personal history

As you may have noticed, I have not been actively blogging the last couple months. Other things—good, bad and confusing—have claimed my attention (I guess that’s called life!). Anyway, I hope to be on here more frequently. One fun and interesting aspect of blogging is the ability to check your stats to see which are… Read more »

About the Book Title: A Year in the Life of the Secret Garden | Author: Valarie Budayr | Illustrator: Marilyn Scott-Waters | Publication Date: November, 2014 | Publisher: Audrey Press | Pages: 144 | Recommended Ages: 5 to 99 Book Description: Award-winning authors Valarie Budayr and Marilyn Scott-Waters have co-created A Year in the Secret… Read more »

Enjoy this update of a previously run post ~     Do you know that the first Sunday after Labor Day is National Grandparents Day? This special day is meant to celebrate the important bonds between grandparents and grandchildren. You can mark this day in whichever way suits your family best. Grandparents might give and/or… Read more »

Readers of my blog know that I place great value on relating family history to children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. On occasion, I have quoted from Bruce Feiler’s book, The Secrets of Happy Families, in which he advises us to tell our story: The most important thing you can do may be the easiest of all…. Read more »

I’m excited to tell you that I have written a picture book released today! A couple weeks ago, Audrey Moon, editor of my local online newspaper (which publishes my blog posts), interviewed me about my book, GG and Mamela. She asked some interesting questions, and I hope I furnished some interesting answers. I decided to… Read more »

I am rerunning a previous post with a few additions. The Jewish holiday of Passover is celebrated with a ceremonial dinner called a Seder. At the heart of the Seder is the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. Jews are commanded to retell the story: You should tell your children that day, saying,… Read more »

Other than reading together, what activity can you do with children that creates memories, strengthens bonds and is fun and rewarding? Well…actually, quite a few. But there’s only one that produces a—hopefully—delicious result: cooking! And although any time of year is great for whipping up something delightful in the kitchen—hey, we always gotta eat—winter is… Read more »

  The Tattered Prayer Book came across my desk a few months ago, and I found it poignant and well done; however, I got caught up with some other blogging ideas percolating in my brain and never got around to writing about this powerful picture book. Today, I’d like to correct that.

In memory of the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, the women of Midlife Boulevard have dedicated November’s blog hop to our reflections on President John Kennedy. A blog hop is when a group of bloggers write on the same subject. Click on the link at the end of this post to read the other posts by… Read more »