Any of you with teenagers know that you’re frequently unpopular with them for major issues like, say, breathing, and for awhile, our policy of not buying electronics, CDs, DVDs, or digital detritus really affected our poll numbers. “But it’s what I WANT,” they argued. “Don’t you want to buy me a gift that I WANT?” [...]
Posts Tagged ‘gift’
Why I Knit
August 9th, 2012
6 Comments
My mother taught me to knit when I was 15. In her day, she said, a woman knit in between romantic relationships. An especially heart wrenching breakup, followed by months of no dates at all, could result in a complete ensemble of skirt, jacket, and short-sleeved shell. Matching bootlets. A cape if the guy married [...]
E-book — The Jane Austen Driving School
July 31st, 2012
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The newly published Jane Austen Driving School is the second volume in the Ordinary Life Is Beautiful E-book Series, adding to the stories and illustrations of Life Is a Gift. Thirty short, easy-to-read, fun and funny stories bring readers into the household of the Norwegian Artist, the Polish Writer, their progeny, and their eclectic and [...]
“It’s Complicated.”
July 12th, 2012
1 Comment
I think I need to go back to school for retraining, because I find myself unequipped for the technical and methodological demands of modern life. Specifically, I can’t understand my phone bill. It is six pages long, which as phone bills go is relatively short, but consider that I purchase six uncomplicated services: A basic [...]
New E-book — Life Is a Gift
July 6th, 2012
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Just published with Amazon e-books, Life Is a Gift is a series of 30 short, upbeat essays about life with the Norwegian Artist, the Progeny, and the rotating assortment of animals on the studio farm. Drawn from a compendium of Middle Age Plague essays, Life Is a Gift enables readers to relaxedly enjoy Carolyn Henderson’s [...]
It’s the Little Things That Drive You Nuts
July 5th, 2012
4 Comments
Yesterday was one of those days when nothing went right, and I wouldn’t have noticed it if it had. The details don’t matter, as I’m sure you have your own version of special days like this: the toilet overflowed, the dog ran out of food, people streamed in and out of the door constantly interrupting [...]
Life Is a Gift
June 20th, 2012
5 Comments
Well, one of the kittens died. I know, it was grey and ugly, the product of its homely, drab, tabby-striped, alley-cat, pregnant feral mother that someone dropped off on our property. The morning she gave birth we all looked at one another and said, “Great. Four new grey and ugly alley cats that all look [...]
Valentine’s Day
February 1st, 2012
2 Comments
Considering that the holiday is all about love, there are a lot of people who hate Valentine’s Day — namely, single people who wish they weren’t so and don’t appreciate being aggressively reminded of it for the next two weeks. In my long ago college days, my dorm room overlooked a courtyard that was regularly [...]
Bruce Willis Knitting
May 18th, 2011
18 Comments
I confess: I engage in reckless behavior. Sometimes I salt my food before I taste it. I set the cruise control for two miles over the speed limit. If the headache’s bad enough, I’ll take two aspirin instead of one. But perhaps my most dangerous side, my Die Hard Bruce Willis persona, comes out in [...]
