A Story I Don’t Want To Tell: Piercing My Ears (for National Piercing Day)
I’ve been meaning to write the story of how I came to pierce my ears, though even thinking about it makes me squeamish. I recently learned that May 16 is National Piercing Day, so I have no excuse for further procrastination. It’s time to ’fess up. During the summer I was seventeen, after I graduated […]
Recipe — Hot Fudge Cake and Icing (aka the Nadine Spanner Chocolate Cake)
My daughter came home for her birthday last week, and it was a delight to have her visit. But that meant my husband and I had to make a birthday cake. I’ve mentioned the decadent Nadine Spanner Chocolate Cake in an earlier post. It is the “go to” cake in our family when we’re willing […]
A Treasure: My Daughter’s First Graduation Photo
I mentioned last year that I found many “treasures” when I cleaned out some cupboards. Here is one of them—my daughter’s preschool graduation photo from May 1990. Her preschool was part of a Catholic parochial school. She started at the “early childhood learning center” (as the preschool was formally called) when she was three months […]
Spring Has Finally Sprung
March and April this year were dreadful months—cold and dreary. Even if we had an occasional nice day during the week, the weekends were dank and gray. We’d had little snow through the winter, so to make up Mother Nature dumped storms on us, first one on Easter (April Fool’s!), and then another a week […]
A Story I’ve Rarely Told Before: My First Bad Haircut
I’ve written before about my dislike of beauty parlors, which dates back to early childhood. I have never been comfortable in salons, even though most of the time the stylists gave me better haircuts than when my mother cut my hair at home. However, a couple of weeks ago I got the worst haircut of […]
Party Like It’s 1843: Celebrating the 175th Anniversary of the Great Migration to Oregon
I’ve written before about the Great Migration of 1843—the first large wagon train along the Oregon Trail. This was the first organized company to take wagons to Oregon from Missouri. That year, over 700 people set out for Oregon, transported in more than 100 wagons. Men like Jesse Applegate, Peter Burnett, Philip Foster, William Livingston […]
Milestone: Deleting My Father’s Email
Today, April 25, 2018, would have been my father’s 85th birthday. (He was 52 days younger than my mother, so her 85th birthday passed several weeks ago.) He died on January 5, 2015, and we held his memorial service on April 25, 2015—three years ago today, on what would have been his 82nd birthday. I […]
A Visit to the National World War I Museum and Memorial
Kansas City is home to the National World War I Museum and Memorial, which is, according to its website, “America’s only museum dedicated to sharing the stories of the Great War through the eyes of those who lived it.” My husband and I have visited the museum several times, and it truly is a national […]
On Memories and Liars and Lying Memories
At Mass last Sunday, the second reading was from 1 John, and included 1 John 2:4 (NAB): “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” As the lector read those words, I was transported to a time twenty years ago when I […]
You Know Your Children Are Grown When . . . [Part V]
I’ve written on this topic several times in the past, but in recent months I’ve had more occasions to reflect on the benefits of having grown children. You know your children are grown when 1. Both children call on your birthday, and you don’t think one reminded the other this year (though maybe . . […]