Category: Me and Him

  •   I took a quick overnight road trip with a friend Friday. We stayed in cute little apartments with screened porches set in a woodsy area full of walking paths… a great place to take deep breaths and relax and take a break from the rest of the world. There was wine, laughter, and great…

  •   I fell in love with this china and crystal soon after I fell in love with Tom, back in the days when brides-to-be always registered for beautiful table settings that would probably spend more time in a china cabinet than gracing a table.  Even though I can count on one hand the number of…

  • TG sits near me watching Rush Hour 2. I've been listening while editing photos from the past week, laughing because I've watched it with her often enough to see the scenes in my mind. The Christmas tree sparkles between us. I won't take it down for a couple of weeks. That's when the Christmas season…

  • When my kids were young, I liked spending Christmas at home. I liked Santa coming down my chimney and leaving gifts under my tree. I liked my children having memories of waking up surrounded by Christmas magic in their own beds. But one year we made an exception. My husband's youngest brother (he has eight) was getting…

  • I'm writing. For the second day in a row! Actually making a little progress, too, once I managed to ignore the voices inside my head who kept telling me to give it up, just quit, that it wasn't any good. After staring at the screen and out the window and at the screen again, I…

  • My plan for today: To clean this filthy house and, while I have 2/3 of my kids here to help, get all of the boxes of Christmas decorations upstairs and ready to unpack. Instead: I slept in, watched an episode of Rick Steves where he and his family travel to Europe at Christmastime, went for…

  • I opened the mailbox Friday morning on my way to work, expecting the usual foul contents – bills and junk mail. And there it was, sitting on top of the pile like a glittering jewel – a package containing a T-shirt from my artistic, doodling, blogging friend Cyndee Starr, aka She Who Doodles.    …

  •     Ping-pong season has arrived! Afternoon temperatures are still flirting with the 90's, but cool fronts have pushed the mosquitos and most of the humidity off of the front porch, so Tom set up the table Saturday afternoon and we played for the first time in months, listening to music and talking about random…

  • The key to a successful marriage is having at least a few things in common. For Tom and me, the list includes visiting Civil War battlegrounds, watching 'Breaking Bad', hiking… and eating. Especially desserts. Especially Cyclops Cookies. It's his mom's fault. And I thank her profusely.     I remember that first Christmas, before we…

  •   "Are you someone's grandmother?" he asked as soon as I walked into the classroom. I had to have him repeat it before I understood. My hearing isn't so great anymore plus he was missing his two front teeth! "No, I'm your substitute teacher." I could feel the air fizzling out of my bubble…the 1977…