The Birthday Dinner that Wasn’t
My granddaughter just turned two. Her parents and my husband and I planned a pizza and cupcake dinner at our apartment to celebrate—complete with gifts and singing, of course. Unfortunately, midday on the Big Day my daughter texted that the birthday girl had vomited. With toddlers, one never knows if stomach upsets are a fluke […]
Random Photos: My Husband as a Boy
One of the fun things about digitizing many (most?) of our photographs last year was discovering things about my husband as a boy that I’d never known. We didn’t meet until he was in his mid-twenties, and he’d just spent five years as a U.S. Navy officer. He was a pretty serious guy, though he […]
Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad
I was looking for a historical topic for today’s post and came across a reference to the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad. This railroad was incorporated in 1873, the year in which most of my current work-in-progress takes place. My novel deals with the coming of trains to the Pacific Northwest, but in my research […]
Moving Along on My Work-in-Progress
Last November, I set a goal to work on my novel every day until the end of the year. I met that goal, and I have continued to work on it every day thus far in 2025. My writing stints aren’t always long, but the regularity gives me a sense of progress. Over the last […]
Mementos from Nanny Winnie
I had to make some hard decisions when we moved last fall. I had several bins of things from my parents’ house, including mementos from their lives and from my grandparents’ lives and gifts that they gave me over the years. Some of the hardest to get rid of were items that had belonged to […]
Being Present in 2025
Here we are—another year begins. I start 2025 with both hope and trepidation. Hope, because it is a new beginning, and I have many things I can explore in my new home—new museums and parks, new cultural events, new friends. But trepidation, because so many things in my life are uncertain. My husband’s doctors are […]
Merry Christmas!
Our Christmas today will differ from how my husband and I have celebrated in years past. For the first time in decades, we will spend it in the Seattle area. We will also see our granddaughter (together with her parents) on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which is a treat. (Though next year, she […]
Over the River and Through the Woods (and the Mountains), To Grandmother’s House We Go
For most of our marriage, my husband and I have traveled to one or the other set of parents to celebrate the holidays. Usually, we went to his parents’ home in Marshall, Missouri, which was only 90 miles from our house. The last time we celebrated a holiday there was a year ago—Thanksgiving 2023. Since […]
O Christmas Tree (A New Version)
For most of the forty-seven Christmases my husband and I have been married, we have had a real Christmas tree. Even many of the years when we traveled across the country to celebrate, we bought and decorated a real tree. There were a few seasons when we skipped the tradition, but not many. Some years, […]
Walking a New Beach in December
I’ve written before about how much I love the beach. Usually, my visits to the beach have been in summer time, or if in winter, they’ve been to beaches in warm climes. This past Sunday, December 1, my husband and I strolled along Richmond Beach, just fifteen minutes from our apartment. The air temperature was […]