Some of my favorite conversations with people I don’t know have come about because of the car I drive, a 2020 Ford Mustang Convertible in “Race Red”. Things you may or may not know about this car: I had two funny conversations just last week. The first one was in Nashville, when I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch. The car top was down, of course (June!), and my music was blasting, as usual. I exited the highway and stopped for the traffic light at the top of the ramp. A small white sedan was in the left lane, and the driver and her passenger were…
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Protecting My Peace
I want to tell you about a new writing project I’m very excited about: I got started over on Substack so I could connect with a lot of my writer/OG blogger friends: it’s easy to read and comment on each other’s posts because they’re all under one umbrella. I started a publication over there to claim a little more world wide web space but I have NO plans of giving up this site, my little corner of the internet that belongs to me and me only. I’m sure you’ve noticed that I don’t write nearly as much here as I used to, and it might bug you…or it might not.…
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What I Know For Sure
Four years ago today, the snowy scene pictured above was my reality in the western suburbs of Chicago. We moved to Knoxville a year and a half ago and no longer had the need for the snowblower we purchased the year that photo was taken. Although it snows occasionally in Knoxville—and yeah yeah yeah the area practically shuts down when it merely flurries and people, who don’t think about the fact that the South doesn’t have the infrastructure to deal with snow, let alone the fact that the hills and sharp curves around here make traveling in icy conditions very dangerous regardless of whether the roads have been salted properly,…
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Abundance
One of the things I love about coming back up north is having the ability to stick up on things I can’t get in Knoxville. Being in Kenosha for this holiday meant a mandatory trip to my favorite grocery store. Woodman’s is a Wisconsin-based chain that is employee-owned and has the largest selection of products I have ever seen, as in four whole aisles of candy, one entire corner of the store devoted to soda pop and other beverages, and an aisle the length of the entire back of the store full of every kind of chip you could ever want, just to name a few. Unlike other stores which…
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This Is (My) Fifty, Part 2
I have to say, for being as distressed as I was about turning fifty, I sure had a memorable day. We got up at 4:00am, showered, and headed to the Knoxville airport during the worst part of a line of thunderstorms rolling through the area. It was a white-knuckle drive and wet leaves were blowing everywhere (as well as covering the streets), which added insult to injury because I knew that traction wouldn’t be good if I had to brake suddenly. I even drove over a downed power line (oops) before I realized what was happening. It wasn’t live though; I’m pretty sure if it was, I would not be…
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Way Better Than A Bike.
My younger son can't keep a secret. I'm fine with it.
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My Refrigerator: In Constant Evolution
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my refrigerator lately. I remember when I was in college: my roommate and I had one of those tiny dorm refrigerators. We had typical college dorm stuff in there: leftover pizza, pudding, cheese, cans of pop…you get the idea. When Jim and I got married, he was in the Navy and out on the ship a lot. We were also on an extremely tight budget so as I recall I had the following in the refrigerator: cheese, jelly to go with my peanut butter sandwiches, ketchup, bread, and milk for the endless supply of Kraft macaroni and cheese I kept in the…
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Home is Where the Heart is.
One of the scariest things about moving away from a long-time home is the idea of starting over again, from scratch. Finding the nearest grocery stores and other preferred shops, setting up new doctors and a dentist, figuring out if the area where you think you want to purchase a home is actually the area in which you think you’ll be happy long-term, and so many other details can be completely overwhelming. Multiply that frustration by three or four times if your long-time home also happens to be the city where you’re from originally and then multiply that by ten times if you’re a control freak who hates change. I…
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The Lazy Daze of Summer
This summer is…different for me. Here’s the thing: I operate on “high speed” most of the time. I have for years and years. The first part of the summer had me burning the candle at all the ends–we’re obviously not talking about a regular taper candle here–for a few key reasons: 1. We’ve been settling into a new house in a new-to-us-again town. 2. Listen To Your Mother season came and went, and due to #BlogHer17 being moved up by six weeks I didn’t have my normal month-long cushion of part-time rest before conference season got crazy. 3. Conference season was REALLY crazy. It was actually the craziest ever, for…
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The Chalk Writing on the Wall
Not too long ago, a married couple walked into a Barcade for an evening of drinks and Ms. Pac Man. And Galaga. And Donkey Kong. And Centipede. And…well, you get the idea. After a while, they tore themselves away from Defender for a bathroom break, agreeing to meet at the bar afterwards. Minutes later, he approached her and said, “Oh my gosh, did you have a bunch of chalk writing on the walls in there???” She did. Actually, she took pictures to share later because when you have a situation where women can write on walls with chalk, the results are usually fun and fascinating. Some of the writing was…
