September 6th
I’ve just come back from a two-day visit with my nearly 15-month-old grandson. What a joy to spend time with this sweet little boy! And how tiring! Grayson is on the go, from the moment he gets up in the morning till he goes to bed at night, with—if his mom is lucky—a nap or […]
Read more of The Unending Weariness of the Best Job in the World, Part 2…
August 29th
An article on cornbread caught my eye this morning: “Why Southern Cornbread Shouldn’t Have Sugar.” It made me smile because as a Southerner, I heard my mom say many times, “No self-respecting Southerner EVER puts sugar in her cornbread!” I had never heard the historical reasoning behind that, but I accepted it as gospel, none-the-less. […]
April 4th
Today’s post is another oldie from 2005, written in honor of my father-in-law’s birthday. Today is his 87th birthday, so I’m posting this for him! My mom taught me how to cook and continues to be my inspiration. Don’t have a needed ingredient? Improvise. Doesn’t turn out like it’s supposed to? Improvise. Tired of the […]
March 12th
Continuing on the Memory Keeper thread from the last entry, another treasure I have from my folks is a small box of items I pulled from my mom’s cedar chest. Mom stored her most valuable (to her) possessions in that chest, and going through it after her death was very poignant. I’ll save most of […]
March 10th
“What matters most about the stuff we collect in life is the story that goes along with it.” —Barbara Tabach & Polly Clark, Life Catching: The Art of Saving and Sharing Memories My husband and I are on a de-junking campaign, trying to whittle down the amount of “stuff” in our house. We did this once […]
February 23rd
What would happen if all of your clocks, watches, and other devices that tell you the exact time of day were to disappear? Could you survive? Could you entertain the notion that you might actually be better off without knowing the precise time of day? How you answer that question might be partially based on […]
February 16th
Looking back over my 24 years helping mothers breastfeed their babies, in both volunteer and professional capacities, if I were to classify the calls and questions I’ve gotten from the moms, the largest percentage were variations on “is this normal?” And, by far and away, the answer to those questions was “yes.” It’s an interesting […]
February 4th
My last post was a “guest” blog written by my mom to my dad the night after he left for Virginia. In the spirit of “equal time,” today’s guest blogger is my dad. What follows are clips from three of his letters to mom—the first one written at the Richmond, VA, train station; the second […]
January 25th
Today’s blog entry is a little different—a guest blog of sorts, although when this “blog” was written, the author knew nothing of blogging, the Internet, or even computers. The blogger? My mom. The date? Tuesday, September 13, 1949. I hope she won’t mind me sharing it here. A little background on both the source and […]
January 15th
“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. The mother is something absolutely new.” —Osho, Indian mystic and spiritual leader How many times do we hear that parenting—especially mothering—is a 24/7 job? The phrase rolls off our tongues and we associate […]
Read more of The Unending Weariness of the Best Job in the World…