Year ends bug me.  That’s because when I compare all the things I wanted to do with how little I actually accomplished, I feel inadequate.  And 2011 was another repeat.  Well, in 2012, I’m not going to merely chastise myself.  I’m going to stop this insanity. It starts when I get interested in something, because [...]

Are there any writers on your holiday gift list?  People tell me that buying gifts for writers can be a real challenge.  If you’ve found that to be the case, I may be able to help.  I’m a member of the Freelance Marketplace Writers’ Group in Rochester Hills, Michigan.  And every year, the group’s members, [...]

Pretty much all my life I’ve loved taking pictures.  And now that I have a little more time to spend on pleasurable pursuits, I decided to take a digital photography class at a local college.  The class would surely be a piece of cake, I thought.  After all, I’ve taken thousands of pictures and know a [...]

The day before Labor Day, my husband got on a plane to pick up our three-year-old granddaughter and bring her back to our house for two weeks.  We’d been looking forward to her visit for months, and she was excited about it, too.  My only concern was that two weeks might be too long for a [...]

As some of us become empty-nesters, we need a new focus for our energy and nurturing tendencies. For me, that was volunteering. One of the activities in which I became involved is tutoring foreign adults in English as a second language. In my eight-plus years of tutoring, I worked with four students, a woman from Brazil, [...]

In the course of some of my volunteer work, I’ve visited many patients in nursing homes.  And I’m always struck by the number of nursing home residents who rarely see a visitor, even though they often have relatives living nearby.  This is especially true of patients suffering from various degrees of dementia.  And it’s heartbreaking.  In [...]

The excitement was palpable at our house just before Memorial Day weekend.  Our 2 ½-year-old granddaughter was about to arrive for a five-day visit.  And for three of those days, her mom would be in Chicago, so we’d have the little darling all to ourselves.  We were like kids at Christmas! Oh, we had big plans.  [...]

My niece has been offered an amazing opportunity to kick start her college education.  Her school system is participating in a program where students can take college classes during 11 th and 12 th grades, along with their high school curriculum.  Then they commit to what’s being called a “13 th year”, which consists of only college courses.  All [...]

My son started bugging me about getting a pet when he was three years old.  Like a lot of boys, he wanted a dog.  Well, my family had several dogs while I was growing up, so I knew how much work was involved.  And by the time my son was six, I was a single parent, [...]