You're supposed to plan for snowstorms, and in this town, people usually go overboard! I was too busy making sure I had the right ingredients for my neighborhood Christmas baking to think about whether I had enough bread and eggs and milk to last for a few days. Plus, I had received a hot air popcorn popper for Christmas and needed some plain...Read More

Christmas Day (specific pictures on that to follow) was wonderful! After a balmy Christmas Eve, we awoke and it was freezing outside with low, heavy grey clouds. It made the weather prediction of lots of snow more plausible than it had seemed the day before. By noon, it was raining and sleeting and by early afternoon, it was ice. Within minutes, trees were...Read More

In many ways, it doesn't seem possible that today is December 24th. The very day before Christmas! The Christmas Day on which we are remarkably predicted to get quite a bit of snow!!! If weather reports can be believed.  Which is about 25% of the time. Right now, outside, the sun is shining brightly and it's far too warm for my taste.  And...Read More

Tis the season for pomegranates and headbands... For demonstrating Scripture memory... For creativity with accessories at retail stores...  For making a gift contribution to Stone Ward's toy drive for a very underprivileged community. It's always a good time to be generous to those who can't afford to be. To get dressed up for a party.  Snazzy in a suit jacket is my boy...Read More

School is still underway... But that doesn't mean our hearts aren't very much involved in Christmas already. And while we are still faithfully putting in our school days, somehow having a Christmas tree up and decorations around makes it feel less like work and more like fun. We hauled our boxes down from the attic. Assessed and dressed our tree. And even our...Read More

No matter who you are, no matter your skills, competencies, intelligence, education, background, prior salaries and bonuses, no matter how great you are at building a spreadsheet or making things happen in a corporate environment -  if, like me, you voluntarily step out of that working environment in order to stay home full-time with your children, the odds are good that you just...Read More

It's the first day of December and also unseasonably warm. Well, given our State, unseasonable may be stretching it a bit. In my opinion, it's HIGHLY unseasonable. And by that, I mean, anything that doesn't require a coat is way too warm. What can I say?  I am a winter girl! In spite of that, we bought our Christmas tree and plan to...Read More

Most of the time I eat healthy. I really do. We try hard to follow a nutritarian diet: get as many nutrients as you can for every calorie you eat. There are lots of junk foods we forego and I think nothing of it.   But if you know me, you also know I have a sweet tooth. For super dark chocolates, first...Read More

You know how there are days when it seems that everything that can fall apart does exactly that?  We've had several of those days in a row. And they make life quite interesting. Not to say that we haven't managed to enjoy our Thanksgiving holiday immensely, because we really have...but circumstances have done their best to try to prevent that. Long story short,...Read More

This is the view outside my kitchen window. Looks rather wild out there, but really it's beautiful. Trees are in various stages of shedding their leaves and changing colors. I only have a few oak trees out there that just turn straight to brown and lose their leaves. Most flow through various colors of gold, yellow or red and then flutter slowly down...Read More