“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”~George Orwell A man I know had what he believed to be the beginning of a blood clot in his leg. He had been very sedentary and taken an automobile ride last 4 or 5 hours without moving his leg. When he woke up the following day, the leg was very sore, red, and swollen. The skin was hot and tight to the touch….
My dear friend, Mr. Dingus has died. You know how people say “Oh that is the end of an era!” when someone important dies? Well, his death is the end of an era for our whole family. We will all miss him terribly. He seemed to be a constant presence in our lives from the early 1970s until we left Heathfield. Mr. Dingus started his company Fauquier Enterprises, in 1974. My husband was an architect who loved to design and…
When I look at old photos of my life at Heathfield, it is as if I could enter that life again. It is physical pain, a longing, and a deep feeling of wishing I could go back. But of course, none of us can go back. We need to go forward. My life is wonderful now, but it was also wonderful back then. It is hard to say what is most important my very long and eventful past or my…
“We Are Adults Now.” We have grown up. We are adults now. We must learn to take responsibility for ourselves. We need to understand that our emotional intelligence is in our hands, no one else’s. Our health and our outlook on life are solely our own responsibility. Why do people expect someone else to save them? That is not only an unrealistic expectation, but it sets us up for being manipulated by unscrupulous characters, often the government itself. “Governments do…
I have been waiting impatiently for the 30th of June to arrive so that I could go to a luncheon I had been invited to. Yet on the actual day of the party, I forgot. Is this old age? Or is it the various distractions of my life many of which were unplanned but often very pleasant? I am distraught to have missed the luncheon. An author of a historical novel asked other authors to come to enjoy each other’s…
My Daddy adored me. I was his first child. He was besotted with his first little girl. According to my mother, I adored him back. She said he used to take me everywhere and spend hours playing with me. Painting pictures, cutting out paper dolls, and making things for me. In those days, shirts came from the laundry with cardboard inserts to keep their shape. My daddy would help me cut out crenelated shapes from these and glue them together….
June 3-4 weekend was an example of a perfect family event for this Grandmother. Of course, I hope and believe that everyone had a lot of fun at my grandson’s wedding to his fiancé. But none of them could have enjoyed it any more than I did. The weather was spectacular—cool evenings and not too hot or humid in the daytime. The sun was bright, the air fresh and fragrant, the grass green and shrubbery lush due to a great…
I am smiling as I write this because I know the ending to this part of Serenas’ story. It had been ten days since my dog, Serena went missing. Ten days with no word at all, made me assume she was dead, gone for good. After all, I had contacted everyone I could think of. I went door to door to the neighbors, begging for information. They all understood how much it meant to me. We had contacted the local…
One Christmas many years ago, our children surprised me with an unexpected gift. They told me they had a present for me but I had to wait in the living room, while they went to get it. They were giggling and acting very pleased with themselves. With much whispering and fanfare, they brought a rather unwieldy-looking tan-colored cardboard box adorned with a red ribbon on top. When I opened the large badly shaped box I was shocked. There, inside, was…
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.Thomas Jefferson Benjamin Franklin said similarly: Those who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Freedom of speech is the liberty I hold dearest, but speech is being censored day in and day out everywhere. If an organization is not censoring them, many people self censor. They are careful what they say for fear of people or institutions demanding…
I have so many photos of foxes, it is fun to share them with my readers. The featured image was taken by my daughter Helen. One of the joys of spring is the site of newborn animals and their mothers. Watching females feeding their young is special. From foals and calves in fields by the road to more hidden animals like foxes, opossums, groundhogs, rabbits, ducks, and geese, spring is the time of rebirth. It brings forth new life, and…
The mask mandates have been lifted on planes and all sorts of other places. Thank goodness! Yet there are some out there still demanding to resurrect the mandates. It baffled me right from the start how people could have fallen for the mask mandate. It was easy to prove masks were ineffective and not worth wearing. Furthermore, wearing a mask was like wearing a sign saying, “I am compliant, I do what I am told.” It was also horrifying to…
A treasure trove of information! The little book brings back a time in my life and old friends who are all gone, now. It was a Guestbook for people to sign when they came to the embassy for a party or even just to visit. And along with my mother’s diary for that period and my own, it paints a picture of our lives that first year in Luxembourg. The book was a pale nut brown leather rectangle wedged between…
How do you feel about change? The world we all inhabit has changed dramatically since I was a girl.There were a lot more rules of etiquette, manners mattered, and going to church was a virtue. People were addressed as Mr. and Mrs. or Miss, no first names until later, and there was a lot less swearing. There were general fears about war, even epidemics, but no one closed down countries as a result. Skirts used to be a certain length….
The other day I posted a photo of myself on horseback So many people commented on that photo or simply ‘liked’ it, that I took a second look. I posted it originally because it is sometimes enjoyable for me to see how I looked in those days with a trim figure and youthful features. Life was good. But there is more to that photo than just me. Foxhunting is a sport that requires guts. When I began seriously hunting in…
