We recently purchased an IPad 2, and have been extremely pleased with its versatility and capabilities. Because our electricity was taken out by the morning storm, I took the IPad onto our deck in the early evening light and did my journaling with the help of batteries. Hours passed, the sunlight faded, and the glow of the IPad started causing… Read More

Forgive my potty mouth. After spending three weeks in China and Tibet the best part of my day, week, and life after returning to America is having a western-style toilet. (My husband knows he is actually the best part of returning home, but having witnessing me fondling and hugging our toilet, he forgives my comment.) Please understand. I am not… Read More

The heat of the past two days culminated in an impressive storm tonight. My husband and I were just returning home from our day of errands when the tornado sirens went off in town. The clouds overhead appeared almost black with sickly green tinges coloring the edges like a college freshman about to unload too much beer. We brought Booker… Read More

It was one of those steamy days in Minnesota that fogs your sunglasses when you go outside. While walking Booker this morning, I listened to the almost soggy crunch of gravel under my flip flops. The humidity was not giving pardons on this day to man, beast, or rocks. (Nonetheless, I know I prefer that sound to the crisp crunch… Read More

You may have heard there is a serious controversy brewing. Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith fame, started wearing feathers in his hair and a trend was born. Soon hair salons were offering a variety of feathers—slender and muted, to poofy and colorful—as extensions. My stylist mentioned them to me three months ago, but we both agreed they were a bit too… Read More

I’ve been scrounging through photographs hoping to find one or two I feel are worthy of entering in the county fair. When I snap the shutter I feel like it’s a fine piece of art, but when I start really eyeballing the composition and content the word, “blah” comes to mind rather quickly. The problem with doing a photo search… Read More

My friend Kathleen has a pristine garden. I try not to drool when I visit, but it is just so dang pretty. Every vine behaves and drapes seductively, every flower vibrates with color and fragrance, and every weed …well there are no weeds. The thing that confounds me is that Kathleen is an extremely busy woman and yet manages to… Read More

As a certified, registered, introvert, I have never been the kind of woman who likes to group shop. I do like shopping with my daughter, and I kinda like shopping with my husband if he’s in a patient mood, but even in those circumstances we usually part ways and meet at a set time. There’s something almost meditative about wandering… Read More

Every year a robin builds a nest on the down spout near our front door. It’s become a robin ‘hood, so to speak. The mother-to-be watches, suspiciously, from a distance whenever I’m in the yard. However, for reasons I can’t fathom, she flies off in terror if we open the front door. Can’t she instinctively feel that I wouldn’t hurt… Read More

Each bag weighed forty pounds. When in the world did forty pounds start feeling like eighty? I used to be able to throw freshly baled hay into stacks back in the day, and trust me, green hay is heavy. Now I’m whimpering about forty pounds of dirt. Oh well. I had a full day of yard work ahead of me… Read More

Hunting I’ve never been a hunter in the traditional sense. My entire family goes deer, partridge, or pheasant hunting, but the only thing I’ve ever wanted to shoot a creature with was my camera. I’m not anti-hunting, it’s just something I choose to do. However, give me a camera and I’m on the prowl for a photo trophy. Today I… Read More

The day started with grey skies weeping over my dry garden. I loved it. Although the ground is still saturated from the spring floods, my vegetable garden acts like it hasn’t seen water in years. The little bean stalks make sucking noises as I walk by and the tomato plants are total drama queens. “Water, garden wench, bring us water,”… Read More

Mention the phrase, “computer problems” and I tremble. I fumble at technology like a visit to the backseat in high school. (Friends told me about it. It’s not like I’d do such a thing.) Recently my computer was losing internet service on a regular basis and it was getting more than irritating. I appealed to my husband who then spent… Read More

Claudia. I hope she doesn’t mind me using her first name, but she gave me a wonderful reminder this morning. Claudia is a friend who came to me late in life, but has expanded my world in momentous ways. She is the type of friend who walks by my side and whispers encouragement. She giggles at my wicked ways, and… Read More

Ohhh! I mentioned in an earlier blog how much I love lilacs. Because of our strange spring weather, the timing of plant life seems to be on catch-up mode. The lilac bushes have been stuttering with random blossoms, so I try to find even tiny clusters for a sniff before they are gone. I was mowing our yard and decided… Read More

