My father liked to cook, but my mother did not. Cooking was required of a good homemaker, and she vowed to be a good homemaker. So she prepared the meals all the years her children were growing up, and did so reasonably well. But her heart was never in it. […]
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The Evil Blue Pyrex Dish
I discovered as I cleaned out my parents’ house that there was a memory in every drawer and cupboard. The memories would surprise me—I had no warning of when one would strike. One afternoon when I was alone in the house I looked through kitchen cabinets, trying to decide if […]
Continue readingYou Know Your Children Are Grown When . . . [Part IV]
Here’s another list of instances when I have been struck by how independent and mature (well, most of the time) my children are. You know your children are grown when . . . 1. You see them for the first time after your parent dies and you burst into tears and […]
Continue readingHappy Birthday (and Easter) to me!
April 5 is my birthday. This year, for the first time in my life, my birthday was on Easter. The date for Easter, as most people know, floats around during the spring. In theory, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. But the […]
Continue readingTwo Poets in the Family: Happy Easter . . . and an early Happy Mother’s Day
In going through the mementos my parents kept, I’ve discovered another way in which my mother and I were alike. We both wrote poetry to our families as children. Here’s a poem I wrote for Easter as a child. I can’t date it exactly, but because I referred to “grandmother” […]
Continue readingWhat Is Cottolene?
After helping me clean out my parents’ house after my father died, my husband got the bug to clean out our house. He has never liked clutter. Although most of the clutter in our home is hidden in cupboards and drawers, it is there, and he hates it. He started […]
Continue readingMy Father’s Bookcase: A New Family Heirloom
When I was a very young, my father made a bookcase. It’s made of a pretty wood (maybe oak?), and it is solid. It has a curved lip on the front facing at the top of the bookcase. I thought that made it a fancy piece of furniture when I […]
Continue readingOn Birthdays and Owls: Remembering My Mother
Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday. One of my most popular posts on this blog is the one I wrote to mark her 80th birthday. By that time, she was in assisted living because of her Alzheimer’s, and she could not really celebrate her birthday that year. Last […]
Continue readingFamily Ritual: Reading Aloud at Bedtime
March is National Reading Awareness Month. I’ve written before about how important reading has been in our family, but my earlier post (here) focused on how my mother read to me when I was a child. My husband and I also read to our kids when they were small. We read […]
Continue readingMy Grandfather’s Clock
When I was in second grade or so, my class sang the old song, “My Grandfather’s Clock,” by Henry Clay Work. The lyrics to the first verse are My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf, So it stood ninety years on the floor; It was taller by half […]
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