A friend of mine, Eunice Spratlin, took a tumble last week. Unfortunately, her 80-year-old ankle didn't hold up very well. Since she's a big fan of my columns, I thought to write one for her. When I visited her, ensconced in a hospital bed in her daughter-in-law's front room, she didn't even give me chance to ask if she'ld like that; she just asked if I had already written one!…
Do you lock your doors at home? What about your car? Do you secure it every time you get out of it? Boy, I’ve been doing that for years. What about you? Well, I recently was smacked in the face with another country-living realization. We went out of town for several days and a friend agreed to feed the dogs while we were gone. My husband also requested she move…
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...” I really hated my Shakespeare class in college. I had hoped I would gain some appreciation for the “Bard” but it was so boring! Yet, I reached for a quote to use today and, lo and behold, up pops the above phrase from Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare was asking a question that…
Aaaah, nuts! Let's see: that could be an exclamation of disgust akin to "Rats!" or "Darn!" or it could be lovingly moaned upon receiving a gift of the same. Which one is it, you ask? Well, at this point in the year I'm not sure which way I mean it! Even though this is the second fall for us out here on our 2 acre "homestead", it was the first…
I, like so many others, kept saying I would be glad when the election was over and things could get back to normal. Oops. Normal, you know, like no more election news? In the middle of all this weirdness (electile dysfunction and no, I didn’t make that up), my life has suddenly ratcheted up into high gear. Before the election I would decide the night before what I would be…
In all of the adaptations we’ve had to make here in our country home, the most subtle one has affected our dogs. It’s subtle because its full import has taken this entire year to become obvious. We have three dogs-city dogs, of course. The most citified is the little one, a six-pound toy with long hair. When we gained her from my son in late 1999, she wasn’t fond of…
It truly is amazing what one can accumulate over the years. Before and since our move we have been sifting through our belongings in an effort to reduce the bulk and fit into our new home. This exercise has turned up some interesting, some ridiculous, some wonderful and some odd things. One of my first goals was to get my husband to toss out some of his magazines. We have…