Salutations February 2020

Happy season of love! I hear lots of people kvetching about the month of February and the persistent winter, but for me, February has always been celebratory. It's a season of birthdays - presidential and familial. And right smack in the middle, we get twenty-four hours devoted to the most driving force in all the …

Salutations – January 2020

Yikes! Have I really not posted a Salutations since September last year? I could have sworn I had. Oh wait! I did write in November, but somehow it got stuck in my draft folder. I wonder if I meant to go back to edit, add a book or a photo. Beats me. It's published now. …

Salutations Sept-Nov 2019

I know. It's been a long time. And I have good reasons...um...excuses. I've got lots of students in three classes this semester. We took a weekend trip to look at sailboats we'll never be able to afford. (We wisely spent our money on crabcakes and oysters!) Our trip included Pusser's famous Painkillers, a day on …

Holiday Cheers!

Happy greetings this holiday season! I'm one who still likes sending and getting holiday cards. Each one I send has me thinking of times I've shared with the intended recipient(s), and that alone seems worth the challenge of finding the necessary time and focus. But I will admit that a once enormous list for physical …

Mid-Month Salutations September 2019

I know. You're wondering what I'm doing here now on this mid-September day when my monthly round-ups often take multiple months to get posted. Ah, but it's a fault of impatience. You see, my college classes have begun but the first big deadline for my students isn't for several days. I've been braced and ready …

Salutations July-August 2019

Ah, summer. I miss you already. No. I am determinedly savoring every last scrap of my summer! Not thinking of fall or cold-weather clothes. Not thinking about grading papers! Focused. On this moment. When the sun is shining, the temps are benevolent, and the garden is rich with abundance - except for the tomatoes the …

Salutations June 2019

I love summer! I love playing in my garden, in and on the water, sleeping late or getting up with the sun, eating fresh vegetables, summer fruits, and ice cream! My list goes on and on - including an absence of the deadlines that hang over my head during the academic year. The freedom! It wasn't …

Make Mine Rhubarb and Pineapple!

Strawberries are lovely with ice cream, with shortcake, with whipped cream or dipped in dark chocolate. But they have no business consorting with rhubarb. Not when pineapple is rhubarb's natural mate. There. I've said it. And if you think I'm wrong then we may have to engage in a taste test. Or arm-wrestle. This is …

Salutations March-May, 2019

Two posts in two weeks? As I tell my guy after I fix a bang-up dinner, don't get used to it! But I wouldn't want to leave you with the impression that Louise Penny consumed all my reading energy this year. Not so! Here are other books that grabbed my reading time in the last …

Salutations: The Penny Edition

I've neglected my blog for months. Too busy reading, writing, revising, and traveling. Oh right. And teaching. And now as I write, the sun shines warm, the garden is planted, school is out, and I have a need to let the denouement of my next novel simmer. So among my summer goals is to catch …