Happy Holidays!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! I am writing to you to wish you and your family a happy “holiday season.” As much as it is fun, it is also full of stress. š Really, it wouldnāt be the holidays if it didnāt have its challenges. As I sit here on this 23rd day of December, an hour after my last Christmas present was purchased, I…
A week ago my middle sister sent me a text, āWho thought it would be a good idea to do picture books for Christmas??ā Yup, here we are, AGAIN…December 12th and I still do not have them done, not even started! With every picture that comes into my phone, I feel reminded.Ā And with every tick of the clock, I wonder how the heck am I ever going…
Itās the little things that give me the energy to get through every day. I am so thankful for them. I thought I would honor those this Thanksgiving. It seems that the big things always get the attention. I am grateful for the big things like my kids, family, friends, and health. I recognize that what keeps me happy in my day-to-day life are these little joys that…
Time for a visit! I could only stay away for so long before I had to check in with my Tyler, all the way out at Purdue. Just a quick trip, long enough to get a “Bug hug,” and find the best donut and burger in West Lafayette… I think that we hit the jackpot!! šĀ Ā Ā A REALLY good burger we found–with peanut butter on top!Ā Who would…
And itās a wrap! To be honest I have a love/hate relationship with the fair—as I am sure many mothers do. We canāt help it. The fair consumes our lives the week before, the week of, and the week after. When you break it down it is a week that goes like this: Itās dealing with very tired, dirty children for the 7-day duration, turning the show clothes…
Here we are, August 9, where is this summer going? As I get ready to head into the last week before Tyler goes to college, I reflect and I anxiously think. I have tears that are bubbling underneath the surface that I desperately want to hide but can’t seem to. So we cry and laugh in this family because we embrace those tears. We are a family of…
We have a problem in our family. Alcohol. We are no different than many other families. A few weeks ago, I lost a cousin because of it. He was my age. I didnāt know him well, especially in his adult years. I remember him as a child, playing together when he and his family came up from PA for a visit. More reserved and more cerebral, Seth was…
I feel a deep sense of pride when my children work and play with their father, uncle, grandfather, and each other at the farm. My heart fills up to the brim, on those days when I drop them off in the field to meet a truck, or pull up along side the bunk and watch them hop into the pack tractor. Itās work, but itās play. It all…
Dear Dad, Thank you! Thank you for catching softball pitches after dinner and dancing in a ballet recital with me when I was 8. Thank you for moving me 4 times my first year out of college and rescuing me from a guard rail on one snowy night ā you told me I shouldn’t go out. Thank you for buying me Toby and carting me back and forth…
For over 50 years, my family has been frequenting Back Lake in Pittsburg, New Hampshire. Only miles shy of the Canadian border, it is our family tradition. It was my grandfather and his buddies who first started going up annually for a menās fishing retreat. Over the years, it spilled into many separate annual outings that included their wives and children, their spouses, and close family friends. My parents…
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