New Orleans

I’m in NOLA for a work conference, and I just love this city so much. I flew out this morning, arrived to MSY around 2, and caught the city bus into town. It’s super easy now, because you can buy a 1 or 3 day Jazzy Pass for unlimited transportation on the bus, streetcar, or…

Books of 2021

I read more books than I have since I started keeping track, and it was fun, but less fulfilling than I’d hoped to read a lot of books. I have some tweaks to make for next year, but for now, here’s the list for the archives, and some reflection. * indicates e-reader ^^indicates audio 1)…

Doralee’s Last Trip

My grandmother died last August. One of the greatest loves of her life was travel. She relished seeing anything new. As she got older and less able to get around on her own, her definition of new expanded so she could still see new things in the small town she was living in. Even into…

Spring brings Changes

What a long year. This spring has felt good because it seems to be that every day I hear about someone else getting vaccinated and that’s one more person protected and potentially seen soon. It does start to give me some envious feelings, because I’m not eligible yet, even though I’m still working in person,…

Hamnet

I finished reading Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell yesterday. It was an excellent book, and I want to reflect on it some today. Mostly, I want to connect it to my late professor Dr. Libby Oakes, who taught Shakespeare and women’s poetry at Western Kentucky University for many years. I couldn’t figure out why the book…

Granny

I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile because I know it will make me sad to write it, even as I want to share these memories and keep them for the boys and my family. My grandmother (mom’s mother) died last month at 95. She was amazing. When I was a kid, she was…

A Little Myers-Briggs Fun

When I was young, maybe around 9-11 (Linda, do you want to weigh in here?), my aunt gave me a Myers Briggs test. I think at the time I was ENTP (Debater Personality). That was a lot of fun. I liked reading about the personality and thinking about it. Every now an then, I retake…

The Awaited post of The New World

I’m debating how to do this. There’s always the potential for “woe is me, I’m so privileged” to come across, and I’m trying to decide how not to do that, but you know, there’s a lot of tone-policers out there, and I’m not one of them…except when I am. Score 1 (a total relief) to…

Quitters

We’re not a family of quitters. In fact, as you may know, we’re over-doers. But, how do you know when to let a kid quit something they’ve committed to? We have a bit of a quandary to deal with, and we’re muddling through, so I welcome thoughts from your experience on the topic. For years,…

Welcome Home

I’ll post about Cape Cod soon, and it was a great trip, but too much for my limited time at the moment. When we got back on Saturday, the kids were ecstatic to be home. Porter has barely left the house. I told Harlan his bed would be happy to see him, and he said,…