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. After being in Covid restrictions from the beginning of 2019, I think we all are ready to step out of the box we’ve been in and begin to live large. I don’t know about you but I want 2022 to be the beginning of my emerging from my cocoon to living out loud. How can we do that? Well, I’ve thought about it and here is what we can do together to get back to our core selves this year in a more…

In 1979 my son, Emerson, his sisters and I piled into the car and headed out to our local ASPCA looking for the perfect pet for them to come home to after school. They quickly picked a black furry ball who never stopped wiggling in her cage. She was definitely the one. A schnauzer poodle mix, the nameless pup was placed in the middle of two kids in the back seat and had found a forever home at…

What Is Your ‘What If’?

      Steve Tilston. Does anyone out there with 1970′-80’s Steve Tilston folk music ears remember the British folk singer?  His songs have been recorded by Fairport Convention, Dolores Keane, Peter Bellamy, and so many others. His instrumental style crosses classical music with Irish and English folk. He also plays an early 19th-century instrument called an arpeggione (bowed guitar).  Steve’s…

Clement C. Moore was born in 1779 in New York City and became a distinguished literature and theology professor there. He was an august man who generally did august things, but became immortal doing a December thing. On December 23, 1823, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas—or, as it was originally known, A Visit from St. Nicholas—was anonymously published in a Troy, New York, newspaper…and just…

In 1947, the summer of my eighth year when we were still living at my grandpa’s house in Hopedale, Ohio, I would curl up every day in the big overstuffed chair next to the long window where the light was good and I would read Charles Dickens stories from books printed by P. F. Collins in New York in 1870.

Yesterday, while cleaning out an antique corner cupboard of mine, I discovered that set…

Even though I did all of my theater work in New York I belong to the Chicago theater community and I am on their mailing list.

Just as all other businesses, the theater community has been affected greatly during this Covid situation. The reality being that unless you are a star it’s especially difficult for actors to be able to survive and earn a living in this climate. I have special empathy…

I often find the early morning hours when I wake up while my husband is still sleeping to be the best hours of the day. I enjoy quiet. I enjoy being with me and my inner thoughts.

Just sitting with my inner roommate, a cup of hot coffee and the stillness of the morning pleases me.

We downsized about four years ago and I had to get rid of a lot of things that had taken me 44 years to…

Now, like most of you I have had a life full of swings. Emotional swings, financial swings, life event swings and mood swings. But nothing can ever warm my heart more than a swing hanging from a sturdy branch where I can let the cool breeze pull it’s fingers through my hair, kite my skirt and fill my heart with the memories and feelings of being a child again.

There is something about a swing…

On November 13, 2016 I made my first Youtube video. It was only 2 min. 32 seconds long. From the very beginning starting with that little video, it was always my goal to help women live the best and most full life ever. All I knew was that as a woman who was then 78, I had lived enough chapters in my life with ups and downs, that I might be able to help others navigate the over 60 years.

I…

With nearly 300 million cell phones in use in the United States, that puts the country third overall in the world when it comes to total mobile phones in use. Most of us, including this writer, have become extremely dependent upon cell phones. I don’t even know anyone’s telephone number anymore, because I don’t have to. I don’t have to use a thesaurus anymore, because I don’t have to. I rarely…

THE CORNFIELD

1945

Evelyne died when she was five. There in the August cornfield with open blue skies above, her life ended. She was on her back, trying to catch her breath. Each short gasp bringing in the pungent smells of fear, dirt and him. Evelyne struggled as he easily pinned her tiny body between the corn stocks with his teenage frame. She wanted her mother. She wanted him to get off.…

Scandi-Chic

Ooh

You can dance

You can jive

Having the time of your life

Ooh, see that girl

Watch that scene

Dig in the dancing queen

ABBA Dancing Queen

Whenever I used to think of Sweden, I immediately would think about ABBA, or the popular Swedish retailers IKEA and H& M. I never thought about fashion. Ever.

We all know Europe is famous for its fashion capitals, but until recently many…