What a Hoot!!! I was invited to the White House for their first 2018 Christmas Party. This was so much fun!!! Maybe the MOST fun ever, at this esteemed residence. The size of the place is deceiving. You don?t realize how big it is until you approach the doors of the East Wing Lower Level where most guests enter for a large party. It is huge. The size of the columns and the width of the door way, remind one…
Choice has always been important to me even though I, personally, am glad I never actually had to have an abortion, I believe there are circumstances where it is the best choice. Gabrielle Blair puts her finger on the true cause. Gabrielle Blair wrote : “If you want to stop abortion, you need to prevent unwanted pregnancies. And men are 100% responsible for unwanted pregnancies. No for real, they are. Perhaps you are thinking: IT TAKES TWO! And yes, it…
I am curious about the way the world is changing. It seems like a different place much of the time. Megan Kelly got fired (more or less) for saying that she did not think wearing “blackface” as part of a Halloween costume was bad or racist. WHAT??? She lost her job over politically incorrect speech? I am truly horrified. What is the world coming to? And why do people believe it is better to try to be evenhanded in all…
Years passed at Heathfield, happy years for the most part. My love for the house and everything in it grew a pace. The land and the trees and the bountiful flowering bushes, lilac and snowball and Japonica. I adored the place. That first summer I would walk around it just saying silently “This is OURS, this is MINE.” It was a dream come true. Why had I delayed moving to the country so long? I had been afraid. Afraid of…
This David King, Long Term Solution weight loss program is seriously important to me. https://www.davidkingfitness.com/lts/ I am losing weight, but being careful, rather than being impossibly diligent. On the other hand, I am really pretty happy eating this way. It keeps me full and not hungry. Did I mention CLARITY??? My mind is clear. Chrystal clear in a way that I had nearly forgotten. Was it ever this clear? I am not sure. Eating this way makes a huge difference…
August 25th, Saturday 2018?The Wedding Today I watched my first granddaughter get married. Delilah married Alex Harris. They met in 4th grade. And today is the culmination of a courtship, many years in the making. On waking in D.C. at Underoak, I noticed the lovely weather immediately. Yesterday was perfect. Today was simply more perfect, if possible. The almost full moon last night was going to be full tonight. The temperature was moderate and the humidity almost nil. The…
My bedroom is my refuge. It first became my room when I was 10 years old. Before that I lived in all the other upstairs bedrooms at one time or another. But they were all connected by a hall and were contiguous to each other and the hall. When in 1952, the addition my parents had been planning was completed, my room became the farthest one from any other. It was on the last north-most part of the house. I…
I am on what is supposed to be a vacation with my mother, at her summer house in R. I. She is? happy as a clam. (Is that too much of a cliche for this post?) She spends her days napping and eating breakfast in the late morning. She eats 2 fruits and a piece of toast and a scrambled egg and a piece of bacon every single morning. She sits in the light and airy breakfast room with it’s…
????????????????? Have you ever tried a 40- hour fast? It sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? I have been doing a program called The Long-Term Solution with David King (?https://www.davidkingfitness.com/ ), who is a diet and lifestyle coach. He is the Tony Robbins of the weight- loss world. He has a major health program going. It is obviously very successful. ?He insists that though his diet guidelines are definitely Keto in design, he makes sure it is nutritional Ketosis. And it is….
If you find yourself caring for an aging parent, please try to find support in a group of people who have similar problems and who need help as much as you do. You will find strength in each other. You may learn from others in the group about what to expect next. And listening to their stories will make you feel humble, and grateful, sometimes. It is such a comfort to be with others who are struggling with this same…
The sun is shining in slanting rays that break through the trees in golden shoots of light. The trees shimmer in shafts of? glowing translucence . The day is bright with promise. The moment I open the door, I see it all, the sun, the trees with their trembling bright leaves, and something else. Something that is not normally there at all. What is this pretty thing? Someone has given me a turquoise Vespa as a surprise gift. The moment…
I believe in womanhood, womanly arts, childbirth, and sexual activity between opposite sexes. This is my own belief, not to be made public, universally or used to defame any group. It is not anti- gay. It is not anti- men. And it is certainly not meant to upset any other splinter group of non-conforming people. Having said that, here is why I think it. From babyhood I loved being a girl. I suppose it may be that my mother was…
The meeting we went to at Occasions Caterer is worth mentioning. It is a huge firm. http://occasionscaterers.com/They have around thirty events a day. It is extraordinary when you think of how many things can go wrong at thirty different events. But, for us, nothing went wrong. It was all set up in a Tasting Room: a table with candelabra and flower arrangements and many glasses and chargers on placemats. It looked like a lovely dinner party. And we all sat…
Today I looked at my room and it is a mess. I really looked at it, for the first time in months. There is a paper sack sitting by a nightstand in which there are files that I brought up from Charlottesville. There is no telling what is in that sack. Unexamined by me all this time, it could be important; but let’s hope it is not. Every surface is covered, more or less, with stuff. Considering the fact that…
A very experienced writer friend told me to set deadlines. And that is something I often leave out when I am writing. I do the work, but let it sit, sometimes for weeks, or worse. I think I could come back to it later and make it better. It could always be better. Who would have thought that I would turn out to be a perfectionist? I am so casual and easygoing about most things, never focusing on making things…
