Research Question: Which of Oscar Murray Jones’s grandmothers created the indigo and ivory coverlet with Ohio 1837 into the border? After our mother passed on, my sister and I discovered an oversized jacquard coverlet in a large cloth bag at the bottom of her cedar chest. This coverlet, 80” x 100” in size, appears to…
Our Great Big Do-It-Yourself European Road Trip
Update: Sadly, we put this trip on hold in mid-February 2020 as we embraced the reality of the breadth and depth of Covid 19. We are grateful to all of the vendors mentioned here who were gracious and cooperative as they helped us with our cancellations. For many of them, the travel industry has been…
Favorite DIY New England Road Trips
Cape Anne to Cape Cod: Rocky Shores to Rolling Dunes Are you wondering where you’ll wander next? This weekend to weekend route takes the guessing out of where to stay and what to see on a week-long road trip through Massachusetts. With the exception of Hawaii and North Dakota, we’ve wandered through each U.S. state,…
Five Cheap Travel Tricks
Whether it’s forgotten whistle stops along Route 66, back roads through New England foliage, or byways off the beaten paths in the United Kingdom and Europe, my husband and I never end one road trip without mapping out the next. And, with a more flexible time schedule in retirement, we’re ready to explore some bucket-list…
A Trip to Machrie Moor
It happened the year the vernal equinox fell in the middle of our college’s spring break. That was the year the English Heritage Society denied my request to allow our group of college students and staff to walk among the stones of Stonehenge at sunset after the throngs of visitors had left for the day. It…
Pergo–the Smart Alternative to Hardwood Flooring
Although my husband and I are new to the process of building a house, we made a number of improvements to our previous home of 25 years. From new windows and doors to new siding and several rounds of paint, our home went through many changes. And, in spite of contrary advice from a friend…
Ruminating on Our Not so Finest Moments
For those of us who tend to be over thinkers, that free time we were looking forward to in retirement isn’t always a good thing. Free time brings many moments of happy reflection which can so easily twist and turn their way into moments of anxiety-filled rumination. And suddenly there we are—bobbing up and down…
A Note about Senior Travelers
Our February road trip to St. Augustine, Florida, had many “blog-worthy” moments. Eventually, I’ll write about returning to a place 25 years later, 25 years older. I’ll describe walking along the same beach with my grandson where I once walked with my own two children, delighting in the discovery of a fat sea tern…
It’s Time for Some Gentle Swedish Death Cleaning: Uncluttering with Margareta Magnusson
It’s a sweet treat to watch the soft-spoken and diminutive Marie Kondo arrive at one cluttered home after another, inspiring order from chaos on her new Netflix show, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo. Kondo’s two books have been around for several years. Her New York Times best seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The…
We’re Saving $116 and More for our Monthly Cellphone Service . . . with T-Mobile
My husband and I both are hard-line creatures of habit. A significant change to our life’s routine requires considerable thought. That’s why we struggled to let go of our ATT cellphone service we relied on for nearly 25 years, even though friends told us we would cut our monthly bill substantially by switching to Consumer…