I am sitting in our quiet house here in Texas. Our Scottie, Sammie, is lying in the chair opposite me and Ray is in the kitchen. Cordelia is somewhere in the house, probably curled up on the floor near Ray. It is 10:30 at night on a cold January night. The temperature outside is 36…
Category: Flash essay
Day in Austin
Ray and I are in Austin visiting our extended family here. We had dinner tonight with lots of nieces, nephews, cousins, and sister-in-laws. We also saw our new great-niece, who is a contemporary of our grandchild, Luna. Lots of love, laughter, good food and positive energy. Hard to beat all of that. Thank you, Lee…
Results from Ancestry DNA Test – A Christmas Gift from My Kids
My kids wanted to give us information on our ancestry (and theirs) for Christmas and I just received the results. Turns out that I am 96.6% Northern European, with relatives primarily from the British Isles, a few from Germany and France and then the big surprise – I am 3.2% Sub – Saharan African, more…
The Platitudes I Swore I Was Going to Avoid
Here we are approaching the end of 2014 and I feel compelled to write something related to endings and new beginnings. But what? I don’t need to go back over the same old platitudes that have become so familiar that we all just skim over them. Yes, let’s savor every moment and be grateful for…
Church, Catfish and Books
Today, we went to church at St. Stephen’s Episcopal church where we saw old friends and met the new priest. This was the church where we went with my mother when we lived in Sherman, and it holds many memories for our family. Ray and I had our wedding blessing there, our nieces were baptised…
Christmas Eve
It is 2:21 am so this will be short. Returned from Midnight Mass just a bit ago. It was beautiful! We spent the afternoon and early evening at Sarah’s and celebrated our Christmas. Here are a few pictures. A lovely day filled with lovely people. Merry Christmas to all.
A Busy Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning
I have made two pans of stuffed shells for Christmas Eve dinner, which we will be eating at Sarah’s house tomorrow. Sarah is at the end of a grueling rotation in Family Medicine that has required 80 – 90 hour work weeks, so we are gathering at her house since she will be too tired…
Israel’s Independence, My Student and Me
I just concluded a marathon session with one of my UCLA students, which started at 5:30 and just ended at 12:15 am. I was helping him write a 12 page research paper referring to newspaper articles one month before and one month after Israel established itself as an independent state in 1948. I have learned…
A Grandma By Any Other Name…
My little granddaughter, 20½-month-old Luna arrived today for a visit. “Hi, grandbaby!” she said as she leaned forward for me to take her in my arms. I looked at my daughter, her aunt and nanny. “Grandbaby?” “That’s what she’s calling you these days. She was chanting, “Grandbaby, grandbaby, grandbaby,” all the way over here. My…
A Deep Sense of Satisfaction
I am sitting here tonight feeling proud. I have all my Scholastic entries in for my students – a total of 25 – and the packet is on its way to New York City as I write. It will arrive by noon tomorrow at the Scholastic offices, a full day ahead of the deadline. Wow….
20 Minutes a Day 