Missing my Forest Retreat

When we bought a little teardrop camper in 2019, we had no idea how much we’d love it. And, much to our surprise, our winter camping outings became even more cherished than in the summer: something about the near-vacant campsites, the icy glare of the moonlight reflected in the snow. With fewer humans around, we became more intensely aware of the hooting of an owl, or the skitter of deer as they ran to a stand of trees.

By the winter of 2020, my husband and I developed a wintertime routine: precisely at 5:30 p.m.

My Word of the Year

As much as I love the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, I rarely make them.

Many folks choose a word of the year, and I’m one of those people. I choose a word rather than making a goal that I know, at a cellular level, that I can’t reach. Behind me, I leave a trail of unrealized New Year’s resolutions.

One year, I made the resolution to exercise. Cliché, I know. I got a gym membership, exercised a few months, then skipped the gym and kept paying the monthly fee because “I might go back.”

Imposter syndrome

Ever feel like a phony?

I have been feeling like an imposter for the last few days. I pride myself in being a minimalist, talk about simplifying life, and blog about wanting less…yet, if you were to come to my house today, you’d see that a corner of my bedroom has overflowing stash-and-dash boxes filled with who-knows-what miscellany, and I have laundry in various stages of dirty, clean, sorted, unsorted, folded, and yet-to-be folded throughout my house. There’s a suspicious-looking potato lurking in the very back of my fridge.

Singing My Hallelujahs

On a whim, I signed up for a community choir audition. My voice trembled for the entire audition. I struggled to reign in my voice, which doesn’t respond the way it did in my younger days. My voice now is weaker, and sometimes even raspy. To make matters worse, I had to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Unless you have a multi-octave range with a penchant for belting, the Star Spangled Banner is very difficult to sing. Our national anthem is, in my humble opinion, one of the most unsingable songs ever written.

In the Mood for Food

Is there anything better than eating? It doesn’t matter if I’m eating with my best pals, or eating alone by the light of the refrigerator, or just testing a bit of something off the wooden spoon as I lean over the stove burner. The sensory cornucopia that is cooking and eating is often the highlight of my day: it’s one of those few activities that employs all five of the senses at once: seeing the vibrant colors mix as you chop red peppers, orange carrots, white onion, and green broccoli for a stir-fry; the warmth of something coming out of the oven; and smell of vanilla or cinnamon or maybe even chocolate; the sound of oil crackling when it hits the hot cast iron skillet.

Chicago area shelter provides a safe haven for women escaping trafficking, sexual exploitation

On Refuge for Women’s homepage, a graduate is quoted: ““Having a chance to be in a safe place to heal means somebody thought I was worth it, even though I dared not believe I was.”

Refuge for Women is a non-profit, faith based organization that provides emergency and long-term housing to women who have escaped human trafficking or sexual exploitation. The Chicagoland area program home, in an undisclosed location in the McHenry County area, opened in 2016 and is one of 11 program homes across the U.S.

Throw Out Your Microwave

I want you to throw out your microwave. I know that’s not a popular opinion. It’s the beginning of soup season, for pete’s sake. The Bureau of U.S. Labor and Statistics reports that more than 90% of American households have a microwave oven. But when I wrote a blog post titled Three Things I Don’t Need (Since I Bought a Small House), I explained why I got rid of mine shortly after we moved into a home of less than 1,000 sq.

Carving Out His Niche: Local Artist Is A Jack-o-Lantern of All Trades

HANOVER PARK – Dennis Franzen is an accomplished artist — his work has been featured on billboards and commercials. His sculpture entitled “America’s Hero,” featuring the image of a firefighter, has even been featured prominently on several episodes of the hit TV show, Chicago Fire.

Franzen, based in Hanover Park, prides himself on being a versatile artist — he is an illustrator who also paints and works in metal, wood, and glass.

Three years ago, he discovered another medium for his art: pumpkins.

Finding My 15 Minutes of Sunday

Early in the morning, I wrapped an oversized fleece plaid blanket around my shoulders just as the light of dawn was taking hold. I was in my favorite chair on my screen porch, looking out to my backyard.

