Adventures in joyful living
Author Laura Schenone went to Italy in search of her ancestral ravioli recipe. Hold that thought while I digress a bit. Ravioli is my favorite food in the world. Not the fancy kind, stuffed with lobster or “kiwi infused pork” (no kidding!). Plain old cheese ravioli. Peasant food—la cucina povera— at its finest. It was my family’s signature dish for […]
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Popovers, which more or less are individual Yorkshire puddings without the beef drippings for flavor, or “toad in the hole” without the sausage, are pure magic. And, because they’re hollow inside, they’re light as the proverbial feather. Truthfully, as lovely as they are, they’re very easy to make. You just need to allow yourself enough time, […]
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While there have been and will continue to be numerous entertaining diversions along the way, the crux of this blog is about retired life. Not having to go to work every day and being able to call your own shots is a BIG deal. While some people just slip right into their new normal life; others struggle with the […]
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I am one of those annoying people who would photograph almost anything, given the chance and a patient companion. “Stuff” wears out. Dishes break, linens grow threadbare, furniture sags. The extraordinary memories of your travels, near and far, will stay. And with photos, you can call them up any time you need to—to share a story, evoke a […]
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Cooking changes when you’re “around the ranch” most of the time. I’m still in the process of rethinking my shopping and cooking habits. For example, there is the problem of lunch. When we’re on one of our traveling vacations, a long, luxurious lunch is often our principal meal of the day. When I have a busy […]
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I always used to finish books even when they weren’t hitting the mark. In the last few years, however, I’ve felt freer to abandon a book, or lay it aside for another time. The first chapter or two may not grab me. I may develop a knee-jerk distaste for the characters or quality of the prose. Every reader has […]
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So Miss Pup nudges me out of bed at 6 this morning, then goes back to sleep. Who really owns this house???
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By the time we get to Friday, even those of us who are #HashTagRetired are ready for the promise of relief that the weekend affords. “Weekend” is a word so emblematic that the French, who used to be very zealous about protecting their language from outside influence, gave it a gender and added it to their franglais vocabulary. Le […]
Read More…When I began writing this blog, I expected it to be about the need to create some structure in retired life. Over time, however, blogging about the stage of my life and career —I am “demi” retired—became less interesting than writing about the pleasures and occasional frustrations of everyday life in general. Another way of putting […]
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See that photo? It’s a confused mess. If you try to do everything at once after you retire, your life will feel like one, too. Read on… When you first find yourself #HashTagRetired, it’s easy to romanticize about all of the time you finally have to do all of the things you’ve been waiting all […]
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Irrespective of scientific concerns, and the fact that this warm spell could turn out to be a cruel tease, there aren’t enough happy adjectives to describe the joy of opening all the windows, walking Miss Pup without being wrapped up like Nanook of the North*, or sitting in our den without my Vermont Flannel blankie. In […]
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Hashtag Retired 