I'm approaching a big deadline, so instead of the traditional blog today, I wanted to share a few items of news: --Wanted to remind you to please sign up for my newsletter! (You can do this by clicking the "Join My Newsletter"  button on the very top of the Home page here. My next newsletter [...]

My local grocery store has recently undergone a huge remodel. Shopping has become more stressful--and more decadent--as we are confronted with the largest array ever of any kind of edible product imaginable. We are blessed and over blessed to have a worldwide market of products at our fingertips. But that's a different topic entirely--telling you [...]

My mom's glass is on the left; one of the ones I just bought, on the right. Long- and short-stemmed versions. When my mom was a newlywed, she worked the election polls. I never really asked her what she did there, probably sign voters in, etc. As a result, she got paid in...glasswear! She was [...]

I picked my 19-year-old son up from college recently, only to discover that my sweet, clean-shaven boy had grown a big, bushy beard. "Who are you, the Unabomber?" I asked when he got into the car. I'm exaggerating a little, I suppose, but I kid you not when I say his beard was growing halfway [...]

When my daughter was small, she used to adore chocolate ice cream. We have countless pictures of her as a toddler licking chocolate ice cream cones, the chocolate dripping down her chin and  onto her cute little dress or shirt and shorts. She, however, is oblivious of the mess. She isn't caring about getting the [...]

Life was a lot different before texting. If you are my age (cough cough, old enough to have kids in college), you remember when you were in college and you had to call your parents every Sunday night from the phone hanging on the wall in your dorm room. No privacy and you had to [...]

It’s called Metathesiophobia, fear of change.   Nick Vinetti, the tough-guy detective hero of one of my favorite Lori Wilde books, There Goes the Bride, had it as a kid. Although he really wanted to learn to surf, he was afraid of the water--of sharks, of drowning, of getting snatched up and taken away from [...]

Most authors have a love affair with books and I am no exception. In the past, I managed to contain my stash under my bed. With the advent of the kindle, my stash became mostly virtual, but I still buy paperbacks of books I love. Let's put it this way:  if I became a sudden [...]

This is the first year that all three of my kids are out of the house, the "baby" having recently gone away to college. For the first time, my husband and I set out on an adventure in January. January! Oh, the decadence of being able to kiss the cat goodbye (left in capable hands) [...]

I am in Arizona. I have never been in Arizona before but I got the opportunity to travel there with my husband on his business trip, during this, our first trip together with all the kids out of the house. It's been a working vacation for me but hey, what a fun and wonderful way [...]