When to take the car keys from elderly parents

I need to write about this, if only to get it off my chest.  There was a piece on Nightly News recently – actually, it aired on February 16 and has haunted me ever since.  How do you know, Brian Williams asked, when the time comes to take the car keys away from elderly parents? …

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Downtime

I did nothing last weekend.  Nothing.  And it was hard.  I am fully serious when I say that.  I’m not used to doing nothing.  I kept jumping up,ready to do laundry or pay bills or check email or blog.  For me, doing is a visceral thing. I’m a workaholic, but you may have already guessed…

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Shopping for the holidays

I’m not thinking about Christmas catalogues, free shipping offers or Black Friday hours.  I’m still on Thanksgiving, and it has to do with food.  I’ve been poring through cookbooks, clipping recipes from the paper, and making lists.  The troops are descending next Wednesday morning, and they’re all staying here, so Thanksgiving dinner isn’t the only…

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Working weekends

Yes, we did have the baby here this weekend – and yes, it was fabulous – but I did work, just like I do most weekends.  I never spend hours at it, just one or two right around dawn, in this case before the baby was even awake, and mostly I edited what I wrote…

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Gearing up for baby

Baby gear.  It’s a whole other world out there.  We have a six-month-old coming for the weekend, and the house is suddenly filled with stuff.  Remember the high chair you saw in my basement?  It’s now in the kitchen alongside the jumperoo. And the Pack N Play? That’s my assistant’s office, where we can close…

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The junk man cometh

I’ve decided that the next best thing to steam-in-the-bag veggies is the junk man – you know, the guy with the 800 number and the truck, who comes on a day’s notice and picks up all the stuff you don’t even want to touch.  Seriously.  I have no idea what dead things lie in and…

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Getting a jump on Christmas

Amazing, the number of knitting books that come out each year offering speedy knits for Christmas.  I wish they applied to me.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, to judge from the finished product, IMOSHO) I like knitting with fingerweight or DK yarns, which is thinner and finer than bulky, requires thinner and finer needles, and takes a…

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Displaying family pictures in a digital age

Remember when we used to sit on the floor sorting through boxes of photos, reminiscing, laughing or groaning depending on how we looked back then? There is no box now. Our photos are on the computer, the iPad or the phone. So how do we reminisce? I start by combing through digital files, picking the…

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