Matt’s friend from high school, who is now a grown up going by the name of Jonathan but who will always be known by his high school nickname Spike to me, came by the house on Friday. He brought with him his wife, Mary Beth and their kids, Brooke, Dillon and Stella. Brooke has grown […]
It’s two days after New Year’s and I am putting away my Christmas decorations for another year. It’s kind of sad, no more nutcrackers holding up the antique cookbooks on the book shelf, no more golden glitter reindeer on the ledge above the TV set, no more LED lights twinkling along the garden fence. I […]
I’m amazed how fast 2011 is drawing to a close. We started out the year in Chicago watching helplessly as my sister-in-law, Sandi, struggled to overcome a brain aneurism. This was a frightening way to start the New Year and we all hoped it was not a preview of the year to come. Amazingly, as we […]
What a wonderful day! Today I got to spend time with Matthew’s girlfriend’s, sister’s husband’s children (wow that’s a mouthful), Madison and Jordan. Madison is 10 and Jordan is 12. They are out of school for the Holiday break. Matthew called me Sunday evening to ask if the girls could come to the house and […]
If you have gotten to know me, you know that I am a self-proclaimed OCD wanna be. My brain would be delighted if all things in life could be organized into tidy little packages all wrapped with a beautiful bow but unfortunately I just don’t have the emotional or physical stamina to actually pull it […]
The first weekend in December finds me trading in my computer and calculator for my stand mixer and double ovens. 20 years ago I got the bright idea that it would be fun to bake homemade cookies for all of my clients. Since I only had about five clients and a ton of extra time […]
Upon our return to Aswan from Abu Simbel we stayed at a hotel which was on an Island in the middle of the Nile. That evening we rode the water taxi across the Nile and met Mustafa (our tour guide) for our evening light and sound show at the Philae Temple Complex. We climbed aboard […]
When we arrived in Edfu our boat docked right at the intersection of two main roads in town. David and I spent the evening on the upper deck, drinking Egyptian beer and watching the circus that is the traffic pattern in Egypt. We watched as motorcycles with three or more riders ran down the road […]
It starts with the creaking of the attic door. Slowly the occupants of our attic make their way into the upstairs guest room. Behind the closed door I begin to hear the clinking of metal on metal and dull muffled thumps of unknown things dropped on the floor. Soon the subtle hiss of air travelling […]
On day three of our Lake Nasser cruise, we stepped off our riverboat onto a small motor boat that took us to shore. One of the crew of this little boat jumped onto shore and held the boat steady with a rope tied to the bow. Two other men grabbed up a 2-foot wide plank […]