture back and forth before and after installation, bought two cars’ worth of sets of tires, got my book’s Indiana sales tax squared away, I had my inaugural colonoscopy, and the dishwasher died. Indeed it was an expensive month to be a Cronk. Oh, and Brian rolled out a new part-time job as a driver for an automotive auction house.

It was also the return to the Monday-night schedule of Bible Study Fellowship where hundreds of women come together for in-depth, non-denominational study. This year is the book of Revelation, and if you are free Monday nights, there’s a welcome class Monday, Feb. 1 at 6:55 p.m. Middletown Church of the Nazarene is the host church.

I’m happy that this month comes to a close with an all-church women’s retreat at Lake Placid near Hartford City. Starting tonight, about 60 Ovid Community Church women and friends will gather to laugh, learn, craft, worship, sing, snooze, eat, and visit. It’s the perfect way to end a January that I’m ready to place in the books.

Thank you, Lord, for the many bold, beautiful, interesting, entertaining and outrageous women in my life!

The remarkable Cindy Oler of Hagerstown in her studio. She has taught dance for 47 years and is going for 50. She holds a picture of herself as a tiny dancer. Cindy graces the cover of our winter issue of Her Magazine for Women, coming out Sunday, Jan. 31. Courier-Times photo by Donna Cronk