Columns & Blogs

I grew up admiring  Peggy Fleming and Dorothy Hamill. They were amazing Olympic figure skaters!

One Christmas my parents bought the whole family ice skates. When the winter came to our home in Spotsylvania, and the temperatures fell well below freezing for a couple of weeks, the pond in front of my parents’ home would freeze over enough to safely go out on it. Then it was time to hit the ice. Literally. I fell a lot the first year, but after logging on many hours, I had “mastered” a few things.  By that time my Olympic rink had turned back in to a slushy farm pond.

Opinion 

Quick! What is the number one cash crop in America? Cotton is the number one crop, but could that change if more states legalize marijuana sales as Colorado has done?

The laptop is new to me. It was my husband’s, is a few years old, and no longer has enough memory to do what he needs to do. So he bought a new laptop, cleaned this one off, removed his password, and handed it over.

So exciting! I’ve been using my desktop for I don’t even know how many years. Seven? Eight? It’s a workhorse, this old Gateway, and hosts the WiFi router for the whole house as well as the printer. The desktop has stored away years of Christmas card letters, kids’ high school essays, and sports schedule emails … it’s an archive of my family’s history.

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I am a fly fisherman.

Opinion 

Have you ever said, “Whew! I’m glad this year is over?” I think that phrase has been uttered by most adults at one time or another. After a string of bad luck, medical crisis or financial meltdown, maybe you were relieved when that hateful year ended. Perhaps you lost a friend or a family member or maybe one of your parents died and you consider that whole year as a devastating loss in your own “Book of Life.”

Last week I wrote a post entitled: Home Values Rebounding, Prince William Needs Housing Solutions. Someone left me a thoughtful comment that included this phrase:

“Those of us in older neighborhoods who were comfortable and safe in our homes for decades and paid mortgage on time had nothing whatsoever to do with the bad mortgage/foreclosure, etc. mess yet our home values have suffered greatly because of the actions of others.”

Mom on the Run: The Next Chapter

I stand back and look at the tree. My daughter came home unexpectedly for the weekend, so my husband and I took advantage of having a kid present and decorated the house for Christmas. She is in her senior year of college and our son is in his freshman year, and with no other kids at home, my husband and I are having to figure out new processes, new expectations for just about every aspect of life. We’ve got the day-to-day stuff down, but holidays are fresh new ground.