Tag: Childhood
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Memories Hide Within the Clutter
Why do we keep the stuff we keep? I alternately wage war and make peace with the clutter in my house. Occasionally my tolerance of “stuff” reaches critical mass and I go on a rampage against it. In those moods I’m determined to minimalize, simplify, de-acquire. But my clutter is sneaky. It knows how…
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Food is Love and Cookbooks are Sacrilegious
Lessons from an Italian Grandmother My Italian grandmother taught me that food is love. She lived ten minutes from us growing up and never came over empty-handed, so my siblings and I were the recipients of an awful lot of love. And it was all from scratch. I don’t know if cooking from scratch is…
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The Handbook of Christmas Traditions
For my tradition-loving family, Christmas is our favorite time of year. We love every aspect of the Christmas holiday. Our family has traditions for everything from worship services to decorations to food and entertainment. You might say we are wrapped in tradition. In fact, we could publish a handbook of standard operating procedures for our…
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One Act of Larceny Lingers for Years
My Oldest Possession is Stolen Property One of my oldest possessions is a teddy bear I acquired from a cousin when I was a child. To be honest, I stole it from him. I’m not sure why this act of larceny still lingers in my mind. I was never much of a rule-breaker, although my…
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Don’t Trifle with Tradition
I didn’t realize how traditional my family was until I tried to change them (the traditions, not the family). I made a slight change to a favorite homemade salad dressing for a recent family picnic. To my great surprise the family actually noticed, and they definitely did not approve. The faintly accusatory mutters of…
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Gratitude Combats Midlife Crisis
A Weekend of Milestones Prompts Gratitude, Not a Midlife Crisis I laughingly told a friend that this weekend was a midlife crisis in the making as my son graduated from college and my daughter turned 21. But while these milestones are significant, they are by no means crisis inducing. If anything, seeing my children achieve…
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Bears, Backroads and Seeing What You Can See
I spent my childhood Sundays sitting next to Grandma while she played nursery rhymes on the piano. “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” was my favorite; I was an animal lover and the song was easy to remember. I also really loved the idea of that bear enjoying a ramble over his mountain just “to…