Cleaning the porch Judy Conlin I have a large screened in porch that stretches across the whole back of my house. Wanting it to be pretty, I paid big bucks to have the concrete floor painted with sparkles. It looked nice but then I inherited a little dog who, before I got to know his…
His law is love Nancy Kennedy This summer, my church is doing a sermon series about the Ten Commandments. The pastor team titled it “Thou Shalt,” as opposed to “Thou Shalt Not,” because even though most of the commandments begin with a negative (“Don’t do this”), there’s always a positive aspect to all of the…
I had a dream Judy Conlin I dream a lot. I dream about every mistake I’ve made in life and it’s a good thing I’m so old or I wouldn’t have time for all those dreams. I often dream about driving a car and being lost. An analyst would probably give serious thought to my…
The last, best word Nancy Kennedy When I first started writing professionally, I mostly wrote humor stories for magazines. That meant I always wrote the ending first — the punchline. The whole story hinged on the last (hopefully best) words.Although I don’t write humor stories anymore, whenever I write a newspaper story I still write…
Slim Randles It’s the heat that defines us this month. It greets us at daybreak with its promise, but in an hour or so, it bears down on our shoulders and makes us dream of shade and something cold to drink. The best thing about our hot season, however, are evenings when most of the…
Natalie Lynn Alday I once pondered about older sitcoms from the 1960’s and 1970’s. I recollect watching the Mary Tyler Moore Show and googled the theme song “Love is All Around” by Sonny Curtis. How about Marlo Thomas in “That Girl!”? For those of you who do not know who or what I am talking…
Aromatherapy Judy Conlin Nurse Judy, my diva alter ego, is lying on the couch in her pink negligee and open-toed pink high heel slippers with a fashion magazine across her lap. She scowls at me. “Will you please sit down? You’re making me nervous flitting around like a Junebug.”“It’s a good thing I do flit,”…
Wisdom in a cap and gownNancy Kennedy Last week (as I write this), the local high schools had their graduations.In reading the excerpts from some of the students’ speeches, this year’s crop seemed different from years past.Less bravado and “our class will conquer the world because we’re awesome” sentiments, also less carefree.In one local student’s…
Are your thoughts keeping you awake?Sheryl Boldt Your mind is racing. It won’t be long before your boss realizes that you’re not as experienced as your resume suggested. Or perhaps you’re wondering if you’ll ever manage to pay down the mountain of debt that threatens to bankrupt you. Maybe your marriage is so strained that…
This old bird and her nest Judy Conlin For all these many years, I’ve lived with that silly alter ego of mine, Nurse Judy, and I have thought of myself as the sensible, clear-headed, forward thinking member of this duo. At this stage in our lives, I have decided that we should probably move into…
