I was going to start writing this post earlier today, before the Big News, and it would have been a little bit different. After finding out that decency and democracy and so many other important things won today (WOOT AND YAY JOE AND KAMALA AND ALL OF US!), I’m pivoting. Just a little bit. Did I mention how excited I am that Joe Biden is now our President-elect and Kamala Harris is now our Vice President-elect? No? I AM THRILLED. The first thing I plan to do is enjoy this feeling for a couple of days. Let’s all do that. We deserve to celebrate! This is a wonderful thing! Brighter…
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Before the Polls Close
After waking up with a start at 3:30am—and not only being unable to get back to sleep but actually being wide awake—for the second day in a row, I thought it would be a good time to get some Election Day feelings out through my fingers while we still don’t know the fate of our country. It’s very peaceful sitting here in the dark, tapping on the keyboard, and I’ll take every moment of peace I can get today. Things feel so very heavy compared to Election Day 2016. Things are heavy. It’s hard to have optimism when, four years ago this week, it seemed like there was absolutely no…
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The NaBloPoMo Game (Hear Me Out: I Have an Idea!)
National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) is something that most of us old school bloggers looked forward to every November. We published a new post every single day during the month and, just as importantly, we read the words written by our friends. Blogging has changed a lot since those early days (monetization had a hand in “killing” it, as did Facebook and other elements; don’t get me started). Over the past couple of years, I’ve asked who wants to participate in NaBloPoMo with me and the number of respondents has decreased dramatically: so much so that this year I didn’t even have it on my radar. (Probably also because 2020!)…
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I Have Made This Pumpkin Bread Recipe Approximately 231,945 Times. Still Awesome.
The pumpkin bread recipe that my kindergarten class made a long, long, LONG time ago, originally posted on my blog in 2013, is something I make every single year without fail. My mom does, too. Each year since I posted it, I’ve been thrilled to hear from friends who say that making this ancient recipe has become a family tradition for them, too. I was reminded by one of those friends (shout-out to Tabatha!) that the recipe plug-in I had used originally (on my old site) wasn’t working here. Oops, I meant to update that a long time ago. So, in light of that situation as well as our being…
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Pandemic Thoughts: Lack of Practice Makes Us Rusty.
The last six months have been about twenty-five years long, am I right? This pandemic has tossed so many unprecedented* things at us that I couldn’t name them all if I tried, but we have collectively cartwheeled and vaulted and back-flipped ourselves and our family members all over the place (oddly enough, while restricted mostly to our homes) in order to cope with it all. *By the way, one of the things that has been rudely tossed at us in excess during this COVID-19 era is an extraordinary overuse of the word “unprecedented.” I would like to request more precedented stuff, please! I have had unprecedented (ha!) time to think…
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Tradition: Commemorating 9/11 in a Meaningful Way
In 2012, I started a new personal tradition for the National Day of Remembrance. I had visited the National September 11 Memorial when I was in Manhattan for BlogHer ’12, and was extremely moved by the experience (massive understatement). It occurred to me that, rather than passively watch the televised tributes and read what the rest of the internet had to say about 9/11, each year I would involve myself by actively remembering and learning about a couple of the victims of that terrible day. Edward J. Rall was a firefighter who began his FDNY career at Engine 232/Ladder 176. There‚ and also at Rescue 2 where his career prematurely…
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My Earliest Political Memory Was That Time I Got In Trouble.
Just look at that eight year old up there. She looks like she means business, doesn’t she? She was me. Well, she is me. I thought it would be fun to tell the (very) short and sweet story of the very first memory I have that involves politics. Back in 1976 when I was obviously trying to be some kind of supermodel, there was more talk than usual about America and politics. Jimmy Carter and incumbent Gerald Ford were running their presidential race, and we were also celebrating the Bicentennial—the 200th anniversary of the First Continental Congress, which led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A year-long wave…
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New Pandemic Hobbies Keep Us Busy!
I have a lot of friends who are, overall, very happy right now. (And I’m not just talking about the introverts!) They’re thankful for the serenity and forced slow-down this pandemic has brought upon them. Naturally they are sad for all of the losses that have resulted from it as well; that has to be stated, but that’s a different topic for another day. I can’t say that I’m always thankful but I definitely do have moments and days when I am. Maybe we all do, at different levels: there are good days and bad ones, good weeks and bad ones. These days, months into the pandemic, many people are…
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Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day and Neither Were Good Macarons.
I’ve been slacking on my journey towards mastering the art of making French macarons, but I finally made my latest attempt. Raspberry seemed like the perfect flavor for summer and the color is so pretty, so I made plans to give it a go…a month ago. I’d throw my hands in the air and say that “It’s just the stress of everything having to do with the pandemic!” that caused me to put off what is supposed to be an enjoyable activity, but if I’m being completely honest with myself (and you), I felt like my last attempt, lemon, was such a failure (not really that bad though, shrug) that…
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11 Best Practices for the 2020 Election Season
Hey. Let’s have a chat. The upcoming election in November is the most important one of our lifetime, and I want to put some information and reminders out there in hopes that we stay focused and don’t allow everything to go off the rails. This combination of the internet, the 24-hour news cycle, our current president, the deep, multi-category divisions running through the country, and the pandemic (just to name a few) is a huge dumpster fire that we need to PUT OUT rather than douse with more lighter fluid. Here are some thoughts to get us all through this without causing more damage: 1) Use extreme caution AND educate…
