To most teachers the phrase “hit the button” has a very specific meaning, referring to the button in every classroom used to call the office if assistance is required. Teachers routinely manage all kinds of issues that arise from having roughly 120 young people—each...
Well, apparently I‘m going to have to wait a little longer to be a billionaire. I bought two Powerball tickets for the historic $1.5 billion drawing and didn’t match so much as one stinking number on either ticket. I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t quit my job...
Let me state right off the bat that I love my husband. I love spending time with him, whether in a romantic little café or the office supplies aisle at Walmart. I love his voice, his touch, his smell. I love that after ten years of marriage he still calls me every day...
At 11:02 last night, it dawned on me that I only had 58 minutes to make good on all of my 2015 resolutions. I often do perform best under pressure, but even so it was not easy losing fifteen pounds, learning two new languages, and publishing a book in that amount of...
After October’s spectacular kaleidoscope of colors, November’s bare trees and grey skies strike a decidedly more somber note. Much of the gold and crimson finery that dressed October’s trees now lies in tatters on the ground, crunching underfoot. If October is the...
I’m writing this at 6:15 on All Hallow’s Eve. Very soon princesses, pirates, witches and werewolves will be upon my doorstep. I can’t wait to oooh and aww over each costume, feigning shock and amazement that such exotic creatures have suddenly, inexplicably...
Today would have been my father’s 96th birthday. He’s been gone thirteen years and I still miss him every day. In honor of his birthday, I am reposting the excerpts from my book My Pineapples Went to Houston that I posted on Father’s Day. As I said...
Ah, here we are in the most glorious of months, morning air crisp and clean, afternoons bright and sunny. It must be October—or as I call it, Choctober, with 31 uninterrrupted days of Halloween candy sales. Forget crimson, gold and russet, my favorite Choctober colors...
Living somewhere on the globe that didn’t experience four seasons would be a difficult adjustment for me to make. As a child growing up in Pennsylvania, I took for granted that life’s activities were largely organized around the seasons of the year. While I never...
