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New Years's Resolutions

2020 Vision

I open our refrigerator this morning to get out the beans, the rice, the greens — required first meal of the decade — and consider throwing everything out. In one of Gretchen Rubin’s books, she mentions a woman who completely empties her refrigerator on the first day of the year. No exceptions. Out goes last […]

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Dear Nana

Happy Birthday to a 117-Year Old Woman

Dear Nana, You would have been 117 today, a possibility which wouldn’t have crossed my mind had I not read Neenah Ellis’ If I Live to be 100 – Lessons from the Centenarians, a series of interviews with men, women, and couples between the ages of 100 and 117. While some of the interviewees were […]

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Adventures in Housekeeping Family

Channeling Grandma

In a few weeks, Bob and I will arrive on our daughter’s doorstep and welcome her new baby, Evelyn Fox, to planet earth. She’ll be two months old, born in October to Emily and her husband, Tyler. For a few days, we will fuss over Evie and her older brother, Nolan, and attempt to ease […]

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Dreaming

Waiting for the Light to Change

I lay in the dark, roiling in the emotions of my last dream. If Bob were to ask, as he does most mornings, I would say, “I dreamed I lost my purse.” If I were in a hurry to get my caffeine fix, I’d stop there and get up. Instead I stretch my legs into […]

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Family Recurring Epiphanies

The Power of Perception

My mother says I tested at 130 in the ’60s when I.Q tests were de rigueur, but I don’t put much stock in that. And, if she is correctly pulling up that specific number for this particular child — who could keep track with six little geniuses — I think it was a fluke. I’ve […]