Long Hollow

Where seeds of thought have room to grow

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Realtor, writer, blogger in Austin, TX

Category: Family

  • Mom, first and foremost

    Tommy's cough was back, worse than before, poor baby. No preschool for him tomorrow; that meant one of us would have to stay home with him, give him nebulizer treatments every four hours. Probably take him back to the doctor. I hoped he wouldn't need another round of Prednisone. "I took off work last time," Tom…

  • Fame is the Scentless Sunflower…

    While I sit here typing away on my computer, throngs of people are converging on city streets (including Austin's) eating, drinking, and getting all of that rowdy, overindulgent behavior out of their systems, because tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and for the next 6 weeks they'll be pure as hermit monks……

  • God Bless Texas!

    ‎''You may all go to Hell, and I will go to Texas'' ~Davy Crockett If you don't live in Texas, you might not realize that today is Texas Independence Day. On this date 175 years ago, Texas officially declared its independence from Mexico and became the Republic of Texas. An independent nation. Ours is the…

  • Not again! Dang dogs (and birds!) and “Johnny Baby” revisited

    I knew it. I could see it on their faces yesterday when we tried to get them into the van.  Yep, it's true. They love Ginger more than me. Or at least Ginger's yard. Or dogs. Or driveway. Something up there is irresistible to my dogs – worth the trek through the valley and up…

  • Grandma’s Eyes

      We parked in front of Grandma's tiny home and piled out of the car, the grownups heading straight for the porch. I lagged behind on the footbridge with my cousin; Poo swore she was not going to step a foot closer to that spooky place. Grandma's house was gray, the gray of a dead…

  • Austin Marathon Moments – a personal perspective

    My legs ache so bad!. This is one of the worst cases of shin splints I've had in ages! No, I didn't run in the Austin Marathon. But I did run/walk 28 zig-zagging, uphill/downhill blocks in record time, camera bag ricocheting around my body, trying to reach the finish line in time to see my…

  • I Should Have Known

    Who bought our family a state-of-the art green fake Christmas tree when I was ten (maybe eleven) because our experiment with a real tree landed me in the emergency room with asthma by Christmas Day but rather than go back to our sterile aluminum one the next year, I declared I didn't want a tree…

  • On Secrets

    Can you keep a secret? I can.  I don't always like it … Secrets can be heavy, weighing on your mind, sometimes your heart, especially when someone asks you to help them carry a secret full of pain, but then forgets to let you know when everything is fine and dandy again so you can…

  • Empty Nest. Again. Sigh.

    It was while standing at the kitchen counter first thing this morning, pouring water into the coffee pot and still mostly asleep, that I glanced up and spotted the open door. And I remembered: She's gone again. After weeks of being mostly here, of holidays and work days and carpools and visits to the library…

  • Happy First Birthday, Belle! (my Friday, um…Saturday favorite photos)

    Dear Miss Belle, It's hard for me to imagine now, watching you run down the road in front of me in that funny way you have, where your rear-end flies up higher than your head, that I ever debated the puppy question at all.  When I see Max's face light up at the sight of…