My British friend with her lovely accent once said to me, “Americans have been putting tea into the water since the Boston Tea party, and from then on they’ve kept right on doing it the wrong way.” Her sassy remark has helped me remember a tea-technicality ever since. And on more than one occasion, it […]
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“Are you being married?” our then four-year-old grandson asked. His whole body shoved forward to fit into a space in-between my husband and myself’s quick hug in the chaos of a kitchen swarming with grandkids. “Don’t be married!” he whined while he huffed and puffed and wiggled his short body against our legs and into […]
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It’s a snowball of sorts. Little things turn into bigger things, the list of to-do’s explode until there is simply no way to accomplish all of it, and a minor set back becomes a nearly impossible major reset. And a pain. This is life. It snowballs. Out the back of our house my husband and […]
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We sat in the old farmhouse dining room, around the table where my mom had hosted generations of family. And we divvied up the old pictures, bits and pieces of written history, and trinkets of her life well lived. Someday, my children will do the same. The china, the pictures, and the stuff which seems […]
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Somewhere in the middle of dodge ball tag and baking cookies with three grandsons, my youngest grandson cocked his head to the side and asked, “So Grandma, what do you two do here all day long?” And as I looked down at him, red-faced and panting, echoes of that question dittoed through my mind. I’ve […]
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When my daughter woke up on the day which changed all of our lives, it started pretty much like every other day. She felt a bit dizzy. She checked her temperature, but she didn’t have a fever. Yet, as the day wore on, a strange novocain numbness began its terrifying creep up her left side. […]
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We make promises. We plan, envision, re-calibrate, and define goals. We look ahead and behind. We hope, determine, and anticipate. We look forward to a white page, a whole year ahead, without smudges. Not a single broken resolve. Yet. Years ago, my husband, myself, and our three little girls stood together with about fifty others, […]
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The slammed door echoed into the hallway and shocked the kitchen. Probably every teenager has managed a few. Ours did. And, although door slams were outlawed, the ugly secret was that I wished desperately to go into my own bedroom and slam its door with the same adolescent drama. I let out a sigh, and […]
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I love the Holidays. Always have. Hopefully always will. Yet, as seasons pass, new challenges arise and I find at times a sense of melancholy seeps into this time of year. I recognize how much I’ve looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas for distraction, a temporary reprieve, a pocket of “happy” in a world of […]
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It’s a crisp November day outside. Up until now the warmth of late summer has hung its hat on Virginia’s autumn. But, fall chill descended last night and the breezy gusts feel polar in comparison to our 80 degree highs of last week. “Be careful!” I warn my husband as I watch him nearly fall. […]
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