When I told my mother we were adopting a baby from China, she said, "Honey, are you sure? People say such mean things." Not that I thought she was wrong, but I had no idea what Maggie would face in Whiteville--two white parents with white friends and relatives, living in white neighborhoods, attending mostly white…

PROLOGUE May begins tomorrow. I hesitated to write a blog post about my Easter event from April. I asked Maggie, hoping she'd say, "Blow it off, Mom." Instead, she replied, "The virus has thrown everyone off. Write it anyway, even if Easter happened weeks ago. If it really bothers you, throw in a reference to…

TV pundits assure us that every hardship--even a pandemic--has a silver lining. Eventually. For now at least, our household has settled in for the long haul because of the coronavirus. I know it's deadly, but every time they show another graphic of it, all I can see are the squishy toys Maggie loved as a…

Face it. Once commercial enterprises latch onto a holiday, no one can live up to the expectations. If you didn't gift your sweetheart with jewelry, you failed. Roses count, as long as it was a dozen. A teddy bear bigger than your sofa? You're kidding yourself. Over 40 years ago, Cliff and I celebrated our…

I love winter's early darkness, whirling snowflakes, and the frosted stillness of a white field. Woolly sweaters are my friends. I tolerate spring and count the days until summer ends. But autumn's charms are not lost on me. In fact, a wedding this past autumn stays with me even now in a freezing Midwestern January.…

Turtles go mostly unnoticed. They aren't gorgeous or dramatic or cuddly. Still, they win the race against the hotshot rabbit who peers back and, assuming he's won, naps with victory assured. The turtle trods along with eyes on the sunny horizon. Step by faithful step. Persistence, whatever the speed, wins. We persist, too. Whatever the…

Milan, Ohio is a curious small town with a spirit of wanderlust. Wonderlust, too. In the 19th century, farmers could watch a ship sail along the field. At least that's how it looked. In reality, the ship floated down a canal, the state's deepest, allowing it to reach Lake Erie. On November 26th, 2019, farmers…

Every Thanksgiving my mother was up against a lot. Highly styled dinner tables glimmered on magazine covers. Newspaper articles debated the superior turkey brands. Recipes marched down her kitchen counter. A copper mold decision for cranberry sauce hung in the troubled air. She agonized through November, torching her perfectionism into raging flames. Gradually I understood…

I have never roasted a turkey. Just the thought of trying it has terrified me throughout my adult life. Not that I blame my mother, but I was imprinted early with the belief that it was an ordeal. Buzzing alarm in the morning darkness. Muttering when the thawing wasn't complete. Thud-thumping as she wrestled stuffing…

In 1997 we arrived in Rockford, Illinois with baby Maggie after flying for what felt like forty days and forty nights from China. Hellos to her were constant--from neighbors, friends, relatives. Cliff's teachers threw a huge shower. Everyone wanted to hold her, to welcome her after the nail-biting adventure of her international adoption. Maggie was…

The Milan Melon Festival has celebrated local cantaloupe and watermelon harvests for sixty years. During three days, food trucks fill the town square, and carnival rides pack the streets. Events jam the daily schedule: Kiddie Tractor Pull. 5K Melon Run. Firefighter's Chicken BBQ. Antique Car Show. Beautiful Baby Contest.... And the annual scooping of who-knows-how-many…

My mother's gardens were bountiful and beautiful. She could grow anything from radishes to roses. Given the chance, she'd work in them all day long. Me? Hardly. Nevertheless, I keep trying to grow flowers. My success has been limited, mostly because we've moved to houses with too much shade. The bright floral expanses I dream of have…

No one turns a college degree on a dime, so to speak. In May I watched Maggie graduate and wondered how so much time had passed. Of course every parent thinks the same thing. What were the markers? Where did her confidence come from? How did she become an academic success? One by one, they…

Because I graduated in 1969, my 50th high school reunion is on the horizon. I've seen Facebook "Calling All Classmates" announcements. Honestly, I'm only distantly connected. I spent high school not talking to most people. I recently happened onto a friend's video, based on yearbook photos, for the Class of 1968 reunion. I bailed halfway through. My…

Every time I turn around, another teachers' strike begins. The issues never change--higher wages, better benefits, smaller class sizes, expanded book and supply budgets. People in charge never get the message, do they? Yet dollars can't fix everything. The profession is plagued by a pervasive negative attitude. While usually unspoken, I heard it loud and…

Yes, this is really about fringe. And a mistake I made about tangled fringe. Keep in mind I was a late-in-life mother. So when we adopted Maggie, I was over-the-moon ready. Okay, some people would call it overzealous. Looking back, I see I turned my perfectionist's dial to 11 because 10 simply wasn't sufficient for…

After living in big cities, Cliff and I deliberately retired to a one-stoplight town. Fighting traffic, standing in long lines, budgeting rising taxes, and deciphering endless signs took a toll. Not to mention always being anonymous. After a few months in residence here, I was greeted by name three times on an afternoon walk. People…

By this point in life, I understand that small things consume us with frustration or delight. As Cliff says, "It's all about choices." We decide how our focus lands. So in our house built in 1859, we face more decisions than we can shake a stick at. Tuckpointing, landscaping, painting, shutter hanging, and finding more…

Overwhelmed yet? It's now or never as far as Christmas goes. If you're anything like me, the holiday crash course begins around Halloween with a parallel list of orange/brown decor beside the green/red one. If you're clever, with a few additions and deletions, the Trick or Treat decorations morph into Autumnal Pilgrims, easy peasy. But…

What happened to vacuum cleaners? I'm sure you've kept up with the times better than I have, but they now look like you could use them to fight dragons. With a charging unit and fleet of attachments, they require a room of their own. Cliff and I have been through several over 40 years of…