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Category: Women’s Issues

Engagement Parties are Fun!

Engagement Parties are Fun!

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The day before Easter, we had a beautiful engagement party at my house for my granddaughter, Isabelle, and her fiancé, Grayson.  About 75 guests gathered for drinks and charcuterie, pizzas, and dancing from 5:00 p.m., on into the evening. A tent over the back terrace doubled the space for entertaining. A disc jockey situated at one end of the terrace provided cheerful, danceable music; no rap, thank goodness!  Inside the house, the gleaming wood surface of the dining room table…

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Birthing Babies, Do You Know How?

Birthing Babies, Do You Know How?

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Childbirth is magical. The power of it, the mystical quality, along with the raw animal instinct, is never forgotten. My births taught me more than anything else ever has about my body and my ability to do whatever I needed to. Try to keep birth out of the hospital, where they take control of you and your body. Women know how to give birth to a baby instinctively. But it has almost been “trained out of us” by a constant…

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Be a Trad Wife; it is a lot of fun.

Be a Trad Wife; it is a lot of fun.

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All I ever wanted was to get married and have children. Somehow, this idea has become discredited. Why? Is this a conspiracy? How did the thing that has been the most important in the survival of the human race become “unfashionable”? Where would the world be without the family unit? No one ever told me when I was young that there was anything I could not do as a woman. When speaking with my father about my opportunities, I mentioned…

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A Relaxing Birthday Retreat at Jefferson Baths

A Relaxing Birthday Retreat at Jefferson Baths

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My daughter decided to celebrate her birthday on February 24th by taking a group of nine women to Bath County to enjoy the Jefferson Baths at Warm Springs and then to The Homestead for lunch.  What fun we had! Six of us met at a parking lot for a local club here in Charlottesville and got into a large Jeep belonging to one of my granddaughters. She was our chauffeur down to  Warm Springs and beyond. It was relaxing to…

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Friendships, Have You Kept Up?

Friendships, Have You Kept Up?

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Friendships become so much more important as we age. Next to dogs, our friends and families provide the most fun and affection for us. If we have children, they are now older people themselves. Our children have families of their own. They have full lives. If we have siblings we should be thankful since no one else knows us as they do. It thrills me to realize my girls (daughters) are best friends with each other. I really envy them…

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Why Thanksgiving?

Why Thanksgiving?

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Large gatherings for Thanksgiving have been a tradition in our family for decades. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday ever since I stopped believing in Santa Claus. Thanksgiving week is coming. I am a bit worried about this Thanksgiving as I have a ton of peoplecoming, and I have to figure out where to put extra tables and chairs. The preparations always used to be somewhat stressful, but I never felt overwhelmed in quite the way that I do these days….

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A Wes Anderson Wedding is like a dream.

A Wes Anderson Wedding is like a dream.

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We were invited to a family wedding last weekend. The “additional information” on the invitation said to dress to a Wes Anderson theme. “Who is that, I asked?” Once my family explained it to me, I forgot all about it. My week before the wedding was so full of social events, it was unusual. Monday, a birthday party for a grandson at his family home, a black tie dinner at Farmington Country Club on Tuesday. Wednesday, I rested. Thursday, there…

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The Last Party

The Last Party

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In 1981, my son, Charley Matheson, graduated from Episcopal High School. It was a momentous occasion for us. We were not sure until the day before graduation that Charley would receive his diploma. There was a problem with a Russian exam. He almost failed it. The Russian teacher, who really liked Charley and knew how hard he had worked, had a heartattack just before the exam. Charley’s was a “makeup” exam. A different person did thegrading. It was a cliffhanger….

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Mother of Boys 13 Months Apart!

Mother of Boys 13 Months Apart!

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Years ago, I used to listen to my two younger boys, yelling and screaming outside near ourwonderful, magical house, called Heathfield. The sounds scraped on my nerves like chalk ona blackboard. There was no peace to be had with that cacophony of escalating soundsfiltered only slightly by the stucco walls of our house. My heart sank, knowing I must go outthere to check. I had to see whether they were just playing or actually drawing blood in theirrough games. Even…

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Does Pretending You Understand Modern Art Make You Feel Good?

Does Pretending You Understand Modern Art Make You Feel Good?

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Modern Art is a psy opp. It was planned and engineered by the CIA. These records are available now. Of course, the theory is deeply controversial. The cult of modern art supporters is tenacious and terrified of being “outed.”Yet art is still in thrall to these weird beliefs about what it is. Do you know the definition of the word “thrall”? Here it is from dictionary.com: “a person who is morally or mentally enslaved by some power, influence, or the…

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Things to Ponder Over Eighty

Things to Ponder Over Eighty

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When my mother reached the age of 80, we thought little of it. Of course, she was older, but so what? She did not look it, and she was happy. She was in love with a childhood sweetheart whom she married at 81. Mother never mentioned much about aging to me. She was interested in her clothes, the jewels that matched them, her dogs, her friends, and her family.She was a happy person who rarely ever complained about her own…

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Are Old-Fashioned Ideas About God, Country, Family, and the Golden Rule Gone for Good?

Are Old-Fashioned Ideas About God, Country, Family, and the Golden Rule Gone for Good?

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For most of my life, I have wondered why the Germans acted as they did between the warsand, of course, in the time immediately before the war. Why and how did they idolize Hitler,who promised to Make Germany Great Again? And how they could just pretend it was all rightto exclude Jews from their lives and, in fact, get rid of them.How was it possible?I never could understand it until I experienced what happened during Covid.People gave up their autonomy…

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Lunch with a Friend

Lunch with a Friend

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What is more fun than a long lunch with an old friend? Recently, I had the pleasure of spending most of the day with an old friend from my schooldays. We met at Peking, a Chinese restaurant, but we both arrived early before it opened. So, I gotinto her car, and we chatted for 20 minutes, with the windows down and a small breezekeeping us from sweating too much as the sun beat down on her automobile, until we sawthem…

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Grace’s wedding

Grace’s wedding

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The newest wedding might have been the best one yet!! Our family has had two weddings within six weeks. That is a huge burden on a family. But my daughter Helen and her wonderful husband, David, were up to the task. Both of them are remarkably unflappable. If they feel anxiety, it is well hidden from me. Grace’s wedding was special to me because I have always known she was one of those people who (like me) wanted to be…

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Such a lovely shower!

Such a lovely shower!

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It was calm, sedate, and pleasant for the guests. The room was lovely. The pale blue walls,with white plaster decorative touches, gave guests a feeling of peace.This peace surrounded me and filled me with loving thankfulness. After the morning I had justspent going to a graduation in the rain at UVA, it was a blessed relief. It had poured all nighton Friday and drizzled all Saturday morning. It was pretty unpleasant, but I was with agranddaughter, Delilah, trying to find…

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