A Visit to the Seattle Asian Art Museum
I’ve been to Volunteer Park several times since we moved to Seattle, but usually I’ve been there to walk the trails and enjoy the view of the Olympic Mountains in the distance. Last week, however, my husband and I finally toured the Seattle Asian Art Museum, which is located on the park’s grounds. The building […]
AI to the Rescue Again: Fixing My Broken Website
I wrote a few weeks ago about how AI saved me money by helping me draft a letter to appeal the denial of a Medicare claim. This past week, it saved me time and headaches when this website abruptly stopped working. I’m not sure when it stopped working, but I noticed it when last week’s […]
The Denny Party: A New Baby and a New Beginning
As I wrote last month, the Denny Party reached Portland in late August 1851, after five months on the Oregon Trail. They had crossed the plains and mountains, then been separated while some took the difficult journey down the Columbia River and others took the equally hazardous trip on the Barlow Road. For Mary Denny, […]
Flower Girls, Then and Now
I recently attended a family wedding out of state. It was the first time I had traveled without my husband in three years. It took some planning to be sure he would be cared for while I was gone, but I am happy to report that we both survived. The wedding was my niece’s—my sister’s […]
How AI Saved Me $1,000
There is a lot of controversy around the use of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly in the writing community, but this post isn’t about the ethics and aesthetics of using AI for creative writing. It’s about the use of AI for more practical concerns—like researching government regulations and interpreting them so the average person can understand […]
The Denny Party: Final Miles to Portland
After four months and nearly 2,000 miles on the Oregon Trail, the Denny Party reached the Columbia River. But the journey was far from over. The last miles to Portland would be among the most dangerous of the entire trip—and would divide the family between two very different routes. On August 10 or 11, 1851, […]
What Twenty-One Years Have Changed
Twenty-one years ago, in August 2005, my family gathered to celebrate my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. We stayed in Pacific Grove, California, very near where my parents had honeymooned in Carmel in 1955. My parents, my husband and I, and my sister and her family made the trip. My brother and his family couldn’t come. […]
The Singer Sewing Machine
Today is the 175th anniversary of the Singer sewing machine. On August 12, 1851, American inventor Isaac Singer received a U.S. patent for a sewing machine, an invention that would transform the way clothing was made. My mother had a Singer sewing machine with a floor pedal. She probably got it around the time she […]
Practicing Gratitude
Back in November 2022, I wrote about ending each journal entry by listing five (more or less) things I was grateful for that day, something I’d been doing for two years at the time. I’ve continued the practice ever since, and I now have six years’ worth of gratitude in my journal. My lists are […]
New Lenses: The World Back in Focus
When I wrote last about my cataract surgery, I described how strange it was to have a world that had suddenly contracted. My close vision was good, but anything beyond arm’s length was a blur. I knew it was temporary, but knowing that didn’t make it any less frustrating. That stage is over. I have […]