Riddle: Every family has them, what are they? Answer: Nicknames that are too embarrassing to expose outside the home. After coffee with friends, I return home, open my front door and call to my bassety beagle Casey, “Casemaster General, where are you?” To say he’s non-responsive overstates his activity level. …
At times it’s a challenge to dream up worries to write about. For one thing, my busy blogging schedule helps keep my usual disaster scenarios at bay. For instance, I haven’t worried about bedbugs since yesterday. Other times I get excited about three ideas at once and can’t settle into …
(Whether you are my age or pre-memory loss, please share this with parents and friends who’ve crossed the line.) What was I was just thinking to write about? Oh yeah, memory loss. That sounds like a bad joke, but it’s what I actually said to myself when I opened this …
In seventh grade my friends and I were not part of the popular crowd of girls who looked sexy in gymsuits and paired off with boys. Instead, we immersed ourselves in a world of make-believe. We were three couples: me and Ricky Nelson, Phyllis Kirschner and Tab Hunter, Shessie Einbinder and Pat …
Like me, does everyone become as frozen as Michelangelo’s David whenever they think of all their photographs fading in plastic bags, on sticky non-archival album pages, and loose in various boxes, chests and drawers? Not to mention all those out-of-control digital photographs? Recently I wrote a series of three articles for …
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my article, “29 Great Tips for Choosing the Right Picture Frame & For Hanging Artwork and Family Photos” What was I thinking when I ordered the book 1,000 Places To See Before You Die? Here’s what inspired me to look at it. My friend Karen told …
The quest for happiness is popping up everywhere these days: in books, college courses, blogs and on Oprah. In the same way my oldest daughter, when she was little, shared her life with invisible companions Sibby and Babby, Worry and Quest for Happiness accompany me wherever I go. Like sibling …
Valentine’s Day, 1991, New York City. My then-(China hand)-husband and I knew a young Chinese couple. The sweet wife Mei Ling, who was exquisite to look at with her porcelain complexion and appleseed eyes, sometimes babysat for our daughters. On this particular February 14th, she had plans to go out …
Following one’s daughter on Twitter carries risks for a worrywart. Especially when that daughter tweets all day long. Last weekend my daughter (the tweeter) threw a birthday party for herself at a bar where I knew she would be surrounded by loads of friends. It never occurred to me anything …
Unrelated announcement: Check out my Home Goes Strong article Thinking About a Valentine Dinner? How About Red, Pink, White . . . & Wine With a Heart? In How Annoying Am I Part I, I outlined how annoying I am to my daughters. After posting that, I observed another annoying pattern …
PART I: HOW ANNOYING AM I TO MY DAUGHTERS? Repeating myself “Mom, you’ve told me that ten times!” Asking too many questions Just after exchanging I love you’s and mwah’s at the end of a phone convo, suddenly a string of questions spills out of my mouth like bubbles from …
RELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: SEE MY HOME GOES STRONG ARTICLE, 11 More Great Ways to Deter Break-Ins, Readers Speak Out. It was Christmastime. I was ten years old and playing on the adding machines in my father’s office. I walked down a narrow hallway to show the secretary my string of numbers. …
It’s been a longie since my last Tip Day. I’m worried you’ll think I’ve run out of tips. To be honest, I’m a little worried myself. So today, when a positive thought visited me, I wondered how I could put a worry spin on it. Then I remembered long-neglected Tip …
UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out my article, FOUR 4-INGREDIENT ENTREES . . . QUICK, EASY, DELICIOUS & HEALTHFUL! A few days ago I went into the basement (scary basements, a whole topic unto themselves) to put away an old file and came across an article I wrote while deeply involved in …
Unrelated announcement: How I Organized my Home, De-Cluttered my Life & Learned 21 New Tips Some call the holiday season Chrismukkah, others say HanuKwanzMas. Then there’s Festivus with its unadorned aluminum pole, miracles and airing of grievances. I say Hanukkah simply on its own can cause confusion, starting with: which of …
Unrelated announcement: Worried about your waistline over the holidays? See some great diet tips in my new Home Goes Strong post: Stock Your Kitchen to Reduce Your Waistline. When traveling, I experience this pull between what I feel like doing and what I think I ought to be doing. In …
Shortly after my divorce I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon and at first paired off to train with a divorced and widowed man named Charlie, who told me he found divorcing his wife harder than losing his other wife to death, because he had to continue dealing with …
Last week, in the writing group I facilitate for homeless people, I suggested a pre-Thanksgiving exercise that got me thinking. Instead of the grade-school-type assignment of writing what you’re thankful for I suggested we come up with some things we are not thankful for and see if we can find …
If you’re not a worrywart, maybe you don’t stress about weighing comfort and how you spend your time against what it requires to look your best. The older I get, the less patience I have for wearing anything that feels less comfortable than pajamas and shearling slippers. I have paid …
During the first half of my fifties, I visited my parents in Florida a few times a year for a few days at a time. Then a friend, whose parents had died when she was in her early twenties, convinced me I should visit my folks every month. So I …
When someone writes “thanks” in response to my email, do I write “my pleasure” and require them to open yet another correspondence? Or do I allow the thread to end with their thanks and risk seeming rude? I try to take into account my hierarchal position relative to my correspondent. …
Unrelated announcement: Show Your Mojo With Coffee Table Books, my latest post on Home Goes Strong. I wonder whether anyone else avoids using favorite things. As far back as high school, I remember saving my blue Villager blouse for special occasions. Now that I’ve lived several more decades, there are …
If my daughter says she has to pee, then I have to pee too. And whenever I go to restaurants, I get food envy. No matter what, the other person’s order looks better than mine. Wouldn’t it be great if, similarly, when someone says, “I never worry,” I were to …
I’d been rooting around for a good mental picture to swap to whenever I get visions of things like having no one to play Scrabble with when I reach my December years. I was searching for a sweet memory of which I have many. The ones that kept leaping to …
Right after posting One Space or Two? I began to worry that readers would roll their eyes, wondering why I thought anyone would want to hear about the minutiae that hopscotches around in my head. It was wasted worry, because the views of my blog doubled that day and plenty of …
As a kid at the Jersey shore, on days of ocean calm, I would float over the occasional ripple with my dad, his hands folded behind his head and his tan, slender, feet parallel and pointing skyward. “Ahh, this is worth a million bucks,” he’d say and now I know …
Naturally, when I cook I worry the dish won’t come out right, especially because I don’t measure and I have never followed a recipe with precision. A great thing about Bonnie Pasta is that you can’t mess it up. And everyone adores it, including vegetarians. Read all about it and get …
Picture a worrywart mom getting a call from her mid-twenties-aged daughter, who is all excited to tell about the New Zealand trip she and a friend are planning. We’re going “cave rafting,” the daughter says. The worried mother later looks up this cave rafting to discover it’s also called black …
Ok, I’m trying to get this right with my blogging in 3 different places (Worrywart, Huffinton Post and Home Goes Strong). I tweet my new posts, I facebook my new posts, my dear daughters do the same, I link one post to the next and when I start a new …
When my kids were in the single digits, agewise, I would tuck them into their unmade beds, then worry whether or not I was raising responsible citizens. So I decided to turn some dreaded chores into family fun! Read about it on Huffington Post and share with parents and grandparents …