That’s when I saw him: a grey-and-rust colored coyote, walking slowly through my backyard! He stopped for long pauses to sniff the air and look around. He didn’t seem to notice me. He was in no hurry. He looked to be out on a Lazy Sunday stroll.

Old MacDonald, Do No Harm

HUNTLEY – Jess Chipkin never thought she’d follow a complete stranger out to a parking lot to enlighten her about the cruelties of factory farming, but that’s exactly what she did one afternoon in 2015.

Chipkin, a Huntley resident, had just learned about gestation crates: small, confined spaces where pigs being raised for pork are kept during their four-month pregnancies.

“These crates are so small that [the sow] can’t even stretch her limbs, let alone turn around or walk. If we did that to dogs, it would be animal cruelty and someone would be going to prison for it.”

And So It Begins

The smell of school supplies intoxicates me.

Not the old school supplies I find at the bottom of my kids’ backpacks in June. Those are just sad-looking pencils with their eraser heads worn down to gummy shadows of their former selves, old dried-up glue sticks, and crayons that are pitifully short and stubby.

August school supplies are the ones I like. Fresh notebooks, folders with all four corners intact. Glue sticks banded together in shrink wrap, ready for sticky battle.

This year, school supply shopping for my two high school-age teenagers was pretty low-key.

Proof Required: Who Are You, Anyway?

I still remember the news story from 2013, when Reese Witherspoon and her husband, Jim Toth, were pulled over by a police officer in Atlanta. Toth was ultimately arrested for driving under the influence. As the officer questioned her husband and gave him a breathalyzer test, Witherspoon was livid. Despite repeated warnings, she refused to stay inside the car, saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” The officer either didn’t know who she was, or didn’t care.

The police report from that night states, “Mrs.

We Don’t Have to Go Back to the Way Things Used to Be

Would I lie to you honey?

Now would I say something that wasn’t true?

I’m asking you sugar

Would I lie to you?

— Would I Lie to You, Eurythmics

The world lies to us.

We accept these lies as truth, even when evidence points to the contrary.

This point was driven home over and over when our family moved into our little house.

-You don’t need “as large of a house as you can afford.”

Sketches of a Slumber Party

Our fourth and youngest child celebrated her 14th birthday this week. I was expecting her to want a huge, loud party in contrast to her pandemic birthday last year, which, sadly, consisted of spending her day entirely with her family, much like all the other days during the pandemic.

But no—she wanted a sleepover. A run of the mill stay-up-late-giggling-and-gossiping overnight with a handful of her besties.

It reminded me of sleeping over at friends’ houses when I was growing up in the 80s: greasy pizza, hours of watching MTV or playing Pac Man.

Putting Down Roots: Not for the Timid

My husband and I both enjoy gardening, but we typically don’t garden at the same time. Our styles and techniques couldn’t be more polar opposite. I’m a timid gardener: I don’t often trust my own intuition about what plants need, and I usually have an uneasy feeling that a neighbor or passerby will see me in the garden and click their tongue at the inept way I’m doing whatever it is I’m doing. The only time I really hit my stride is when attacking a sworn weed-enemy (I’m looking at you, creeping Charlie!).

Time for Me

“Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.”

—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

My husband is out of town with our two youngest children, which means I’m alone for a few days.

The house is eerily quiet. It took me a little while to adjust to the idea that I was the only person in the house. I walked through all the rooms, seeing the wreckage of two teens who quickly packed their duffel bags a few minutes before leaving; I crossed my fingers that they at least grabbed their toothbrush and clean socks before they went out the door.

Huzzah! Vintage ‘Base Ball’ Returns

MCHENRY COUNTY – Baseball in the Civil War era bore some resemblance to America’s contemporary favorite pastime, but in its infancy, the game resembled more of a gentleman’s club, noted for good sportsmanship and manners. Players were known to even cheer their opponents, and the captains would offer inspiring words after each game, praising both teams and the fans. Any players who got out of line would apologize to the crowd.

Kurt “Scoop” Begalka is the administrator of the McHenry County Historical Society, but when summer comes, he becomes manager of the McHenry County Independants, a vintage baseball team that is cheekily named after what appears to be a misspelled team team name from a newspaper article from more than 150 years ago.

