Happy New Year, my friends. I am grateful to have made it yet another year among you and am also pleased to see 2021 come to a close. Of course, we don’t quite know what to expect in 2022, but I am hopeful we’ll all see some settling of this pandemic and forward movement back…

I am sitting here tonight trying to think of what to write. The truth is that I am looking forward to taking a bath and relaxing. My stomach hurts just a tiny bit and I want to get in bed and stretch out. I want to have a good long sleep tonight and to sleep…

My nephew Jim and his family are visiting friends in Uzbekistan. He just sent us some photos of what they saw today. Having never had a clue what life in Uzbekistan might look like, I thought I might share these photos just to give a glimpse of a country that many (I presume) have little…

I am sitting here trying to think of something to write about. I feel a bit depleted, uninspired, disinterested in producing one word of writing. I am up in my little office with all my books and photos and paintings surrounding me. I am listening to Gregorian chants in my headphones and am aware that…

We have just deposited my nephew Jim, his wife Karri, and their kids Eli and Sophie back at LAX after a visit that spanned exactly 17 hours (with a few hours in there for sleeping). They are now at the Bradley Terminal where they’ll be boarding a flight to Istanbul at 7:30 this evening. After…

I am sitting here tonight waiting to drive to the airport to pick up my nephew Jim, his wife Karri, and their two kids, Eli and Sophie. They are staying overnight with us before heading off to Uzbekistan tomorrow. They are going to visit an American couple who are temporarily living there because the wife…

Ray and I had originally planned to stay home today. We were with our kids and grandkids yesterday. But after watching our Christmas Mass online (still worried about exposing our relatives to Omicron through active church attendance), we both were pretty droopy. Okay, maybe I even shed a tear or two about missing Midnight Mass…

Our family gathered at Sarah and Gregorio’s home for our Christmas celebration this afternoon and evening. We had lots of great food, too many tasty desserts, and an abundance of presents to share with one another. I am so grateful to be surrounded by such a dear family, who love to be together, crack jokes,…

If you want a foolproof cake for the holidays with a frosting that’ll knock your socks off, then just follow the recipes below. We substitute honey for ours, but I have kept the original white sugar measurements if you would prefer to go that route. The first recipe comes from the back of the Hershey’s…

In the spring of 1975 when I was 22, my boyfriend Nick and I decided we would go to Europe after I graduated from college in June. (He was already finished with school and up for an adventure). The goal was to go for a year and the original plan (or at least the one…