Cambridge in November– Take an Art Tour and Make a Book

History, anyone?   Sixteenth-century choirboys…Anne Boleyn’s initials…mysterious walled gardens and long, winding passageways…this is the Cambridge, England I love.  One of the joys of living here is in being surrounded by the slow-moving past in a very fast-paced modern world.  There is the 800-year old university, of course, whose many colleges and iconic King’s Chapel create the focus of all that history and traditional past.

Remembrance

Today is Remembrance Day in Great Britain.  On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at the eleventh hour, 1918, World War I came to an end in Europe.  Eleven million were killed on the battlefields of that Great War in what was one of the bloodiest, most horrific wars of all time.  

Blue Skies/Grey Skies

Dreams really do come true!  For the first time in over a century, the Chicago Cubs are World Champions!  I am so proud of my native town for producing such an awe-inspiring team.  And what a World Series!  I’ve never really been a baseball fan, but you have to admire a group of guys who just refused to give up,

From Chicago to Cambridge (with a little help from my friends)

Everything begins for me in Chicago–that great big sprawling grid of a town so fantastic in scope, they call it “Chicagoland”.  It’s the Emerald City of Oz set somewhere beyond the cornfields and over the rainbow like a fabulous pendant jewel on the necklace of Great Lake Michigan.  

Starting Over, or– Life at the Roadkill Cafe

Life can focus on one of two things:  either on what is ending or what is beginning.  Life is about both beginnings and endings, but we choose whether we make our lives about one or the other, whether it’s lost dreams or new perspectives, the life that’s crumbled or the life still to be lived.

The Rescue of Earth Son

It’s the early morning phone call you never want to wake up to…….“Hi, Mom, Dad!  I’m okay…I’m in hospital.  But I’m okay…I broke my leg.  It’s okay…I’m going into surgery right now.  But I’ll be okay…I also broke my arm…But don’t worry!  I’ll be fine!…I got hit by a car…”

Road Trip

My Baby Girl graduated from North Raleigh Christian Academy in June.  She has spent her last two years of high school in “Amurica” where she has learned to play powder puff football, drive a car on the right side of the road, literally swing from the rafters as a giant spider in Tarzan,

Return of Earth Son

What joy! My firstborn has returned home alive! That’s always the main thing, isn’t it? Every time he comes through that exit door, it’s as if he’s emerging once again from the womb of space and time into the realm of living reality. My first words are always, 

The Queen’s Birthday

Wow!  The Queen is 90!  Her birthday celebrations began favoured by sunshine on the 21st April, her actual birthday, with a walkabout greeting the cheering crowd in Windsor.  The festivities will continue through May (12th-15th) with an international extravaganza at Windsor Castle and culminate with the annual Trooping of the Colour,

Gold Friends

 There’s a song we used to sing at Girl Scouts camp…

Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, and the other’s gold.

I love to make new friends.  But old friends are gold friends.  They are treasure chests that get buried sometimes by time and distance.