Columns

I hear a meow in my bedroom doorway. Smaller than her Siamese sister, Cuddles has escaped the kitchen gate again while my husband sips his first cup of coffee. At 6:45 a.m., amber eyes and whiskers plead a place on my bed. "Come on up." In one leap, Cuddles commences...

Eight-year old Laurel had a job to do. "Please keep Mandy in your room until our meeting ends," Laurel's mother said. "Okay, Mom." She bounced up the stairs, her dog following. Maureen, then President of Detroit Working Writers, welcomed fellow board members to her...

The glorious photo of the majestic eagle that Mary Grosskopf captured near her Mussey Twp. home reminded me of our conversation around the beautiful table during Easter brunch on Sunday. As usual, it soon turned to travel and adventure. My cousin Robert and his wife...

I calmly eat my noodles in the morning rush at the restaurant, and I can feel eyes crawling all over me. A nation in the broadest sense of the term, according to the dictionary, is "a people having a common origin, tradition, and language and capable of forming or...

Every Eastertime of my childhood, my mother walked into Sew-N-Save. She selected three patterns, and then slipped her fingers between the raw edges of fabric to find the perfect material for three dresses. Finally, she searched for notions and pushed her cart to the...

As with all the holidays—especially the religious ones—Easter was a big deal in the Minolli household. Like the others, including the secular, food took center stage—still does—except the location of the stage has changed. Throughout Lent, like other practicing...

Editor's note: This column was first published in May of 2011. While I no longer regularly practice with the Blue Water Community of Mindful Living, I do put into practice everything I've learned while pursuing the path as a yoga teacher. Much gratitude to Jim and...

I load $164 worth of groceries into my car. I'll take Shepherd's Pie to pass for my Monday night writing group, and the hens will gobble up our kitchen scraps. Otherwise, my husband and I will consume the bulk of this bounty in one week. How has this exorbitant cost...

"Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just...

Don't fork or spade soil until it is dry enough for the clods to crumble when they fall. —The Gardener's Bed-Book by Richardson Wright, 1929 This time of year I recall my friend Erna Hermann and her weeding methods. First, she collects her garden wardrobe:...