This past week, my husband, Peter, has not been feeling well. We are in Mexico, and he is getting a dental implant. Like everything he does, Peter researched everything about this implant and was …

I have a tradition.  Like most traditions, it didn’t start out as a tradition. I bought a beautiful coffee cup to sit on the little coffee heater on my desk while I wrote in San Miguel. I …

Traveling to San Miguel is always a little tumultuous.  My husband, Peter, and I spend a part of every fall and winter in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. It is not an easy place to get to. …

Sometimes I have to give myself a talking-to.  I got back from my whirlwind library tour and had a lot to do. I tried to get things done and felt like I was spinning my wheels, leaving tire …

I was driving back to my little motel after my first two talks of the week.  Earlier this year, I attended a national conference for librarians. My publisher wanted me to be there to sign …

I woke this morning from a vivid dream.  The tricky thing about vivid dreams is that what seems vivid about them is usually difficult to describe. The vivid part is the feeling: the way I …

It’s caterpillar season.  I remembered this yesterday as I sat out on the deck with my parents and two of their oldest friends at their cabin “up north.” We noticed as a tiny, furry …

I’m sure someone must have mentioned that I’d be on a boat.  But I somehow missed that information entirely until I was given directions to a boat landing. A book club was reading my …

My closet is full of sequins.  No one knows how many sequins I own. Not even my husband, Peter, even though we share a closet. He gets one side and I get the other, which seems to me a …

I am made entirely of habits.  This is not an original observation. Annie Dillard wrote: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I either love that quote or hate …

About a million years ago (or at least it feels that way), I used to produce theater. The season ended just before Christmas with “A Christmas Carol,” and a peculiar thing would happen just as …

Since my niece, Isabelle, was little, she was always a planner. She was the only kindergartner I knew who laid out her outfit for the following day on her bed the night before.  “Which …

I spent last week “up north” with my parents. While my husband, Peter, and my cat, Felix, stayed at home and played cat games, I drove up to my parents’ cabin four hours north.  The …

I haven’t been giving out dog treats for a while.  Sometimes, I am the treat lady on my walks, and sometimes I do not carry dog treats. I love dispensing treats, but I hate getting turned …

I go to the theater every chance I get.  In an earlier life, I worked in the theater, and unlike some actors and technicians I know who spent years working in the theater and now never want …

As far as I know, most of my people were farmers. On both my parents’ sides, my Scandinavian ancestors came across the ocean looking for better topsoil. I know immigrants came for many reasons—to …

Every day, I walk by dozens of beautiful houses.  I am an admirer of grand old houses. I live downtown, just blocks away from some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, where lumber …

My husband Peter’s birthday is this week.  Peter does not celebrate his birthday. Peter doesn’t think the day of his birth is anything to celebrate. He’s happy to celebrate my …

When I was 8 years old, I played a game while on vacation.  I was visiting the ocean for the first time. The sand was dry, and as the waves hit the beach, I would see which wave came up …

“What’s up with the bells?” I asked someone who looked as if he might know something.  I live near a cathedral. I can’t hear the cathedral bells from our apartment, but I walk past …