I went and had a little summer fling. I suppose I can blame it on those long afternoons by the lake and the absence of responsibility. And surely the hammock had something to do with it. I was supposed to spend my afternoons with E.B. White. I promised you I would–or at least I’d promised [...]

Fish with a cousin. Kayak. Learn to drive a boat from your grandfather. Swim with your siblings. Be patriotic, even in the act of climbing up a ladder. Show your dancer’s training while taking a dive. Take a big jump, and fling your little brother into the air. Watch fireworks from a boat. I’ll be [...]

A spectacular transformation took place in these parts last week. Mr. T became a reader. Oh, for months he’s been reading words and phrases that he spots around him. Gas station signs. Comic book titles. Billboards. But he didn’t want to read books. I’d check out new easy-to-read books at the library each time we [...]

“Being self-employed will always make for a precarious life; these days, it is more uncertain than ever, especially since my tools of choice, written words, are coming to seem like accessories to images.” This line comes from a thoughtful essay by Pico Iyer called The Joy of Less.  It’s a wonderful essay on living simply, [...]

A few of you kind readers have been oh-so-gently urging me to provide a link here to the essay I wrote for Mothering last spring. I’ve finally done it. You can find it here. About that title… I had, cheekily, submitted the essay with the title “How to Homeschool” since the piece is written in [...]

I got the idea in my head that Mr. T and I needed to raise tadpoles this summer. It’s something we’ve never done before. I was already thinking about it when Lori of In Heywood’s Meadow wrote about her son finding frogs’ eggs and raising tadpoles. She recommended the book Pets In a Jar: Collecting [...]