Ants are amazing. I remember being mesmerized by them as a kid, squatting low to the ground, watching their industrious ways for long...

One New Year’s Eve early in our dating years, my husband and I drove from northern California where we lived, down to Death Valley...

I thought I might log a short walk the other night. It was a shrug type of decision. I could go or not. There was near complete cloud...

Aunt Mary and Uncle Louie died long ago, but they’re still around as ghosts or as love, and it’s hard to determine which. For example,...

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on, our troubles will be out of sight. Years ago, when our two...

When you teach grade-schoolers in your driveway how to think outside the box of what’s already scaffolded into their minds, how to pull...

As we go into this holiday week, I wanted to send out a short message of gratitude for your supportive readership of this blog. Each time...

Thanksgiving is around the corner and thanks is in the air! This time of year, many things are in the air, such as excitement and love,...

It had long been decided that the day was going to happen, but it was far too soon for me that it arrived. This was because, despite...

When I was a kid, I had a crush on a plain, low-key tree across the road from our house in rural Pennsylvania. Back then, extravagant...

Halloween Committee Meeting Minutes October 20, 2021 Conference Room Behind Steph’s Shed Committee Members Present: Rocco Raccoon Ricky...

When we lived in Turkey for a year, my youngest son Max and I would often walk a mile down to his preschool in the morning, then in the...

I was always supposed to be a paleontologist. I had prepared myself for this vocation from the time I was old enough to realize how great...

Recently I went to my neighbor’s house to watch their two young kids for an hour in the morning, then get them on the bus for school....

The other weekend I drove from Virginia to New Jersey by way of Interstate 95, or The 95 to some folks—a name which I think is supposed...

We play the hand we’re dealt, for better or worse, to our benefit or detriment--and to others’ as well. Our lives reverberate out. Even...

My old friend Carl Launius was one of the more unusual people I’ve met in my life, unusual because of many things, and not simply because...

When my husband and I lived in Brooklyn, NY in the 1990s, we lived at the far edge of a neighborhood called Carroll Gardens, just a block...

Sometimes Wegmans grocery store brings food. Sometimes it brings flowers and housewares. Sometimes it brings random social connection,...

The day wasn’t turning out like she’d planned, but Iris still managed to grab a juicy grasshopper from a nearby scrappy weed patch and...