Today I confessed a shameful secret I’ve been harboring for nearly a decade: I was turned down not once but twice for the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener training in Rensselaer County in upstate New York. The self-disclosure was so satisfying that I’ve decided to go public with it on my blog. After my Nia… [Read More]
Missed concert prompts war on clutter
By all reports, Sunday’s Albany Symphony matinee concert in Saratoga was marvelous. I’m sure I would have loved it, but I lost the tickets! Perhaps that’s what prompted me to attack the moldering cardboard cartons of memorabilia in the outdoor storage shed – my life’s in desperate need of order and clarity. My husband purchased… [Read More]
Choir inspiring at Whitney’s funeral
Those Baptists sure know how to throw a fine funeral! Along with millions of others around the world, I watched Whitney Houston’s service at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark last weekend on CNN. Expecting to catch an hour or so, I found myself transfixed, and four hours flew by in a flash. “We’re… [Read More]
Groundhog Day – Taking New Year’s from the top
Okay, it’s true confessions time – I frittered away the first month of the New Year. But maybe Groundhog Day is the perfect holiday for making those resolutions I never got around to a month ago. February 2nd is appropriately amorphous and a bit confusing – I can never seem to remember what it means… [Read More]
Resolving to remember my gratitude
And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over, a new one just begun. Although Christmas is behind us, John Lennon’s lyrics are still apropos – this is the ideal time for reflecting on the years of our lives, past and present. It’s Wednesday, midway between Christmas and New Year’s, and… [Read More]
Mad dash to the finish for NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month will be over in exactly 24 hours, and I’ve only got 48,000 words. The finish line is in sight, and by midnight tomorrow I’ll have to crank out at least 2000 more. I’m determined to do it, even if I have to pull an all-nighter the way I did for college… [Read More]