Today, Ethan Arthur Betty turns eleven months old, one month away from his first birthday. It’s hard to imagine the world without this little blue-eyed bundle of constant movement and spontaneous smiles. Was it just eleven months ago that he was born? How is that possible? It is as though he has been here forever…

I will admit that never in my life did I think I’d write that having cataract surgery would make me happy, but that was before the sight in my left eye went from not-so-good to really terrible. I initially was afraid that the eye condition I have called Keratoconus was going from bad to worse,…

As I rummaged through a long-lost box of family photos, I came upon this gem. This is my Aunt LuVerne and my oldest brother John. Today happens to be Aunt LuVerne’s birthday. She was born in 1919 and died at the age of 69. She was the wife of my Uncle Hutch Leatherwood and the…

Ray and I have discovered an easy way to make dining at home feel special. In both Texas and California, we have two different sets of matching vintage dinnerware that we use for our everyday meals. In California, where I am now, we have a lovely set of Mikasa Duplex Yellow Poppy dinner and salad…

Several years ago, we bought a large statue of Buddha from an estate we were handling. The statue had been stored in a small closed garage for years with miscellaneous household objects and boxes stacked all around it. Ray and I were happy to unearth this beautiful Buddha and knew that we’d like to find…

Just a few minutes ago, I received the following text: “I hear you need an attorney.” The message was from one of my closest students, Aaron Shahmaram, whom I started seeing for writing enrichment when he was in middle school. He was a shy boy who was nervous when we first met, but he and…

I was going through a box of old photos that had been stowed away for years, and I came across some wonderful shots of my family that I’d never seen. I’ll be writing about a few of these over the next week or so, but couldn’t resist sharing one photo that is dated December 1956….

Over the past few months, I’ve made a concerted effort to get more sleep. Up until that time, I got up early, stayed up late, and then wondered routinely why I was so tired. I was dragging around to the point that my children staged a mini-intervention and confronted me on my tendency to push…

Last week, I was climbing on a chair to reach something up high and accidentally bumped my head on one of our collectible cabinets. Immediately, I heard something inside the cabinet fall and break. “Oh, no!” My concern was real though I’d hit a sharp edge of the cabinet and my head still hurt. The…

On a mild afternoon With eyes closed I stand still and Let sunshine envelop me My body drinks in the rays Quenching a need Deep down That only the sun can fill A fuel that offers Health Well-being Connectedness Solace Vitamin D The source of life Is right there I need only turn toward it…