Reunions, Memories, Age, and Wonder
I recently received a notice about my fortieth high school reunion this fall. Fortieth!!! How can it be forty years since I graduated from high school? I still feel seventeen. Well, except when my back hurts. And my knees creak. I remember when I was fifteen and my parents went to their twentieth high school […]
Insulation – Then and Now
My husband and I need to replace our furnace. If possible, we also want to even out the heating and cooling in our house – one upstairs room is perpetually hot in the summer, and a basement bedroom needs a space heater in winter for comfort. We had a furnace salesman give us an estimate […]
Working Through the Generations: Happy 80th Birthday to My Father
I’ve written before that I am a lot like my mother. But I developed my attitudes toward work by watching my father. My earliest memories of my father at work date back to when I was in pre-school. When he was in graduate school earning his Ph.D. in metallurgy, he worked a variety of jobs […]
Poetry and Childhood Memories: Plume, by Kathleen Flenniken
I received Plume, a book of poems by Kathleen Flenniken, from my daughter, who bought it for me because the author grew up in Richland, Washington, as I did. The poems in Plume are about Ms. Flenniken’s childhood in Richland and her work experience at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where she spent a few years […]
Humor Amidst the Tears
I wrote on Monday about the tragedies of Alzheimer’s, which are real and heart-wrenching. But there are moments of humor as well. Two of our family’s amusing stories occurred in May 2010, not long after my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Several family members had gathered in New Orleans for my daughter’s graduation from Tulane […]
Photo Finishes
One of the challenges in writing this blog is finding pictures to suit each post. I’ve read that adding pictures to a blog makes it much more attractive to readers, so I have tried to include images of some type with most posts. Many of my pictures come from Microsoft clipart, which has thousands of […]
My Mother’s 80th Birthday: The Meaning of Decades and of Days
I have mentioned before that my mother has Alzheimer’s. The last few years have been hard on our family, as we have watched her abilities decline. We recently moved her into an assisted living facility. Today, March 4, 2013, is her 80th birthday. We celebrate the milestone, while we reflect on what has been and […]
In Sickness and in Health
I had planned to write a family story for today’s post, but life has a way of changing one’s plans. My husband and I spent the last week nursing each other through gastroenteritis. Al came down with it first, and for two days I made him tea, toast, and chicken soup. His reaction to stomach […]
Learning to Ski
As winter approaches each year, I cringe. Will my family want to go skiing? It’s not that I can’t ski; it’s just that I don’t like to. At best, I am a spring skier – when the temperatures hover just above freezing and the sun shines, then skiing is tolerable. Otherwise, I’d rather be reading. […]
Innocence of Christmases Past
I wrote today’s post before the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday. As I upload the post now, I recognize in sorrow that many families in Newton, CT, will not be able to pose their children under the Christmas tree this year, nor in future years. All the children at Sandy Hook […]