Being a Parent Must Be Awesome…
My "awesome" Mother's Day present this year "Being a parent must be awesome," says my 13-year-old son, eyeing me from the upper bunk as I wake him up in time for our traditional Mother's Day breakfast at a local restaurant. Really? My role as a mother currently means I am reeling from constant arguments with my older son, and my [...]
When a Book is Done
I just finished a book I really liked, one I had been meaning to read for a while, and I'm sad it's done. That's the hallmark of a good book, isn't it? That you're sad it's done? That you wish you could have lived with it and in it a little longer? It feels like a relationship is over, and [...]
Driehaus Museum
Drawing Room Lamp, Driehaus Museum Two blocks west of the Magnificent Mile, on Erie Street, there is to be found a marble palace. It is, from the outside, an stately house but nevertheless unassuming. You wouldn't think that lavish grandeur waited inside. The Driehaus Museum from the outside The house of which I speak is the former Nickerson Mansion, completed [...]
Joy is…
Detail of our Passover Seder table before the festivities begin ...singing the traditional silly folk songs with my kids at the end of the Passover Seder. We have our own renditions of "Chad Gadya" (One Little Kid) and "Who Knows One?" and singing them together, full throttle, is so joyous that I am glad we have two Seder nights so [...]
One Year of Morning Pages
My stack of Morning Pages notebooks tells me that today, 4/8/14, is my one-year anniversary. That means one year of writing every weekday morning, stream of consciousness, by hand, in my notebook. I already wrote about the Gift of Morning Pages, so I'm not going to repeat myself here, but I do wonder what one year of this practice has [...]
When Guests Come…
...you clean up. It's really one of the great benefits of having overnight guests or even just throwing a party: Suddenly you're compelled to tackle all those "construction sites" around the house, as my brother likes to call them. We have a house guest coming this weekend, which meant the guest room had to be cleaned up. A load of cardboard [...]