Things I have not wanted to do recently: Get out of bed. Go for a walk. Cook. Make stressful phone calls. Have a difficult conversation with someone. Remove a very pretty but unnecessary item from my online shopping cart. Do laundry. Cook again. Go grocery shopping. Things I have done recently: All of the above. Why did no one tell me life was like this? An endless repetition of faintly annoying (though occasionally ramping up to very difficult) items on an endless rotation. I realize that is a negative, fatalistic attitude toward life but I am feeling negative and fatalistic. I am also feeling forgetful. Maybe life wouldn’t be annoying…

Over the last week or so, we have spent a lot of time talking to our homesick, teenage daughter about maintaining a positive attitude. The reality of a long-distance move has sunk in and she is going through all the normal adjustments of settling into a new area. We have been telling her to look for the little bright spots in her life instead of always concentrating on what she misses from back home. You know what that means, don’t you? I have to be positive too. I can’t say that February in the middle of a pandemic exactly lends itself to natural positivity but I must practice what I…

I usually have Tuesday off from work and every Monday evening I go to bed thinking about the lovely, leisurely, relaxing day I am going to enjoy when I wake up. I envision myself waking up slowly, drinking several cups of tea, chatting with my husband, making a lovely lunch, reading my book for a while, and then ending the day feeling calm and able to deal with anything. Yeah, I don’t know what world I think I live in. This morning I woke up with a jerk at 6:58 to the awareness that the roads were a mess and I was going to have to leave the house to…

Merriam-Webster defines “home” as “one’s place of residence” and, by that definition, Ohio is my home. I live here. My husband and kids live here. We are “a family living together in one building.” We are at home in Ohio. However, while the definition of home is our place of residence, sometimes our heart can tell a conflicting story. After all, “home is where the heart is” and part of my heart will always be in New England. My kids and I drove back to Connecticut for a few days over my daughter’s winter break from school. We drove across a bit of Pennsylvania, through New York and Massachusetts, and…

When life gets you down all you need is tea. Those are words to live by, aren’t they? I took my own advice recently and signed up for a tea subscription from Harney & Sons. I am absolutely thrilled that I did. Life may still be annoying but at least I have new teas to drink while I am dealing with it. Harney & Sons was originally founded in 1983 in Salisbury, CT and now is based in Millerton, NY. Years ago, my aunt, cousin, and I went to visit their tasting room and shop so I already knew that I like their tea. Here is the description of their…