Here is an updated photo of baby Luna, my granddaughter. She and I spent the day together today with her mama, Sarah; tomorrow, Grandma is going to officially babysit for a few hours all alone with this little 5 month old girl. We will see how the babysitting fares. Sarah admitted being nervous about leaving…
Category: Family
9/11 – What We’ve Learned; What We Still Are Learning
On the morning of September 11, 2001, my husband and I were lying in bed before taking our kids to school when Ray turned on the television to watch the morning news. Suddenly, I heard him say, “Oh, my God!” I looked up to see footage of the first plane plowing into the first tower…
5 Star Recipe for Black Bean Salad with Mango, Cilantro and Lime
I am not always that crazy about salads that aren’t just greens and the usual vegetables, but I have to say that the recipe below is absolutely delicious. Liz’s boyfriend, Ron, supplied the recipe, which appeared on the side of the can of black beans that his mother had bought. She served this one evening…
Lessons I’ve Learned from Losing 4 Siblings
As some of you know, I am from a family with six children (seven, except my little brother, Robert Alexander, died shortly after birth). All my older siblings: my sister, Leslie (11 years older); and my brothers, John, 9 years older; Jim, 8 years older; and George, 3 years older; have died. The only sibling…
When Life Changes Without Warning
This morning, I headed across the street here in Texas to see how progress was going on our renovation for what we call the Dimmit House (that’s the family who owned the house the longest way-back-when). I noticed that my husband, Ray, was over talking to our neighbors, a young couple who moved to our…
Does Media Make Us Happy?
I recently saw an article that said that Facebook causes people to feel less content because they tend to compare their lives to others. Along that same vein, I was helping a student tonight work on a paper based on a book whose premise is that Americans have shifted from family-centered to society-centered primarily through…
Reflections on the Passing of A Friend
Ingrid, my friend of over 30 years, has died. A friend I knew very well a long time ago, but with whom I had been out of touch until January of this year when we reconnected via Facebook. In June I discovered that she was ill, and only three days ago I learned that she…
Celebrating Ian’s New American Citizenship
Today, our friend and priest, Ian Elliott Davies, Welsh by birth, became an American citizen. He has been in the United States for eleven years, serving as the priest at St. Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood, and his road to citizenship has taken all of that time. Today when we picked him to go downtown to…
A Few of My Favorite Things
I am struggling to write tonight so instead I have made a list of some of my favorite things and places. Sometimes 20 minutes a day is a lot… My favorite television shows are: 1) CBS Sunday Morning 2) Newsroom 3) True Blood – not so much this year, but in the past 4) Project…
Beauty, Girls and a New Measure?
A friend today wrote that her mother described her as handsome when she was growing up. This made it difficult for her to ever see herself as pretty and, in fact, she became skeptical of those who described her with that word, wondering if they didn’t perhaps have an ulterior motive. I am guessing that…
20 Minutes a Day 