Month: July 2005

The plum tree no longer shades our patio and family picnic table. Its leafy branches shaded patio suppers and provided little ones with a safe perch three or four feet above the ground for 20 years after we planted it. Every spring the boys thinned the fruit with hard fought battles employing the tree’s green…

I knew the granddaughter wanted to make a button shirt – she had, after all, spent an hour carefully selecting buttons from the bin at the fabric store. But when I handed her a needle to thread and waited for her to thread it, she insisted, “I can’t do it!” She proved her point by…

I thought I purchased the elliptical exerciser at that garage sale last year to keep me flexible and energized. For sure I did not buy it because I had fallen in love with exercising.. I dread exercising. I hated gym as a child. I endured phys ed as a high schooler and plodded my way…

Fads flash brilliantly and fade quickly into obscurity – some none too soon. The “rent advertising space on my forehead” fad flashed over the Associated Press wires in January with the story of Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, Neb., a Web-page designer, who used eBay to auction off the use of his forehead for one…