Over the past few decades, the US Postal Service has become increasingly less interested in bringing me my mail. Twenty years ago, in our first house, our letter carrier came up the front walk and pushed the mail through a slot in the door. Ten years ago, in our next house, he/she stopped coming to the door and, instead, left the mail in a box at the end of the driveway. Today, the mail stops half a mile away, in […] Click to read more…

As of this morning, my house is officially on the market. (Please buy it.) We’ve lived here for nearly 11 years, and with our youngest child due to graduate from high school in June, my wife Linda and I have decided to downsize to something smaller. As you might imagine, we’ve spent the past several months getting our house “ready,” a term which, unfortunately, correlates highly with “expensive.” Listen To This Post Examples include, granite countertops for the master bath, […] Click to read more…

I guess I hadn’t given much thought to the weather. I heard something about snow coming, but it was far from top of mind as I headed out that Saturday morning for an all-day event at the New England Speaker’s Association. But when the event began, the first thing out of the meeting organizer’s mouth was, “SNOW! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” (It’s possible I am exaggerating.) She did say, however, that due to the coming storm, we’d be ending […] Click to read more…

Do you have names for the meals you cook regularly at home? We do. There’s “Rail Rider;” a sauteed medley of sweet potatoes, onions, chicken sausage and spices, so-named because it seems like the kind of thing you’d eat while hopping freight trains in the 1930s (not that I really have any idea). We’ve got “Flop-Overs;” round flat bread covered with chicken, onions, beans, cheese and whatever else we have hanging around, which is then “flopped over” in a pan […] Click to read more…