Confused? Here’s a simple (yet thorough!) explainer. — Ever heard the phrase “Explain it like I’m 5”? It means taking a complex topic and breaking it down into terms that a 5-year-old can understand. Over the past few days, I’ve watched a lot of commentators explain the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. They’re talking about insured deposits, venture…

Why does a piece of furniture mean so much to me? As my husband and I get older, our needs shrink. Just the two of us now, we live in a house where if one person sneezes, the sound ricochets through every room. We used to live large and, as…

TL;DR: Get ready to fight, and don’t expect people to understand. — In July of 2020, I took over my parents’ lives. To say it’s been tough would be an understatement. …

All part of my week working in Templeton with my sister-in-love — The project Hubby wants to rent a room in our Templeton house to someone. It is currently full of stuff that needs to be cleared out. He also wants to use a truck I previously used to transport books across the country to sell. It is full of other books I’ve been…

COVID-19 is a miserable experience but some positive good has come out of it — COVID-19 finally got me. It’s kept me confined to home since the middle of December. I got very sick, but not sick enough to need hospital care. I had lots of help with shopping and meals from family and friends. My brother’s wife, fully vaccinated, even came from four counties…

If you have alcoholics in your family, deciding not to drink may be the wisest decision you can make — Drunkenness on display The first time I saw someone drunk was at our class all-night party the night we graduated. No alcohol was allowed, but somehow it got past the chaperones. I and my boyfriend arrived late. As we tried to inconspicuously make our way to the banquet room for dinner, the football…

It’s an experience I don’t want to repeat — I Got My First Traffic Ticket When I Was 71 Some people may be old hands at going to traffic school, but at 71, I’d driven for 48 years and never gotten a ticket. I had to pay the court $315 dollars for a fine and even more to attend traffic school to get the offense off my driving record…

I spend too much time sifting through information I will never read. Do you? The Piles of my Life This morning I went to the living room to work on my lap desk in my favorite chair before my husband came home and turned on the television. Don’t get me started on television! I had two large books I needed to use in my project. But where to put…

A non-focused life with too many interests may later trap you when you get too old to declutter — Your clutter can harm you My mother-in-law Paula was a widow in her eighties who lived alone. She was mostly bedridden and had confined herself to a small cluttered bedroom. There was barely room to walk around her bed. …