In Search of Spring Flowers at the Garfield Park Conservatory
I'm usually not a spring person, but this year I am hungry (hungry!) for spring flowers and vibrant colors, and so yesterday I took myself on an Artist's Date to [...]
I'm usually not a spring person, but this year I am hungry (hungry!) for spring flowers and vibrant colors, and so yesterday I took myself on an Artist's Date to [...]
Starting a fire at 10:00 a.m. Ordering a hyacinth garden for a friend recovering from surgery Stocking up on sandalwood lotion and Dead Sea bath salts Hot chocolate for morning break Red [...]
Before winter became heavy, it came softly. Before we had 3+ feet of snow on the ground, there were just tracks of snow swinging through the woods. I really [...]
I'm rather late sharing my word for the year 2014. Why so late? Back in November I already knew that "joy" would be the word for the coming year, [...]
On Monday I treated myself to a walk on the lakefront. "Treated," because going for a walk is a major operation these days, involving long underwear, serious snow boots [...]
Chicago winter - late afternoon yesterday outside my building We've emerged from subzero temperatures here in Chicago, but as winter has gripped the outside with ample snow, treacherous streets and salty [...]
First of all: Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! Secondly, my essay about my very own quandary with Christmas music, "Can a Jew Love Christmas Music?" appeared today in Tablet [...]
I did it! I taught myself how to read an American knitting pattern! It feels like I learned how to read, and it reminded me how powerfully enabling it is [...]
My weekdays begin with coffee and Morning Pages; in the background are the iced-over windows of winter. I decided to make another time capsule of December 12, based on last [...]
We had a Thanksgiving without a turkey, and not by design. As I turned on the oven to bake the pies my daughter and I had so carefully put together, [...]
Walking through the preschool building at my son's school always lifts my spirits. Invariably I will come across funny and cute creations like these Menurkeys (= Menorah Turkey), created, in [...]
Osage oranges are one autumn's delights for me. I never knew about them until my first residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts a few autumns ago. There, [...]
My son and I had the most thrilling adventure on Sunday: After shopping at Bass Pro Shop for his upcoming science fair project, we stopped by a park down the [...]
Oh how I feel like myself again this morning, readying photos for this post! Feels good. Finally, I am blogging again. And blogging, despite its airy quality, is amazingly [...]
Chicago Loop Synagogue Window Detail ...was published yesterday in Tablet Magazine: Kol Nidre Showed Me... Meanwhile I am looking forward Yom Kippur and am basking, just a little bit, in [...]
Thanks to doing my Morning Pages, as soon as I wrote out the date this morning, it hit me what day it was: 9/11, and thanks to my ritual of [...]
Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, where one of the memorial services was held. Within the last two weeks, I attended the memorial services for two men in their late [...]
A Civil War grave One morning at Kenyon last week I got up early and left the house before sunrise to get in my photography fix amongst all that writing. [...]
Ori Gersht Exhibit at the Gund Gallery - It can't be a coincidence, can it,that the panels featuring trees are hung next to the grand window framing the trees of [...]
"It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944..." Thus begins Primo Levi's preface to his stunning but short memoir of his time as a prisoner [...]
How could you not feel elegant under this chandelier? Ballroom of the Woman's Athletic Club of Chicago, where the concert was held. Lately I've been thinking a lot about [...]
In my current quest to get stuff done around the house, I hung up this crystal again. For years it hung in the southern sun porch window, and the [...]
I am immensely grateful to our friend who sowed sunflower seeds on an empty spot on our property in Indiana, because the dry sunflowers now make great models for [...]
I am absolutely in love with fall, particularly this year when the summer's heat kept me indoors so much. I've promised myself to be outside as much as possible [...]
Our asparagus fern Prickly rules the sunporch. The other day I was reading E.B. White's One Man's Meat again. In the particular essay I happened upon, he was talking [...]
I wrote about my 9/11 ritual last year, but I will write about it again this year, and probably in years to come as well, because that is what [...]
Boy in a Bubble - my youngest was the only one in the right weight class to go walking on water. Going to the Porter County Fair in Valparaiso, [...]
As the Olympic Games open in London, I dedicate my blog post today to the 40th anniversary of the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists at the Olympic [...]
Our property out in the country of northwestern Indiana got hit by a tornado last weekend. Thankfully, none of the buildings were damaged. As we walked assessing the damage, [...]
Cruising onto Lake Shore Drive at 57th Street at 5:45 a.m. My kids and I biked Lake Shore Drive back in May. It's taken me this long to report [...]
The first day of summer has me thinking about my summer list. Faithful readers of this blog know that I like to put together a list for each season to [...]
Starved Rock State Park - Illinois Canyon in Spring This is the last day of May, and one could say spring is officially over, since in the U.S. we [...]
Going to the Maple Sugar Time Festival in the Indiana Dunes is one family tradition I started when the kids were little. Since we missed it last year, my [...]
Even though I don't celebrate Christmas, in December a visit to the Christkindlmarket downtown Chicago is obligatory - mainly because I can find favorite German delicacies there that I [...]
We had the first dusting of snow in Chicago last week, and temperatures dipped below the freezing point over the weekend, so clearly the weather is telling me: It's winter. [...]
This blog makes me do things, such as following through on fun schemes like having a hot chocolate party outside, in the cold. Our dotted pumpkin showed signs of [...]
Thanksgiving is not Pumpkin Day, but I still had this pumpkin from our trip to the pumpkin farm. And I hadn't gotten around to carving it into the polka-dot [...]
I don't plan to turn this into a cooking blog, but in my September 27 post I promised the recipe for this tongue breaker of a cake: Zwetschgendatschi (click here [...]
Given that I have a list for making sure I "have a summer," it's only fair to have one for fall, after all fall is my favorite season. Here's [...]
Remember the "Portraits of Grief" the New York Times published in the months after 9/11? The little stories about the individuals who perished that day that the NYT staffers put [...]
Labor Day marks the "official" end of summer, and thus it's time to ask whether one has made the most of the season of heat, beach and long, supposedly [...]
This summer has revived the art of writing letters and postcards for me. While my daughter was at camp, the only way to communicate with her was to write [...]
We visited the Memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing on Thursday. It saddens me how oddly fitting that visit now is given Friday’s rather similar tragedy in Norway. Visits [...]
Now that my kids are all away at camp, I’m doing an odd thing: I’m writing them letters. It’s an unfamiliar thing. It feels awkward to recount my daily [...]
My shot of the outside of the synagogue. I love the mix of palm trees and live oak! Today a short note from my travels: I spent [...]