Adventures in joyful living
Hello, everyone. Happy Friday, happy spring, happy Cinco de Mayo, happy Coronation weekend. Just letting you know that Bernadette of Bernadette’s New Classic Recipe graciously invited me to pen a post appropriate for Mother’s Day, which in the US is the second Sunday in May. I’ve written about my mother many times, but this one […]
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I’m a native of the state whose “tea party” spawned the American revolution, a second generation Italian-American firmly planted in US soil. If you’ve read my posts, you know how much being Italian means to me. Beyond my birthright, I’m a francophile and an anglophile. And in the latter capacity, I confess to being a […]
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The sun is up on the first day of a new year. All the yapping about a new decade took me back a few years. Do you remember the hysteria in the last few months of 1999, when the over-educated, the misguided, and the crazed conspiracy theorists joined forces to predict and prepare for worldwide […]
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Many of the botanical gardens in the United States are resplendent at Christmas time. When we were visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden in September, Santa’s elves (with decidedly green thumbs) were already at hard work on a holiday display that my Maine family describes as breathtaking. This year, we had a family day-out to […]
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With a little luck, after Christmas, we rest. We sit back to enjoy the grace of a crisp, but not cold, winter morning that began with a brilliant sunrise. We pick up that book we’d set aside for the last two crazed weeks. We fully appreciate the transient charm of the decorations that, in a […]
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It’s way too early to be obsessing about the complexity of timing that a full-tilt Thanksgiving dinner requires, so I’ve been obsessing instead with the need to keep the day pleasurable and comforting. Translation: No heated discussions about politics or anything else (including tasteless jokes) that makes volume escalate and tempers flare. By nature reasonably […]
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Last summer, our Vermont family came to visit bearing a gift… a sweet (pun intended) looking container filled with what my beau-frère* pronounced “the best caramels and toffee you’ll ever eat.” As you read this, keep in mind that I am by no means a candy addict, unless we are talking Neuhaus chocolates, which we […]
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Putting away Christmas for next year can be even more of a trip down Memory Lane. #Christmas2018
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Welcome to 2019. Here’s what’s on my mind…
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It isn’t easy to be a Christmas baby. It’s a lifetime of competition with much of the world’s very favorite holiday when your birthday falls on December 23 or thereabouts. When my daughter was tiny, we had half-birthday parties for her in June, after school was out. In adulthood, she’s mostly enjoyed her own celebrations […]
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My cousins Liz and Dorothy*, Liz’s husband Buddy, and their Shih Tzu Bella came all the way from Maine and New Hampshire, in December, to exhaust themselves decorating our house for Christmas. I helped, of course, but mostly I just let the elves have at it. When the Good Lord was doling out talents, Dorothy […]
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I woke to this early AM text: I’m supposed to be brining the bird right now. Know what I’m doing? Playing solitaire on the computer! What’s wrong with me? Apart from a good chuckle, that text reassured me (as I did its author), that I’m not the only one who bogs down in the hoopla […]
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Hashtag Retired 