If you would like a reprieve from hiking on your vacation in AZ, consider a visit to this delightful Tea Room. Last week, I ate lunch there with my daughter-in-law and three neighbors. It was about an hour's ride through breathtaking desert/mountain scenery, including a section called the "boulders." Adobe homes are tucked out of …
Wintering in AZ
I'm getting ready to say goodbye to my winter hideout in AZ; in a few weeks, I'll be heading home to SD. As this reality settled in last week, I snapped a bunch of pictures on my walk. I wanted to soak in the bright blue, red, and green colors. (Clearly, I'm on the edge …
The Fun of Memoir Writing
If you've never taken a class on writing about your own life, you are missing out on some fun stuff. Yes, some material from your life may be painful to write, but a lot of things are fun to recollect. To help you remember, writing teachers come to class armed with "prompts" to jog your …
Turkeys and Drains – Never Say Never!
"If Darlene can do it, surely I can," I told myself last week. I was recalling a time I dropped in at my church to find a pair of legs peeking out from under an open lower cabinet door in the kitchen. I came closer and saw our octogenarian, unofficial, in-charge-of-church-kitchen woman halfway under the …
Ice Cream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream
Remember this little ditty? It was first published in 1927, and I wasn't around to hear it then. But I've known the phrase my whole life and have taken it seriously. Even if you all are not screaming for ice cream, I'm screaming loud enough for all of us. So it's natural for me when …
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Growing Older: On Turning 80
"What are you trying to prove?" my friend asked in a text. I had just sent her a photo of me stuck in my closet. I'd been trying to put a new recliner together and had to get behind it. Since it was somewhat heavy, I shimmied myself behind it into the closet. To see …
Good News for the New Year!
Happy New Year! And with that I have a super announcement. My second book, Book Two, has been accepted by Deep River Books, the same publisher that published Caring Lessons. I am more than thrilled. This book is about our cancer experience when my husband, Marv, was diagnosed with terminal small cell lung cancer. I …
Merry Christmas…
from my house to your house! All the way from my snowy front yard to my sunny one! After 11 inches of snow in SD- To lots of sun in AZ. Remember the reason for the season — the Christmas Story can be found in Luke 2. In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree …
Colors of Thanksgiving – 2005
“Mom, look what I found,” Kathleen said as she pulled a slip of paper from her shiny fuchsia purse. “A two-for-one Clairol coupon.” That Friday in July had started out okay. Despite my brother facing death from pancreatic cancer in Grand Rapids and the hundred-degree weather in Chicago, I was determined to be upbeat as …
Ode to the Hoitenga Sisters
We were known as the Hoitenga sisters, four of us born within eight years of each other. If one of us ran into an acquaintance of another, there was enough of a resemblance that we'd hear, "You must be a Hoitenga." We wore our sister status with pride. We were normal sisters who loved each …
Write Along with Me 