I didn’t talk until I was six weeks past my fourth birthday when my mother dragged me to yet another child psychologist. Dr. Cederbaum changed the course of our family history. His directions were very clear: “Stop responding to her pointing and grunting behaviors.” Mom and I stopped for lunch after our appointment. The waitress asked me what I wanted to eat and I responded, “Salami and eggs with plain toast, no butter, and a limeade please.” Our stories are our lives. Ideas come from living and this blog is for writing them down. Feel free to make suggestions on writing topics of interest to you.
Ariel’s Story, D Acres Organic Farm, Rumney, NH I’m a 19-year-old sophomore at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. I do a lot of farming, I’m involved in the sustainable food campaign to use more sustainable foods at school, and have worked in a community garden. I found D Acres online, and it struck me as…
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You might not have heard of Oy Vey Yoga before, but if you’re anything like me, you might already be an Oy Vey Yoga Professional. Oy Vey is part of a Yiddish phrase: oy vey is mir. I use these expressions to mean: You’ve got to be kidding or I can’t believe I’m doing this. If you’re not…
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It’s been quite a few years since I was part of an active writer’s support group. The few I belonged to all operated in the same way. Participants came prepared to read two or three pages of work in progress to receive feedback from the other writers and then, in turn, provided insight to them…
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Mother’s Day was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Soon after it began, she hated the commercialism and worked to remove it from the national events calendar. The first Father’s Day celebration was held on June 19, 1910 at the YMCA in Spokane, Washington, organized by Sonora Smart Dodd to honor her…
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This only happens once every 100 years! I promise more upcoming info on this great Centennial; however, there’s one thing I want to make absolutely sure that you know about first. The National Park Service offers a Volunteers-In-Parks (VIPs) Artists in Residence program: https://www.nps.gov/getinvolved/volunteer.htm. Applications are open to visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, writers, composers, craft…
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It came up on my Laptop Screen uninvited: Revlon’s Super Lustrous Lipstick Crème in Fire and Ice #720. There it was, claiming to be Number One of the Top 10 lipsticks of all time. I started to cry, that was my Mom Ruthie’s one and only lipstick. She couldn’t be without it, but kept losing…
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The Catalina Island Conservancy manages a herd of about 200 bison. A film company brought 14 bison to the island for a movie and left them to roam, and procreate. Actress Marilyn Monroe lived on Catalina Island with her husband James Dougherty, a Merchant Marine, during WWII. The Zane Grey Pueblo Hotel was…
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I teach Business Communication in the Welch College of Business at Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT which includes writing cover letters, resumes and analyzing job opportunities, but it’s quite a different experience when I’m doing it for myself. I applied for an Impact Guide position with fathom.org and Carnival Cruise Lines to work on the…
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Hallmark and candy companies turned Valentine’s Day into a touch feely, kissy-huggy chocolatey event. It all started out in a rather gruesome way with the Romans executing two different men named Valentine on February 14 in two different years. The Catholic Church labelled them martyrs and created St. Valentine’s Day. Both Chaucer and Shakespeare referred…
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MLK Day is traditionally celebrated as a National Volunteer Day. Many communities organize 100s of ways to give back. I polled three children to see how they plan to use their day off from school. Sylvia, 9: There’s no school on Martin Luther King’s birthday so that we can do something good for other people. My grandfather…
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