Each New Year’s Day, Barry and I prepare a Family Feast of Foods wrapped in legends, myths & cultures that welcome in the New Year with Health, Happiness, Fertility & Abundance… There’s Pork, Rice, Picked Herring, Lentil Soup, Cabbage, Black-eye Peas, Collard Greens, Kale, Cornbread, Donuts, Grapes, Clementines, Apples, Pomegranates, Unbroken Noodles… Then the Round Cupcakes, some with surprise coins [...]

I don’t know when I first heard about Breast Cancer, but I know I was a young girl. One of my friend’s mother’s had Breast Cancer, and I remember my mother telling me about it. I couldn’t have been more than 10 or 12 years old. I still remember it leaving an impression on me. I remember I asked 100 [...]

My Aunt Ruth is gravely ill… an all-of-a-sudden blast out-of-no-where of how-can-this-be? This is Aunt Ruth.  Lively.  Funny.  Vibrant.  Opinionated.  Beautiful.  Brilliant. The rock, the glue, the very legs of my Mom’s family… I got the message about Aunt Ruth from her granddaughter, my cousin Gina, two days ago.  Yesterday, I drove my Mom the hour north to a hospital [...]

It’s DECEMBER! And you know what that means, right? It’s Holiday Photo season! It’s crazy to say, but the only time we ever pose or even think about getting the boys ready for a family photo is right around the beginning of December. I love to send cards with their photo on it so our friends and family can see [...]

My Mom’s Letter to Santa is dated December 12, 1931 and written in the careful penmanship of a little girl dazzled by Christmas and Santa. This is how that precious letter came into my hands all these decades letter.  The story is one for Santa  himself… ************************************************************************************ My Mother’s Letter to Santa: December 12, 1931 There is one treasure in [...]

The Christmas TIME “FLYER” December 15, 2010 by Sharon (Edit) Filed under Grandparenting, Sharon 3 Comments Barry and I have decorated our home for the holidays.  We’ve hung the stockings with care.  We’ve kissed little cheeks under the mistletoe.  We’ve decked the halls with boughs of holly.  And we’ve placed Flo’s little Christmas Tree, with the tinkling lights and little [...]

3 weeks ago this morning, I sat for hours in the “family room” of my local hospital, waiting for the silent footsteps of my Mom’s surgeon… to tell me the news of my Mom’s surgery. It had been an emotional early morning (albeit entertaining afternoon). I tried to read.  I studied the pattern of the carpet.  I listened to the [...]

To understand the title of this post, you must first understand how a talent for Egg Salad has been passed from generation to generation to generation to generation.  It’s in the DNA. If you’re counting, that’s 4 generations… and I’m not in on any of these generations. But my husband Barry is. And my daughter Audrey is. You see, Barry’s [...]

It was on Saturday afternoon that I began to crave Beef Stew. It was raining… slushing, really, here in Rhode Island. It was cold.  Chills cold.  And a rare Halloween weekend snowstorm was in the forecast for Saturday night into Sunday morning. Of course I craved Beef Stew! I grew up with meat.  I came home from school on Fall [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my grandson Ben and a little stuffed animal he “won” in one of those Claw Toy Machines… aka (in my  household) The Loser Machine. I think I totally caved into The Loser Machine hype when I wrote:  I now think all of those stuffed animals in the enticingly shiny, mirrored quarter-gobbling machine [...]