Women In Combat
One day I want to be a grandmother. I want to hold my grandbabies and coo and talk baby talk to them, but boys, if you’re reading this… not yet. And I hope at least one of them will be a girl since I couldn’t have a daughter. If you know me or have been reading my...
Happy Birthday, UGA!
About twenty seven years ago I walked beneath the black iron arch marking the north entrance to campus at the University of Georgia, my Alma mater, for the first time. Legend has it no student should walk beneath it until they have graduated. That was a significant...
A Southerner’s Guide to Surviving Midwestern Winters
We moved to Wisconsin in early November with the agreement between Bruce and me that I would never have to shovel snow or use the snow blower, an agreement that still stands, by the way. Less than a week after we moved in, it snowed for the first time. Only a couple...
The Gift of Time
When I was a teenager, I had only one fully formed goal for my life. I wanted to marry and have a family. Not many women these days would probably admit that. We have been conditioned to believe we can have all things, a career, family, happiness and fulfillment in...
Only Time Will Tell
Beginning a new year is comforting. It allows us to reinvent ourselves at least for a year, to examine our lives, what we’ve accomplished from the year before and what we want to do in the year ahead. For some reason at the beginning of January, I am still in the...
Lutefisk or Fruitcake?
Today in the shower I was mulling over my New Year resolution to give up sugar, something I will find all but impossible to do. I was considering the fruitcake I had made a couple of weeks before Christmas and wondering why so few of my relatives on my husband’s side...
My Favorite Time of Year
Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. This year, however, the holiday felt strange. Gone are the giddy, excitement filled days finding just the right present for our kids. Gone are the days of my baking six or seven different kinds of Christmas cookies...
Act by Act, Word by Word
Since last Friday I have struggled to make sense of the senseless. I have tried to understand what can’t be understood. I have counted my blessings to have my own happy, healthy children who have lived to see adulthood. As a teacher I have wondered if I would have had...
Christmas Greetings
What happened to old-fashioned Christmas cards? Winter scenes sparkling with glitter. Gold foil wreaths with red berries. The three kings at a manger scene with a glittering star above. I miss that kind of Christmas card, the ones you could save and look at years...
Number One on My Christmas List
I have asked Santa for only one thing this Christmas. A cookbook by Thomas Keller called Bouchon Bakery. I have always loved baking. I’m pretty good at it, but I want to take my skill to the next level. Something about the precision and, of course, the sweet products...