How are you going to complete your schedule? — It’s August 1st: do you know where your new employees are? Back in the …mumbles…umm… 60’s and 70’s, an announcement would come on television each night at 10 PM: It was a warning to parents, a way to tell them something they should already know. To double check that…

Encouragement is always appreciated — As part of a training exercise, I shared both a personal and professional goal for the coming quarter. We had two minutes to decide these goals and be ready to share them. There is a power in stating your goals aloud. You get to hear it the way other people…

But I am sure you’ll never see this — “If you want to be my new mommy, you can wear my mother’s veil.” Do you remember the day I proposed to you? I was almost five years old. My mother had died when I was three, and daddy brought you home to meet us. My brother and I had…

Every word you give is in someone’s harvest — I’m an awkward 12 years old wearing my ‘good dress’ and the house is filling up with relatives for our family’s Christmas Eve party. My Aunt Lucille comes into the living room with that most adult of dishes: green and black olives. (We only have olives when there are guests. They are…

Or is it mixed blessings? — My parents were Catholic, so for the early part of my life I was, too. We had a nighttime tradition, just before bedtime, of getting a blessing from our parents. We’d have a very short prayer-not much more complicated than the Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, except more…

Things haven’t turned out the way I thought they would — ‘Holidays’ once meant a 90-minute trip to Gramma and Grandpap’s house. There WAS an ‘over the river’ aspect to it, since we lived in Pittsburgh, where distance is seldom calculated by miles and more often described as the number of bridges you would cross. …

Thoughts on toilet paper, that is. — Things came to a head (couldn’t help myself) this week. In the ladies room and in need of toilet paper I wondered if anyone else thinks the same way I do. Struggle #1 The stall has two silver toilet paper holders. In each, one roll is visible for use. The second roll…

Good things come in all kinds of packages I needed something placed on top of the cabinet at work, so I asked someone for help, explaining that I needed someone taller than me to do it. He laughed and said that narrowed it down to approximately everyone else in the building. Point…

I get why you aren’t but here’s my reason — My social media and writing platforms are filled with Americans sitting out the 4th of July this year. Some of them give specific reasons and others are just NOT doing it. I respect their decisions and understand their reasons. They don’t feel the independence of Independence Day. I saw it…