If you see me driving around town and I don’t wave, please don’t take offense. I honestly didn’t see you. I’m not known for noticing much beyond the scope of immediate traffic. I’m most likely thinking and listening. I like talk radio and ‘70s music. I also enjoy the antics of my chihuahua, Bear Wells, who thinks a trip in the car is the next best thing to chasing bunnies across the lawn.

What I’m not busy doing is calling or texting on my phone. I took Oprah’s pledge and silence my phone each time I get in the car.

I know a number of people who play games involving license plates as they drive. Some keep track of states. Others look for specific numbers. I’m a bumper sticker aficionado. I find some downright entertaining. Others leave me shaking my head in disbelief. To each his own, I always say.

I tip my hat this week to the truck, stickered with the message, “Stop Talking. Start Walking.” It’s not only a message I happen to agree with, but guides my husband and me as we actively work to reinvent our lives as “Empty Nesters.”

For 24 years we’ve focused our time, energies, and financial resources around our children. They have been in all ways the center of our marriage. Now that they are young professionals and collegians, it is essential that we rework the way we spend our time together. Those days of, “When the kids are grown we’ll do that!” have arrived.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. To begin with, you must ask each other specific questions. What are our hopes and dreams apart from the kids? What do we do to remember those things that brought us together in the first place and build on the changes we’ve experienced since then? How do we choose activities that will satisfy two people who are very different?

No matter the conversations, changes must be made on all levels, from the ways you order ordinary tasks and spending your money, to making big plans. You risk talking issues to death if it is customary for you to defer personal wants to the needs of your family. Even identifying what you want to do can be extremely difficult if you have spent years putting others ahead of yourself. But there does come a moment of decision and like my friend Sally always says, “It’s time to put on your brave pants!”

It’s time to stop talking, make some brave choices and start walking, just as the bumper sticker declares.

There is a spiritual component to this concept as well. It can be a whole lot easier to talk about matters of faith than putting those concepts into practice. After all, loving your neighbor might be hard because he’s not very lovable. It might impact your busy schedule. It might push your comfort levels. It might require a financial commitment. But God asks us to be real. So live it. Walk it. And ask the spirit of God to be your trusted guide.