Adventures in joyful living
Note: Not long ago, my blogger colleague da-AL graciously invited me to do a guest post for her Happiness Between Tails. If you’ve never read her blog, check it out—she’s a vibrant, talented, and generous writer. The following is a collaboration with my daughter Emily. We hope you find it helpful! This Mama Bear just […]
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And just to update… a wish fulfilled. The marathon starts at noon today! And there was the headline I’d been waiting for: Hallmark will air Christmas movie marathon during coronavirus quarantine Our local paper printed this today as a “report” from another publication. I couldn’t verify it on the Hallmark website, but ironically, just yesterday […]
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We recently learned that the old-fashioned hardware store in our nearest little town is closing. It’s “aged out, ” I’m afraid, as countless suburbanites in the housing developments ringing the town go to one of the big box stores or buy what they need online. Most are too young to remember the curious pleasure of […]
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I never expected to be nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award, or any other blogging award, even though I’m delighted when other bloggers receive recognition. I’ve built my blog very slowly, grateful for every single “follow,” but more intent on the joy of writing than on pushing hard or promotion. However, I was quite delighted […]
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February 5 is my mother Sylvia’s birthday. Usually, I keep these very personal anniversaries to myself, but the other day, as I was going through some old photos, I realized that they reflected virtually every significant hair style from the first half of the 20th Century. Fittingly, Mommy worked her way through beauty school and […]
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Okay, that’s a joke that only Broadway musical fans of a certain age may get. Or the film that followed. Still, I couldn’t resist. After three weeks, I’ve been liberated from the boot whose daunting purpose was to heal my heel. Homonym lesson, anyone? You learn a lot when you can’t drive, safely climb stairs, […]
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The first recorded blog post I wrote was on January 3, 2017. I started out writing about the impact of reaching un certain age and easing from work life into the [surely] leisurely life of a retiree. It wasn’t long, however, before I transitioned into more of what the blogosphere likes to call “lifestyle” posts. […]
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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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I didn’t read the 35 books I’d pledged for the Goodreads Reading Challenge. I read 30. Except for one real dud for which I’d won an advanced copy and thus felt committed to complete, I had a wonderful reading year and thus have no regrets. But my “failure” (isn’t that silly?) has also forced me […]
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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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December 28… It’s uncharacteristically balmy here in Central Pennsylvania, and the first thing I did this morning was clodhop outside for a breath of just-chilly-enough fresh air. The after-Christmas calm will soon give way to the steady din of football commentary and wild cheering for our last Penn State game of the year, the Cotton […]
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Hashtag Retired 