I recently returned from my first out-of-state trip since the pandemic began. Actually, it was my first trip of more than 100 miles from home since October 2019, when my son was married. The occasion this time was my daughter’s wedding in Seattle. I worried about getting there, as the […]
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Not So Random Photos: An August Trip Down Memory Lane
I’ve written many times about Pacific Grove and Carmel, California, and other venues on the Monterey Peninsula. But for decades I didn’t visit that idyllic place in my past. My grandmother moved away from Pacific Grove in the summer of 1967. My husband and I went there once or twice […]
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Big Sur: Memories Good and Bad
I’ve written several posts about childhood trips to visit my grandparents in Pacific Grove, California. And, I’ve been back to the Monterey Peninsula many times as an adult. One of the spots we frequented during my adult visits is Big Sur. Big Sur is a rugged stretch of the Pacific […]
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Birthdays Old and New
I’m not good at remembering summer birthdays. Maybe it’s because there’s too much else to do. Maybe it’s because summer was never birthday season in my family. Growing up, my family’s birthdays were either in the spring or the autumn. We had birthdays in March, April, and September. The last […]
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Another Mother/Daughter Milestone: Buying a Wedding Dress
Now that my daughter is in her mid-thirties, I thought we had passed all the mother/daughter milestones. But apparently not. She is getting married later this summer, and she came to visit recently with the intention of taking me to help her buy a wedding dress. We spent an afternoon […]
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The Family That Waterskis Together . . .
I’ve written before about the idyllic summers I spent as a teenager on Coeur d’Alene Lake. And I’ve written about waterskiing. I recently found some old pictures of those days—pictures of my father, mother, brother, and me all waterskiing. As I looked at these pictures, I remembered how each of […]
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Happy Birthday to My Daughter, and Memories of the Last Family Graduation
My daughter doesn’t appreciate most of the posts about her on this blog, but today is her birthday, and so I am thinking about her. Her birthday is in May, and most of her graduations have been in May, so there have been many May celebrations in her honor. Today […]
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First Wednesday Sirens and Tornado Preparations
Today is a first Wednesday, which means that at 11:00am, sirens will blare. At least they will blare in the Kansas City area. Most municipalities and other jurisdictions near us test their tornado sirens monthly. I don’t know how broadly this emergency broadcasting system operates, but I think it extends […]
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I Don’t Know How They Do It
I posted several years ago how I hated my mother telling me “I don’t know how you do it” when I described my life as a working mom. And how I vowed I would never say to my children “I don’t know how you do it.” But I am now […]
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A Not So Random Photo and Family Forensics
National Siblings Day was a few days ago on April 10. I looked for a picture of my siblings and me to post on Facebook for the occasion, and I came across this one. I’d forgotten this photo, though it is on the CD that my father had made of […]
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