They sat in the swivel chairs and looked out at the view over the marsh. She was pensive and swirled her Chardonnay in the glass as she tried to soak in this moment. This regular mundane moment that she and her husband repeated so many times: sitting next to each other, she with her […]

I walked into my local Target on the final day of 2023 and couldn’t help but notice all the Valentine’s Day decorations that seemed to be a little ahead of their time. I just took my Christmas tree down for crying out loud! I sighed to myself and continued on my mission to grab the […]

The year was 2008, and my life was a full-blown imitation of a dumpster fire. The painful separation and divorce were only the beginning of the hard road I would be forced to walk. I crumbled under the weight of the rocks I could see, but I was blissfully unaware of the additional pain that […]

I sat by myself on the closet floor with the birthday card in my hand. My tears flowed and dripped off the edge of my chin, leaving a splattering of wet marks all over the front of my shirt. I struggled to catch my breath after a spell of sobbing. I had to read it […]

Happy New Year! There are so many things that I love about a fresh start. I am one of the holdouts who still uses paper calendars and planners, and I happily sit down at the end of December and transfer all of the birthdays and other important dates onto the calendar for the upcoming year. […]

The garden was nothing out of the ordinary. It was the early 1960s and my grandmother was a young wife and mom. As such, she spent countless hours in the kitchen as she prepared meals for her family and washed the resulting dishes. She could see her neighbor’s garden from the kitchen window. It turned […]

The blue duffel bag sat unattended and unnoticed in my husband’s office for a solid week. He is notorious for taking his sweet time unpacking suitcases after a trip. I’m the person who immediately takes bags to the bedroom and returns toiletries to their rightful place so that everything is in order. My husband has […]

Holiday traditions are important to my family.  I must admit, this makes me happy.  In a world where I fight with YouTube or TikTok for my teenagers’ attention I will happily take their interest in baking cookies and decorating the tree. Most years it is a struggle to carve out a few hours of time […]

Days like today make me think of my Granddad.  He was a laid back and jolly guy, but even he had his limits.  I was blessed to live near him when I was growing up.  My siblings and I spent hours on end at my grandparents’ house.  I’d like to think we were generally well-behaved.  […]

I have a confession to make. I hate the elves.  You are probably having one of two reactions right now. Either you are thinking that I am crazy because the Elf on the Shelf is nothing but wonderful Christmas fun, or you are thinking that you finally found a woman after your own heart. Maybe I would feel differently […]