I dream the same dream over and over. I'm in a strange place looking for things that belong to me so I can take them home. Supposedly dreams are the voice of our subconscious, but I have no idea what my subconscious is trying to tell me or why it keeps repeating itself. Maybe it's nothing for me to worry about. Maybe my subconscious stutters.
According to experts, when a person chases me in...
The Linuses of this world leave litter in their wake. It makes me wonder what their homes look like. It's the people who don't put the refuse of their lives in the proper receptacles who put the rash in trash.
Once when my grandmother was traveling by train, she put her unfinished lunch back in the box. She even retied the string around the box - making it obvious where I inherited my...
Every day there's something new about what foods are good for us and what ones aren't. Whether eggs, coffee and chocolate are good or bad depends on who's talking. Red wine is supposedly good because it has an anti-aging ingredient, but I expect experts will change their minds about wine too. If wine has an anti-aging ingredient, why does it improve with age?
From a very young age I was...
Four leaf clovers, rabbits' feet, horse shoes - some people think these are good luck. I thought a toy mouse was good luck until I lost it. Then I asked myself how I could have the misfortune to lose something that was meant to bring me good fortune. Now people bring me good fortune - especially when they wash the dishes, do the laundry or let me sleep late.
A shirt, a tie, a hat - some...
Inventors start with an idea about how to do something or how to do something better. For example, staples aren't just for holding papers together anymore. Carpenters use them to hold boards together and doctors use them to hold skin together. A couple of years ago an emergency room doctor used four staples to hold a cut on my head together. Ever since, however, I've thought someone should...
Belgium is the birthplace of the spa. It's also the land of rich chocolates. To me that says heaven. To my pocketbook it says a Hershey Bar on the way to "Spas R Us".
Once a month I have a facial at Spas R US. My face is bathed in warm vapors, kneaded with various oils, exfoliated with an herbal mask and wrapped in cool towels. My grandmother didn't believe in facials. She believed that...
Going new places, seeing new sights, trying new things - travel broadens the mind. If you don't exercise when you travel, however, it broadens the hips too.
When John and I were first married, we took lots of trips. Then came kids. Then came braces and camp and college funds. John and I still took trips, but they were a lot closer to home. They were guilt trips.
Before we go on a trip...
When it came to decorations, my grandmother told me not to wrap a disappointment. By that she meant not to make a gift look better than it actually was. Because I'm gift wrap challenged - paper held together by lots of tape and topped with a stick-on bow - that's not a problem.
Recently, however, I received a gift that was too pretty to open - so I didn't. The stack of five, gold and silver...
A house is the biggest investment most of us will make. That's why my husband and I spent the first six years of our marriage in an apartment. Looking back, it was six years of someone else fixing things, six years of someone else mowing the lawn and six years of someone else paying the taxes. Nevertheless, one son and a pregnancy later, we decided we were throwing money out the regularly...
Whenever Linus was in the Peanuts comic strip, he had his security blanket with him; but not all security blankets are blankets. Mine is an outfit - leggings and a long top. They're formal pajamas I can wear anywhere that's not formal. When I'm in my public pajamas, I think I can handle anything. If I can't, at least I'm ready to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head.
Some people...