Meat Sweats

There are a few smells I associate with summer: freshly mown grass; sunblock on a precious child’s skin, wet from swimming but warming in the sun; and hickory smoke curling off a crackling barbecue.

My husband grills old-school. He swears by his little Smokey Joe and refuses to upgrade to anything larger, and especially wouldn’t entertain the idea of a gas grill. When he grills, it’s an event; that grill is filled up with meat, and the smell is sublime. He’ll walk back and forth between the kitchen and the backyard, grabbing tongs and hot pads and platters with a sly grin on his face; I watch him, trying to gauge whether the side dishes I’m preparing will be ready at the same time the smoky meat is deemed edible by the grill-master.

Warning: Introvert Emerging

It’s not you. It’s me.

You’ve got to believe me.

You’ve maybe noticed how I trip over my words. Or I say things that seem to meander on a disjointed path, bereft of any point or story.

When we were told not to leave our house in order to stop the coronavirus from spreading, I wanted to leave my house in the worst possible way.

Now that restrictions are easing up and we’re slowly leaving our house again, going back to work, standing a little closer to others—close enough to have an actual conversation—well, I’m not sure I’m ready.

Small House Exhaling

During the cold months, our little house holds its breath. When the wind starts gusting and the chilly rain chases the last few leaves off the trees, we close its doors and windows and it stands firm, boldly bracing its wood and brick frame against the elements. For the long midwestern winters, our house wraps its arms tightly around our family, pulling us close to the core of the house where the warmth is unwavering.

When we bought this house a few years ago, we knew it would be a tight fit.

Wanna go driving?

Wanna go driving?

I get a text like this most days from my son. Reese is 16, and he was right in the middle of taking his drivers ed course when school closed because of the pandemic. Now, in what is turning out to be the slowest year of our lives, he has ample time to practice his driving.

The funny thing is, Reese likes to text me, even if he’s just sitting across the room: “Wanna go driving?” This has become our secret signal, the unspoken get-out-of-jail-free card we have during these lazy days when COVID-19 makes it difficult to go anywhere.

I’ve Heard How this Story Ends

Recently, I was listening to an episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” in which book reviewer Maureen Corrigan proclaimed a recent book by the British author Kazuo Ishiguro to be a “masterpiece.” My ears perked up, because I recognized the author’s name: in fact, I had just picked up one of his previous books and was about four chapters deep.

Without warning, the reviewer compared the new novel to a previous work by the same author—the very book that I had on my nightstand!

Sip Slowly

It’s going to take time. It’s going to take patience.

But I’m raring to go. It’s officially spring. We have a vaccine. (Several vaccines, which is nothing short of miraculous.) Stores and restaurants are opening up, loosening restrictions. The latest question folks ask each other is, “Did you get the vaccine yet?”

This week, my kids headed back to in-person school. It felt like a momentous occasion, a celebrated return to normalcy from the “before times.” Even though I’ve loved having the kids home during remote learning, it’s been an entire year of barely going anywhere.

Take Me Away

This week I was gifted with bath bombs, pretty little circles in springlike colors, smelling of citrus and lavender. It made me wonder about the last time I took a bath rather than a shower, and judging by the fact that I can’t remember, I can deduce it’s been a good long time. In the coming week, I’ll schedule time for a bath, filling the tub with water as hot as I can stand it, and let the aroma of orange and lemon hang on the steamy air in my tiny bathroom.

Jammie Pants: A Fond Farewell

“I always wear the same thing at home. I can’t be bothered with jewelry. My pants have elastic waists. I like to be comfortable.
There are so many more important things to be worried about.”

—Barbra Streisand

I knew this day was coming for a while. Yesterday, I had to say goodbye to my favorite comfy pants.

The day I met my Jammie Pants was back in my old life, before we downsized to our Cozy Cottage. We were living in the Big House, strapped with a crushing mortgage payment, limited by one income, and managing a gaggle of adorable children at home who had wants and needs that eclipsed my own.

THE DOORWAY TO OUR COMMUNITY