• 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…

  • 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…

  • The Nickname Game

    Choosing Your Own Nickname is Harder Than You Think. We are planning a big trip with four generations of family. In addition to making memories of a lifetime, this trip provides great opportunity to embarrass the children. I’m talking family…