True Blessings

For about ten minutes, my life is idyllic. My daughter naps peacefully upstairs. My husband watches football and reads. I sit knitting while Diana Krall croons on the CD player about chestnuts roasting over an open fire. My “knit-one-purl-one” binding is actually looking like “kint-one-purl-one” binding, for a change. The house is decked out for [...]

Cornucopia of Thanksgiving

The Cornucopia or Horn of Plenty, that wicker, cone-shaped basket filled with fruits and vegetables is a symbol of this holiday season when we take time to sit and count our blessings. On one of my daughter’s television programs the Cornucopia is described as a horn-shaped basket that we fill with all the things that [...]

Improvisation

“Nooo. We have to play by the rules…” Daddy gently explains a new board game to his 3-year-old daughter who is recovering from her birthday party sugar crash.
Mom smiles to herself as she sits knitting, waiting for the upcoming meltdown, which to her pleasant surprise, doesn’t happen.
“Tell you what. Let’s just put the monkeys [...]

Giving Thanks for Oranges

I felt honor-bound to eat every one of those oranges—to savor each one as long as possible. They were a gift from my mother, mail-ordered for my 41st birthday, and they would be the last gift that I ever received from her.
The oranges arrived while my husband, daughter and I were visiting my family [...]

Ode to a Cup of Tea

Oh, what wonderful relief!
A witches’ brew steeped stealthily in the wee hours of the morning
Slippery elm, rose hip, cinnamon bark and licorice root
Water heated in a pot over an eerie orange glow that lights the
Early morning and warms the chill
As the wind howls outside in these still moon-lit hours
Accompanied by the ominous implosion of my [...]