The little girl stands squarely on the porch in her small leather shoes. A toddler nearing 2, she is leaning against the wood slats of a house somewhere in North Carolina. The year is 1963. The light brown bangs
Read MoreI admit, I wasn’t excited by the prospect of reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman when #thereallivesbookclub selected it for group discussion. I dreaded the sadness I was sure I
Read MoreNot to be a smarty pants, but you don’t know what you know until you know it. Of course, claiming what one doesn’t know is pretty easy—for me that feels like most everything. But what about knowing your
Read MoreIt’s almost too exhausting if you think about it—not to mention ironic—because, in fact, you have gazillions of thoughts running through your head at any one moment. Life is happening fast. If you’re
Read MoreLast week I wrote you about my effort to tackle big goals by way of small steps. In doing some research on the subject, I stumbled onto the book Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise.
Read MoreIt has been a full summer, one for the books as the saying goes. We’ve been caring for our 17-month-old grandson and 6-year-old granddaughter. My husband David, who is a teacher, spent the summer
Read MoreI remember eating lunch with a family friend once as a kid—this friend happened to be a nun. She ate her meal of cheap potato chips and canned onion soup with extraordinary relish. My mother and I took note that
Read MoreThis post follows on the heels of the interview with Brand Photographer Julia Mae Hunt during a podcast of #thedeliciousstory. We tackled many interesting topics, including the power and meaning of the photo-journaling that
Read MoreI was disappointed a couple of summers ago when The Des Moines Art Center announced they’d stop hosting ‘movies under the stars’ on their lawn. It was an event we looked forward to each summer, an
Read MoreI accept that there are contemporary trends that have left me behind. I don’t know the latest musical artists, and don’t follow the current clothing fads, but I never considered that I’d be eating dust when it
Read MoreThis weekend as I powered through episodes of “This American Life,” it was the show called “No Fair” that got me thinking about how we’ve come to believe that we’re deserving of a “fair” shake, even
Read MoreAbout a year ago I had the idea for a game I had envisioned designed to spark storytelling amongst players—and my own daughter, Alexandra, was enchanted by the idea and ran with it.
Read MoreThere’s plenty to love about spring—especially after a lengthy and brutal Iowa winter. But one of my favorite amenities of the season is the emergence of the peony bush planted in my front yard. As the
Read MoreI’m not going to name names here, but I used to know this person who had answers for EVERYONE (and every circumstance) about how to deal with life. This all-knowing individual thought that opining these
Read MoreI like Tudor architecture and bagpipe music, and for a great deal of my life, I’ve wondered why. I like to think that, somewhere in my past, there was an ancestor—perhaps a member of the Tudor gentry—who
Read MoreIt’s the question on my mind this week, now that I’m several chapters into reading Michelle Obama’s book “Becoming.” She describes her early childhood avidly, her family and the people of her community,
Read MoreI’d say that The Delicious Story is a passion project, and yet I bristle at the word “passion” because, in my mind, it diminishes the value of the work behind the project.
Read MoreAsk me about some of my delicious stories. Or ask me about some of my favorite movies – it’s all good. Movies drive food stories, and food stories drive great movies. At the Delicious Story
Read MoreAt the Delicious Story podcast, we highlight the details of memorable meal stories, those memories of shared experience at the dinner table or favorite restaurant with family and friends. Sherry and I are also fans of
Read MoreI’m not the HUGE fan that my husband, David, is when it comes to Bruce Springsteen, but I do love The Boss’s talent for wordcraft.
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