I apologize if you’re sick of Booker stories, but he continues to crack me up. The weather here has turned hellishly hot. It was almost 100 degrees yesterday, and will be even hotter today. Booker, being the good Siberian Husky that he is, has a full wooly coat. His big shed won’t come until next spring, and then every bird’s… Read More

So, my husband suggests we play a game of croquet. I haven’t played in years, and seldom by the official rules, but what the heck. I knew I could kick his butt with one mallet tied behind my back. Why? When I was a child, my brothers and I devised our version of croquet called, “Maso-croquet.” It was sooo much… Read More

I was running behind on everything. Sure, I had made a schedule earlier in the morning, but nothing was flowing the way I imagined. The intended check marks next to accomplished items were missing and probably doing something a lot more fun. The sun was shining and I was feeling very, very, Minnesota pasty. (Warning: Minnesota pasty is a condition… Read More

What the shell? Don’t you love it when you are mindlessly following a routine and some sort of surprise awaits? Me too. I was headed into the backyard to pull more of the weeds that seem to thrive on my abuse when I almost stepped on a turtle. I’m not sure of the official variety, but we always refer to… Read More

Ug. Have you ever felt dozens and dozens and dozens of wood ticks crawling all over your body? It is enough to give a permanent case of heebie jeebies to a zombie. So, you want all the details you say? Okay. My daughter and I were off on our annual “Chick Weekend.” We’ve been spending one weekend a year together… Read More

I finished a book today called “The Weird Sisters” by Eleanor Brown. The story revolves around three adult sisters coming back to their parent’s home to hide and heal from lives gone awry. As a middle child myself, I found connections within the characters of all three sisters. The oldest sister is fearful of an unknown life and has convinced… Read More

Every once in awhile my husband bursts into song. I never know exactly inspires these moments of crooning, but when it happens he tends to look passionately into my eyes while mustering his best Clark Gable face. Apparently he does give a damn. What I love about his music-infused play is the lyrics. They really don’t write songs like they… Read More

Forgive another account of my spring joy. I have a favorite white lilac shrub that perfumes our backyard. I cut a large bunch for a short-lived bouquet, and now the living room is also saturated with fragrance. I only wish the season for lilac blooms was longer because they literally feed my senses with delight. My mom wasn’t a flower… Read More

I had just decided what I was going to have for lunch. Doritos and brie. I know that is a horribly unbalanced meal. I do! So I added a glass of iced tea. Just as I had popped a salty-creamy-spicy brie-laden Dorito into my mouth, the phone rang. My son was sitting at the car dealership getting some brake work… Read More

This week has been a hectic one for me. As a confirmed introvert, I need alone time to recharge and feel happy, but it hasn’t happened. My husband noticed I was getting rather quiet. He gently asked how I was doing, but I could hardly muster the energy to explain the drain I was feeling. Tonight when I returned from… Read More

I consider myself a fairly decent cook. I base that on the fact that, to my knowledge, nobody has died from eating my food. One of the mental abuses I suffer is loving healthy eating and loving sugar and chocolate. It’s like having a sugar devil on one shoulder and a whole foods angel on the other. (They mostly look… Read More

I consider myself a decent cook and baker. However, there is an odd disconnect bet

I love raspberries and blackberries. Our Minnesota seasonal schedule will not provide the plump explosions of flavor until much later this summer. In our spiffy modern “lets ship food from around the world” sorta way, the blackberries are arriving in the grocery stores now and are looking and tasting really good. The cold reality of my life is that we… Read More

I love Fridays because it is usually a day my husband and I set aside to work and play together. It feels almost wicked to be able to look at each other and whisper, “Let’s go to a movie!” right in the middle of the day. Shouldn’t good and industrious people be doing good and industrious things instead of loafing… Read More

I know I recently mentioned how happy I am that the birds have returned to color our backyard. Really, it’s like a carnival back there. Now that the weather has slooowly warmed enough that we can open our windows at night, the 4 a.m. bird version of American Idol takes place. Those babies are singing their hearts out and I… Read More