• Sunday Snippet: The No Thanks to Aging Edition

    Been thinking about aging, particularly after the neighborhood yard sale we had this weekend. So many of the folks participating were our age or older and as anxious as us to purge some of the stuff they’d had in their homes forever and a day. Ironically, a lot of the people wandering the ‘hood buying the stuff the rest of us were getting rid of were… wait for it… people our age. Go figure, right? A few years ago, when Husband and I moved from our home of 37 years to our new place here in the ‘hood, we did a major purge. Like truly big. A wonderful group of…

  • Sunday Snippet: Another I Got Nothin’ Edition

    Seriously…I got nothin’. Right off, I’m late with this–usually I have it up at 6:30; it’s now 7:15. I lingered in bed this morning because it is a dang chilly morning here at the lake, we worked hard yesterday, and the kids came for supper and Euchre and we stayed up late-ish. We did have a great time after supper. Son went around the table for a couple of hours and had each of us pick a song we wanted to hear. He cued every one up on his Apple music app and played them through our Bluetooth speaker, so we listened to a mad variety of music from the…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Mom Edition

    It’s Mother’s Day and although I sometimes have trouble with whole concept, which I once was convinced came about because a greeting card company needed sales. Turns out my cynicism button had been pushed because that’s not how it came about at all. A woman named Anna Jarvis spearheaded the celebration of Mother’s Day because she wanted to honor her mother who’d passed three years earlier. She ushered in the first Mother’s Day with a church celebration in West Virginia. And on May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as national Mother’s Day and asked Americans to give a public thank you to all their…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Spring Fever Edition

    Mushy mind—it’s a thing and wow, do I have it right now. I have a very bad case of mind mush—my ability to focus and function is seriously out of whack. I’m not sure if it’s spring fever or what, but fact is, I’m just not able to focus on much of anything right now. I think I’ve mentioned before, probably in the spring, that my grandmother used to say she was muzzy—isn’t that a great word? I’m muzzy. I’ve got four books to write for Tule Publishing in the next two years and my heart frequently stops (not really!) at the thought. I’m about 15K words into Jack Walker’s…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Spring Cleaning Edition

    We spring cleaned yesterday–every room from stem to stern–and the house looks and smells so fresh and I’m very glad, but… Is it just me or do we care less about housework as we get older? Once upon a time, Mondays and Tuesdays were my housecleaning days. I literally cleaned for two solid days, working my round butt off scrubbing floors and bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, doing laundry. At least twice a year, I pulled everything out of the china hutch, washed every piece, and put it back in, all shiny clean. I reorganized closets and drawers four times a year, washed windows every spring and fall (I still do that!),…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Spring Is Here Edition

    Right off, Happy Easter to all who celebrate! Spring seems to be springing already and you know, between health stuff and writing like a madwoman, I am more than ready. The gardens are coming to life–check out my hyacinths–aren’t they pretty? We’ve had a typical March in the Midwest—warm, lovely, sunny days and then cold, gray, and chilly ones. But now it’s April, and somehow this spring seems particularly promising, because ever since all this heart stuff, everything has felt…I dunno—unsettled. I’m not the only one feeling a sea change—with the weirdness that politics has become, I think the whole world is in this boat on many different levels. Liz…

  • Sunday Snippet: The Heart Update Edition, Rev. 2

    I think this is update 2, but if it’s number 3, well, sorry about that, and thank you for being patient with me processing this whole thing with y’all. I won’t update you every time I go to the cardiologist because that would be major TMI for you guys. That said, you’re kind to come along and I always appreciate all the good wishes. Right off, the good news is things are improving. I’m way less tired and can pretty much make it through a whole day and not lose steam. I still get breathless when I walk too fast or uphill or exercise too strenuously, but my cardiologist, Dr.…

  • Monday (& Sunday) Snippet: The Vacation is Winding Down Edition

    Right off, here is my breakfast view this morning–our hotel is at Berkeley Marina. Pretty. I didn’t post last night because really, all we did yesterday was fly from Kona to San Francisco. A long plane ride during which I slept a lot and Son worked, and then we played some Trivia together on the screen in front of his seat. We did walk down to a lovely al fresco breakfast in Kona before we packed up and headed to the airport. The Kona airport is… interesting. Everything’s outside, even the gates, you get to your plane by walking across the tarmac and climbing up a rolling flight of stairs.…

  • Saturday Snippet: The Last Day in Hawaii Edition

    Yes, it’s true. Today was our last full day in Hawaii and we decided that it would be a chill day and it was. We walked down into Kona for breakfast with a view. Then we wandered back up the hill and spent the rest of the morning hanging out, doing laundry, Son caught up on some work stuff, and I read (I’m reading Lisa Lin’s The Year of Cecily and it’s charming.) When he got done, he said, “Let’s go see the chocolate guy.” What intelligent person would say no to that? The chocolate guy is Kona Magic Chocolate, a roadside stand that sells absolutely the smoothest chocolate I’ve…

  • Thursday Snippet: The We’ve Changed Islands Edition

    Big day today. We checked out of our lovely Marriott Resort and Spa around 8:00 a.m. and piled into Ruby’s rental car–four of Son’s colleagues and moi. The kids (they’re all Sons age, so kids definitely applies) dropped me at Pearl Harbor and then they went on to one last meeting, this time in Pearl City. I gotta tell you, Pearl Harbor was fascinating, sobering, touching, extraordinary–all the things you would imagine it to be. I started at the submarine exhibit and the anchor memorial that honors the men who perished on the Arizona–The boats out the to Arizona weren’t running this morning, so I opted to take the shuttle…