Daily Holiday writing: part one, where I complain
I have a something to share, but it’s not a good secret, or fun gossip. It is lame enough that it makes me feel silly, but common enough that I feel in good company, and it is this: in recent years, I...
View ArticleA post where I remind myself about the power of exercise, one of a few...
This morning I attended a 6:30 am class at a gym I’ve been going to for years. I love this place. It is always challenging, and always feels like home. I’ve been attending 8 am or later classes lately,...
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Today I am grateful for: Aidy's outrageous and sometimes aggressive zeal for...
One of the actions I undertook to assuage my overwhelm this holiday season was some bold decluttering. While I know decluttering is such a catch-phrase…such a mainstay-to-the-point-of-enough-already of...
View ArticleWatching the cookies
Today I woke up feeling annoyed. I told this to J upon delivering coffee. I had put eggnog in his, a couple-of-times-per holiday season thing he enjoys, which was nice, but my immediate complaining was...
View ArticleThe pet peeve that keeps on giving
My father hated it when I’d leave my brush on the kitchen counter. I get that. It’s a thing for your hair on a surface where you deal with food. For him, there were quite a few transgressions in this...
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Cup of kindness, yet
I’ve been trying to think of something meaningful to say as 2023 comes to an end. As I’ve written many times before, I love New Year’s. Not just the trappings of the holiday: the countdown and the song...
View ArticleIn 2024
When I last wrote, I shared my love of resolutions. Not a surprising admission as so much of what I do in my writing is make goals and publicly share them, in the hopes that in bringing people (you!)...
View ArticleAn attempt at optimism in March, the actual cruelest month
We are, well, what are we exactly? I think that’s the first problem. Mid to late winter, with Valentine’s Day over (somehow a bright spot) and sort of, almost spring. I hesitate to even talk about...
View ArticleA few thoughts on our return to the frenzy
This other morning, as I was hurrying my children out the door, I opened the refrigerator and a half closed jar of maraschino cherries came tumbling out, hitting a shelf on its descent and spewing...
View ArticleNo tremors or totality, but still lots of wonder
Two unique events shaped our lives recently: a rare earthquake that hit the northeast, and last week's solar eclipse.I experienced neither event fully. In fact, I didn't feel the earthquake, or the...
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so, totally, high school
Nora was recently in a musical produced by a local community theater program. It was funny, and sweet and mildly irreverent, and the schedule leading up to the show dates was increasingly busy; a...
View Article2024 summer goals
I spent the majority of a recent afternoon just reading. Getting lost in a book. And I’ve got to tell you, this - one of my favorite pastimes as a younger person - felt very weird. It felt scandalously...
View ArticleFourth, forever
We recently dropped Aidy off for her first stint at sleep away camp. She was there for just one week with a good friend from home, and the car ride to the location, a lovely site set among mountains...
View ArticleDuring an annual Maine getaway, time stands still
Originally published in the Boothbay Register Children have this quality, less evident to their parents than to those who don’t see them as often, of growing at breakneck speed, eliciting a slew of...
View ArticleMe commune with a CT tree? Here's how it went.
Originally published in the Hartford Courant. As a younger woman, I imagined I’d get married in my bare feet. This urge was born of my teenage “hippie” days, which were on the mild side, but genuine. I...
View ArticleTwenty years
Gabe has this peculiar little habit that we adore. Upon being discovered in any particular place or circumstance (on the couch in the living room at 5:55 a.m. when I come down quietly, so as not to...
View ArticleMy essay on the holidays, by Fred Rotondaro
Way back in 2005, I asked my dad to write an essay about the holidays for this site. I thought I’d re-post it now, because we are all feeling the cheer and madness so typical of this season. (And...
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My post-Taylor Swift take on life
It’s been a few weeks since my daughters and I returned from Taylor Swift’s November 16 Eras Tour show in Toronto, an event that was near incomparable, at least in my recent, personal history, when it...
View ArticleForty-seven things I am grateful for on my 47th birthday
The way the air feels - so cold, and still and full of promise - when I head out my front door and make my way to the sidewalk to pick up the newspaper on weekends in the winter. Nora’s sense of humor...
View ArticleUpon becoming exactly that kind of mother
Some of you may know, because I talked to you about it excessively, that I had certain feelings about driving Nora to high school last year. The school is only a mile away, I’d say to anyone who would...
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