Yes, I am aware that I’ve been wearing my blue fleece every day. It’s from Old Navy and it cost $15 which is all I can afford to spend on myself during this global economic crisis. Big and warm, it’s perfect for turning down the expensive heat and eating everything in sight. I should be… Read More Defending Blue Fleece
It’s the time of year for gratitude. I’m trying to take it seriously this year. There’s so much overwhelming stress happening in the world right now, that my new thing is to take a few minutes and remember what’s good. I’m trying to inject a jolt of happy into the dull pessimism that has spread… Read More Locally Grown Gratitude
My Grandma Lovins was always right — even when she technically wasn’t. Her way of doing anything — unpacking groceries, storing linens, cutting radishes — was the only was to do it. She was so exact about her practices that no one dared make a move without being told how. She orchestrated everything. My… Read More My Grandma, The Maestro
Life is still happening here in JCrewville. It’s a beautiful time to live amongst giant trees and stone houses. Every day new displays of gourds and mums cascade off porches. Little white ghosts multiply on front yard trees. People are lining up at Stabucks for the pumpkin bread and hot cider. Yet while fresh air and leaves are whirling all around me, it seems I’m stuck…in… Read More Stuck in the Fall
Recently I learned a startling and explanatory statistic about my small town. Apparently, the greater Jcrewville area boasts a whopping 80% retention rate of its residents. That means of everyone raised here, 80% stay and never leave. That makes sense. Everyone around me is still rolling with their high school friends. That explains why… Read More High School Regression Analysis
It’s the last day of summer vacation for all kids in JCrewviille. Weeeeee!!!! Next week I take back the house. No more scrambling to feed the neighborhood kids. No more black feet and bloody scabs. No more exhausted crying spells from back-to-back sleepovers. Yet no more lazy mornings sipping coffee with… Read More Ending Summer
So, my house…it seduced me. My husband and I were uncertain about moving here, so we’d take long drives up from Chicago and cruise the streets and poke around. JCrewville is so pretty. It looks like a small New England town with big trees and old houses –not a McMansion in sight. Leafy, with sidewalks (on… Read More Buying the Carsons’ House
I once had this boyfriend who used to mock the contents of my refrigerator. Whenever he’d come over, he’d make a big deal of opening the door just to see it there was anything new in there. And there never was –just one dried-out jar of mustard, an old bottle of champagne and about… Read More For the Love of Cooking
“How’re you doing? Don’t you just miss her so much?” This was the third such phone call I’d gotten in the first 24 hours since my nine year-old left for her first week at camp. “Yeah, I miss her a lot. It feels weird without her.” But I was faking it. The truth… Read More Camper Gone Missing
Here’s what happens when you cross a hypochondriac with the only small town doctor that her crack health care insurance covers: I’d been having this hip pain which I attributed to my running hunched over with a crooked hip from my scoliosis (ahhh Deenie, yes, I think of her often). After one late night… Read More The Hypochondriac and the Crack Doctor
Small Town. Small Times. 