Oh My Gosh, the Wash!
How well I remember the sensation of the twin rubber rollers on the wringer of Mom’s white enamel washing machine pressing down hard on my young flesh from hand to lower arm—my screams—then Mom’s quick thrust, disengaging my arm from the wringer. When I was...
Stitching Memories: Fabric Art
From January to June 1967, creating my wedding gown kept me in stitches. Before my August wedding date, I was thrilled to first find a pattern, purchase fabric, and then fashion a white peau de soie dress on a budget. My roommates in the little bungalow on Middleton...
Breakthrough: Broken and Healing
Breakthrough “What a gorgeous day to take a walk,” I exclaimed to Barbara, my walking partner for years as we ambled down the streets of our neighborhood. “Yes, and isn’t it great: 65 degrees in December, and we don’t have to wear jackets” was her reply. We both pride...
Rebecca Chats with Marian on Tea, Toast, and Trivia
Welcome to Tea Toast & Trivia Soon you'll hear Rebecca' s voice: "I’m your host, Rebecca Budd. I am a Blogger, Photographer, Traveler. Above all, I’m a life-long learner." But first, an introduction. Rebecca and her husband Don reside in Vancouver,...
Holiday Special 2024
My Gift to You! Click Here for Holiday Special! Thank you!
Two Points of Light
Kindness and Gratitude: a November Meditation May I be grateful And express through kindly deeds My paéon of praise.
The Riddle of Mellow Music
It’s disgraceful---displaying a perfectly good violin as an ornament, but there it is—on top of my piano propped on a small brass easel! The thing is, it’s not perfectly good: the G string is missing altogether, a black peg has broken off the neck, horsehairs...
Sex and the Sago Palms in our Back Yard
My iPhone, sleek and neat in its azalea-colored bumper, is the linkage to my past and present worlds. Two weeks ago I published a blog post featuring snaps from my iPhone, one picture about a sago palm tree on our patio. Now I'm musing about another encounter...
7 Mini-Stories from Random Photos
A picture is worth a 1000 words, so the saying goes. But, sometimes a picture is worth fewer than a thousand words---only a few hundred. The photos below speak for themselves, but most need a little explanation, included with the vignettes below. All of them...
Two Novelists and an Author with her Grandson
Readers & Writers! I'm always on a reading spree, but today I pause to share some of my best finds with YOU! Novelist Alice Hoffman Reading Alice Hoffman's historical fiction is always a treat for me. Her prose glows as she probes the magic and mystery...
Hearty Laughs: Grandma Longenecker and Aunt Ruthie’s
Waiting in the sitting room for my dad’s truck to arrive for me, I was a spectator, looking through the mahogany-trimmed doorway into the kitchen. Women with prayer caps, Grandma Longenecker and Aunt Ruthie, were sitting at the gray, Formica-topped table facing...
Rhapsody in Breeze
Like a blushing bride, impeccable from head to toe and listening for the first strains of the Wedding March, works of art require just that: Work and time to re-work. Years ago, as a professor teaching English literature, I introduced students to examples of exquisite...
Take a Break with Liz Gauffreau’s Pleasant Haiku
I am pleased to be part of author Liz Gauffreau’s blog tour, Day 10. To date, I’ve read Distant Flickers to which Liz contributed a short story and reviewed two of her books, Grief Songs and now Simple Pleasures. Liz shows up regularly to comment on my blog posts....
Yummy Sandwiches: The Earl, a Marquee, and a Duke
The Earl It’s a fact! On August 6, 1762, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich asked for a meal between two slices of bread and thus, the sandwich was born. Legend has it that the Earl was a gambler so addicted to card-playing, he didn’t want to leave his card game to eat—thus...
A Heinz 57 Jar, a 57 Chevrolet, and a Wedding Anniversary
A Heinz 57 bottle, a 1957 Chevy BelAir, and a Jewish fable provide multiple metaphors for marriage. The first two proclaim the magic number 57, the number of years we have been married. August 5, 1967–August 5, 2024 which equates to our anniversary milestone this...
3 Miracles and a Cloudy Haiku
Behold, some miracles! SPEECH Skills learned in early childhood become more difficult to acquire later on, says the research. It seems simple to teach preschoolers any language they hear. In fact, they can learn it often without a trace of an accent. Why...
Flipping from Bad to Glad
In early May 2024, I discovered that the Contact page on my blog was not working properly at all. To my chagrin, since 2017 the messages of at least 17 people who tried to contact me through my blog failed to make a connection (GASP)! Why? The page on my blog where...