Long Hollow

Where seeds of thought have room to grow

recent posts

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Realtor, writer, blogger in Austin, TX

Category: Call me mom

  • A Little Sister, a Shower, and a Salt Lick

    I taught her how to drive a stick-shift – she caught on fast, much faster than my kids years later – and when her brother broke up with me, she wrote me poems to soothe my broken heart. She was barely a teenager back then, two years younger than me, and so in our split-high-school…

  • Five Things on Friday

    1. This made me smile yesterday. Can you see the sign on the wall in the photo above? The table in the teacher's lunchroom at the high school was covered with platters of cinnamon rolls while on the wall beside it is a chart promoting healthy teachers. (No, I couldn't resist them, but I only…

  • My Pencils are Sharp Enough

      I slept a full eight hours last night. And I cleaned my bathroom this afternoon. Two things I haven't done in a long, long time. That's about all I've accomplished today, but I'm okay with it. It's my day off and I've relished it. Middle son, Daniel, is home for the weekend, mostly because…

  • Five Things on Friday

        1. Our property is dotted with small iron crosses, marking the resting places of so many precious furry or feathered or scaly loved ones we've been blessed to know. I miss them all. The one above is Charly's and Frankie's.   2. I will never get rich monetarily through my blog, but the…

  • Signs of Spring, and other Sweet!s

    Like the Munchkins when Dorothy first arrives in the (movie) land of Oz, yellow flowers are popping up and peeking out at the world, one by one, to see if the coast is clear and the rumor is true..that the wicked old winter is gone. (Not that our winters here around Austin, Texas are actually…

  • Five Things (A Day Late)

      I intended to post this last night. You know, "Five Things on Friday" – that catchy alliteration thing. Instead, I went dancing.  So here are my "Five Things on Friday, on Saturday":   1. Did you watch the Grammies? I did this year for the first time in ages. So I was even more…

  • Another Random Analogy, Kids!

    Do you iron? I don't. I mean, I can, but I haven't in a long, long time.  My husband will vouch for that. He stopped buying shirts with wrinkle-inclined collars and button panels when it became clear he'd have to iron them himself. "I buried a lot of my ironing in the back yard." ~…

  • Validation (and other sweet!s)

    I stood in the empty bathroom staring at myself in the mirror, repeating the same sentence over and over and over, forcing myself to look me in the eyes as I spouted my pitch. Practice, practice, practice. Breathe, breathe, breathe. There were two of them, one right after the other. They each sat at the…

  • Love and Marriage, and everything in between

    Love is patient, love is kind… When I heard those words from First Corinthians at Mass Sunday, my mind drifted back to my wedding. Like so many other couples, we chose this as one of the readings in our ceremony, believing we would always be patient and kind with each other.  Well, we haven't. Not…

  • Gratitude (and other sweet!s)

      My dad is still in the hospital following his little stroke earlier this week, but he's stable and should be able to go home tomorrow. However, considering his health history and his stubborn determination to no longer follow the heart/diabetic healthy diet he's followed for a couple of decades, I doubt this is the…