Family

Contrary to what many people think, more family members care for their older relatives themselves than put them in nursing homes. An estimated 43.5 million people in the United States provide long-term care for a family member with a chronic illness according to an article in the June 2015 issue of Harvard Health Letter. Often caregivers find themselves in…

Last year, my son invited the family to participate in a CBS Sports March Madness bracket group. I had fun clicking through the teams on the site, basing my picks on nothing but whims and emotion. You see, I know next-to-nothing about sports. Not surprisingly, I ended up placing last in our group, and for all I…

Every August, the St. Paul Roman Catholic Church holds its three-day Italian festival celebrating the Feast of the Assumption. St. Paul’s is located in Erie’s historic Little Italy and is the parish my in-laws grew up and were married in. We’ve gone to the festival in the past but have never attended the Mass and procession through the…

Disclaimer: This is not a paid advertisement for Cozi. I have not received any incentive from Cozi to write this guide. I simply wish to share this info with you, because I wish Cozi had existed 20 years ago, when my kids were small and our house was crazy. For a few years now, we’ve…

This morning, as I read the Sunday paper, I almost forgot to look at the Parade magazine, which was buried in between the store ads that I try to avoid. I’m glad I sought out the weekly insert today, because it contained the inspirational story of Stephanie Nielson, a mother of four who was severely burned, along…

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we decided to return to Troia in the evening to observe the procession for the Cathedral of Beata Maria Vergine Assunta in Cielo’s celebration of its six patron saints, Eleuterio, Ponziano, Anastasio, Secondidino, Urban, and Anza. When we arrived, the band had already assembled and was warming up. The…

Yesterday, we drove 40 minutes from our hotel in Lucera (Grand Hotel Vigna Nocelli) to the hometown of Jim’s grandparents, Troia, in Puglia, which is located on the eastern side of the mountains, and Naples is on the west coast of Italy. Jim had done quite a bit of research over the past few years,…

Yesterday, I had a few items to pick up at the grocery store for today’s dinner. Who wants to visit Wegmans the day before a holiday? I pictured shopping cart pile-ups, empty shelves, and much jostling to reach the potatoes, rolls, and pop that were on my list in addition to a number of other…

So–last week we bought daughter Kasey a new laptop for her much-deserved December college graduation. We had a specific budget to follow in order to be fair to oldest child, Krista, who received luggage and a photo printer for her also much-deserved graduation. Seeing an ad for a Compaq in my Sunday Staples ad, I…

A few years ago, I met Susan Henninger at the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival. Since then, she and I have loosely kept in touch. She helped me with some key research for my writing project, and I connected her with a source for hers. This is one of the many valuable benefits of conferences in any field.…