I got an Apple Watch back in 2015 shortly after they came out. I’ve worn it almost every day since. The fitness app of the watch has three rings that measure how many steps I take, how many hours I stand and the number of minutes I exercise and mo…
In another life a thousand miles away, I hosted a local radio/television cooking show. I hosted this show right before food television really took off. We moved to Louisiana when my show was at its modest zenith.
On July 4, my South African friends were sending me messages asking if I could help get them on “America’s Got Talent.”
I love a good neighbor — and have been blessed with some of the best. In three of my homes across the country and decades, I’ve been able to create amazing bonds with the children next door, down the stairs or across the street. By doing nothing m…
My dad loves red, white and blue.
Greer, my 23-year-old daughter was so happy when I suggested taking the free tram back to the car.
If the phrase “making memories” works for you, please keep right on using it.
“From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” by E.L. Konigsburg was my favorite novel growing up. One of the reasons I loved the book when I first read it in the sixth grade was that Konigsburg gave her readers credit. She recognized and…
I had been planning all week to host a group of ladies for a potluck dinner and a meeting. They were to arrive between 6 and 6:30 p.m.
They did not get off to an early start.
Identifying the bones within that make us do the things we do as adults is a curious thing — like an anthropological dig within ourselves, our spirits, our souls.
On All Saints Day, I had a difficult-to-translate problem. My family was in another place in the cemetery and I had no place to put my purse.
Time and again, reading has saved me.
I am not and have never been a coffee drinker.
For all its beauty, last spring had a pall of grief tucked in here and there between the blooming flowers and dappled light. We didn’t know what was here or what was coming — and it was scary.
A few months ago, I crashed a party.
My family isn’t good at celebrating Easter the way some folks do.
Late one night last week, my husband walked over to me, handed me a folded piece of paper and said, “I think your boyfriend left this for you in the mailbox.”
When our daughters were tiny and could barely talk, we started going around the table after dinner and each telling our individual highlights of the day. Most nights, just our family of four shared. Other nights, a whole gang of friends were sitti…
I always walk by this particular house, but until one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I had never seen anyone there. On that afternoon, as I was walking by, a small voice shouted, “You wanna see my millipede?”
My friend Amee Miles Merkle is a hospital clinical pharmacist in northern Mississippi. When she heard COVID vaccinations were being rolled out for senior citizens and then that “the whole system is online,” she saw a need.
My dear aunt and uncle, Doris and Mack Greer, have lived as isolated throughout the pandemic as I have. So when I went home to visit my parents last fall in Forest, Mississippi, I didn’t hesitate to visit my aunt and uncle.
As 2020 progressed, so many people talked about how they were looking forward to the year being done, as if a new day, a new month, a new year would change things.
I’m not sure if the thunderstorm started before or after the big program on the last night of cheerleader camp.
Last week, I took an informal, unscientific survey of friends asking two questions. The first: “After almost a year of living differently, what do you look most forward to when we are able to live more freely again?”
When the pandemic started in the spring of 2020, I began to take daily walks. Back then, I sometimes took three or four walks a day because I didn’t know what to do with all the energy I had previously used in other ways. My walks have helped save…
Storytelling always draws me in.
The pandemic has been a strange combination of tedium and disruption.
The year we’ve finished has had more than its share of pain and loss. For some, specific pains 2020 brought will require deep healing. This column does not seek to diminish their grief in any way.
At any time, but especially in these times, silliness is not to be underrated — neither is the willingness to put yourself out there, to laugh at yourself and to know you may be inspiring others to join in the fun.
Volunteers live faith, Cajun values as they provide a lifeline to immigrants released from detention
One of my favorite verses is Hebrews 13:2. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” The verse always makes me consider the Christmas story and the innkeeper who found a stable for Mary and Josep…
I asked friends this week what they’ve learned during the pandemic.
For decades, when my parents, Nelda and Gary Risher, have hosted out-of-towners, my dad has forced most of the guests to join him for a tour of the town where they live and where my whole family grew up — Forest, Mississippi. (population 5,608).
Even now, when both of our children are legal adults, the mystery of what happens to our teaspoons and butter knives endures.
This year has offered more than its share of lemons.
Two tidbits are necessary to appreciate the email that just sent me over the moon: I’m a grown woman, and I’ve never seen a professional soccer game.
Yard signs have struck a chord in our neighborhood in this tumultuous election season. Though moments have been touch-and-go, thus far, in my neighborhood, we have managed to keep the peace.
In the last two weeks, I have felt like I’ve been living in the nursery rhyme, “One, two, buckle my shoe.”
In this era of one day lulling into another, I decided being intentional about doing at least one out-of-the-ordinary thing each week was a good idea. I needed to look forward to a break in the rhythm of life. I needed things beyond sitting at my …
Friendship in the time of COVID-19 presents challenges.
For the first time since 2008, I decided to evacuate for a storm.
“We the people…”
Two weeks ago, I had never heard of Bigfork, Montana.
Years ago, my mother had a navy-blue Crown Victoria — that car was like a large tank. I believe my parents must have installed an early model navigation system in the car because I’m pretty sure the car was too old to have one built in. That navig…
My husband and I have been on the road nearly a week. It’s the most highly edited trip we’ve ever taken. Routes and plans keep changing.
The call of the open road is like a siren to me.
The Vermilion River flows behind my home.
The quarantine/pandemic has offered more time to play games than my family has had for years. We’ve played loads of Scrabble and a multitude of other games too, but sometimes I like playing a game on my own, when I think back and try to identify a…
Piper, our younger daughter, started planning what her dorm room would look like before she started the process of deciding where she would go to college.