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Family

My Easter

April 17, 2025

Easter. When I was young Easter meant spending the night at my grandparents’ house. My sisters, cousins, and I looked forward to the Easter Bunny visiting, while I am sure my parents, aunts, and uncles looked forward to the night off from children.  Staying at Grammy and Grampa’s became a tradition that started when my mother’s younger sister, Alison, was still living at home.  She was and always…

Lifestyle

Maple Season Then & Now

March 14, 2025

Fire up the evaporators, and start filling your tanks! It’s Maple Season!  When I think about spring, every other memory ties back to maple sugaring. As a little girl, I remember riding in the back of the old Toyota pickup truck. Roger would pull up to a sugarbush, and all of us kids would hop out and scatter, searching for the bucket yielding the most sap. We would…

Family

 It’s a Wonderful life…at 50

December 22, 2024

Being 50 means: …love and gratitude. …freshly fallen snow, a candle-lit walkway, and two magical Christmas trees. …3 beautiful children, willing to help, and an army of family and friends who always show up with open arms. …twinkling candle lights, coconut cake, and holiday carols. …a polar plunge and a Christmas Cosmo. …a roaring twenties fringe dress, pearls, and long black gloves. …a warm puppy, laughing friends, and…

Travel

First Dog Across the Finish Line

December 1, 2024

Thanksgiving 2024 is officially in the books, and the 2024 Christmas season is in full swing! It was a good Thanksgiving, full of family, laughs, and snow this year!   I truly enjoy Thanksgiving. Unlike Christmas, there isn’t the underlying stress of shopping, decorating, party planning, and wrapping. Trixie and I may have been the first dog and 54th human across the finish line for the Thanksgiving Day Turkey…

Travel

You Are Going to Screw Up

November 24, 2024

The best piece of information that I got when I re-entered the workforce in 2011 was this: “You are going to screw up.” Bluntly, my new boss left it at that.  I was a bit speechless.  But after the initial shock of the statement, it kind of freed me up from worrying about doing the wrong thing.  Because I was going to at some point.  After that first…

Perspective

Summer Vacation

June 30, 2024

It was a lazy afternoon…   The cicadas were thrumming in the background, as I hopped from shade tree to shade tree, to get out of the hot sun. The scent of freshly mowed hay filled my olfactory senses, intoxicating me like a drug.   I made my way along the brook’s bank, stopping and peering down on it, listening to it trickle. Bumbling on its way to the river, it…

Travel

An Early Case of the Empty Nest…

June 2, 2024

An early case of the Empty Nest… It’s springtime…fast approaching, summer. It’s the busiest time of year on a farm. Planting, mowing, chopping—I can go on and on. As the kids have gotten older, they have taken on more work at the farm during this time of year.  It’s expected, and it’s welcomed.  You know what they say about idle hands…the devil’s workshop. Teenagers are no exception to…

Perspective

The “Dead Inside” Picture

February 4, 2024

If you are a mom, I am sure you have one.   The picture that captures a moment in time when you are revealed. “I am dead inside from nurturing these children.” If you have been there, you get it. If you are in it, we get it, and we are here to tell you you will get out of it. If you haven’t yet gotten there–you don’t understand,…

Food

It’s All in the Recipes

January 14, 2024

I love to bake. Baking is my first go-to when someone needs love and care.  I immediately offer up homemade food. It’s what I want to celebrate with: Baked goods!   It’s how I want to socialize: A cup of coffee and a freshly made pie. I am completely content and happy to wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning in the winter, take up residency in my kitchen…

Perspective

Fleeting

October 29, 2023

Things on my mind… It’s here, the end of summer, finally on October 29th. I put my flowers to bed for the season yesterday, just in time for the cold, wet weather to arrive this morning. Fall is here in the Northeast. I cut every possible flower I could find in my garden that still had vitality.  Now, I have beautiful bouquets all over my house, big vases,…