I was a happy participant in the Imperial Sugar Company Bake It Forward campaign this past week, and was so self involved with my delicious creations that I lovingly wrapped them and tucked them into the Bake It Forward tin without even taking a beauty shot! … Read full post »

I know how to be 20 something, luring a man to the bar for drinks and giving him an opportunity to get to know me.  I know how to be 38, secure in myself, with a house, clothes and a job to go with it. 

I know… Read full post »

Say it ain't so Gordon!  Breaking news revealed that it just may be true. Known as the Rottweiler of the kitchen, his profanity and his charm have launched him into the camera lights that may have been too bright for comfort.  Although Ramsay has been seen on camera stating, "I… Read full post »

My outlook for 2011 has taken on bulwark characteristics as I gird up to wade through another annual calendar.  The same thought just keeps rolling across my mind, like the CNBC crawl.

Embrace what is ahead, and adjust your sights accordingly.

Economically, the last two generations which inclu… Read full post »

My mother used the scent of cinnamon, cider, and coffee beans to wake those who hadn't already been dragged out of bed by small children.  Dressing was a necessary distraction before quick stepping to the dining room where Christmas Breakfast awaited across a table that sp… Read full post »

To Everyone I Found In My Spam Box today ... and all the rest of you who may be reading out of idle curiosity...

I checked the number "11" in my OS Spam Email Box and found messages from "favorites" and those I regularly exchange PMs with -- Now, I can… Read full post »

I'm available to check on the hostages and provide the public with updates on their health and well being - although I can't speak as to their mental stability. 

ROCK ON PIRATE WIMMIN OF OS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Read full post »

I am from worn rugs and tatty upholstery, fuzzy with fur left by slumbering cats, and from settled stacks of unopened envelopes in a reed basket in the front hall.  I'm from old… Read full post »

I've been mute for awhile now, held hostage somewhere in my soul by the circumstances that have become my life.  Once upon a time I had a normal life, willingly fettered by a family of children, pets, and parents, with a house in the 'burbs, a modest mortgage, and the expectation… Read full post »

I've had to work up to this in the way I would work up to a really good spit ball, it took me awhile but it should be enough to hit the target...

12.  When I lived in St. Thomas, VI, the alarm that got me out of bed… Read full post »

See what you think of some of the latest words and phrases in the marketplace and on streetcorners, words with the potential to have a place in language reference books if they catch on.  In the very little research I did to run down a few… Read full post »

In a bit of a slump these past couple of weeks and completely dry of fuel for the muse, I've browsed the essays here only to find slumpiness seems to be pervasive.  I feel a little better thinking it's not just me but that's sad comfort as I sit sweltering in… Read full post »

Tink buddy, someone's looking for you but for the life of me, I don't know why she thought she'd find you in in MY personal mailbox here on OS.  She must be related to your other girlfriend, what was her name now...Glads, right?

Since she's determined to reach you - she… Read full post »

OK.  I'm doing this now, on a Saturday afternoon when I could be scorching my lilly white ass on the beach out there, or tirelessly standing outside the dressing room door calling out to my mother, 'does that one look okay or should I get you something else?' ...geez.

I've been… Read full post »

I used to think of myself as a cook.  I also used to think of myself as a water skiier, but both have fallen by the wayside with time.

I became aware of a pantry project, courtesy of another OSer here, which has been a two year undertaking by somebody creative… Read full post »

Here's what I remember ....

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Frying hot sidewalks covered with white rock-scratched tic-tac-toe and hangman games, hopscotch boards, and I WAS HERE scrawls.

Careening around the corner of the sidewalk… Read full post »

Robin Sneed posted the scary details of her weekend hospital experience which prompted this post.  I hope we can have a discussion ...

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Desk Clerk:  May I have your name?  What seems to be the problem today?

Patient: Help me, I think I'm dying!

Desk Clerk: What are… Read full post »

In more ways than one, I’ve "settled" for things in my life - notably at times when I felt pressures weighing me down, driving me toward an outcome I wouldn’t have chosen for myself given my ‘druthers.  

With guidance I’ve arrived at… Read full post »

The memorable conversations I recall having with my Dad occurred when we both had a tool in hand. In the garden, hoe in hand or in his work shop, toiling over a motor under a hood. Him working, me trying to 'help' but mostly staying out of the way.

A… Read full post »

On Saturday night, the eve of Father's Day 2010, I made my way home from my brother's house after a grilled burgers-n-brats meal, stuffed like a brat myself. Fresh on the cob corn, grilled to to such sweet perfection that condiments of any kind would have been a sin. Home baked… Read full post »

First, a little backstory and then we'll come back to tomorrow ...

With apologies to Isak Dinesen, I once had a cottage in Connecticut.

In that cottage was a family. There was me, who traveled from Florida for a job in the countryside, and… Read full post »

It makes all kinds of sense to designate Saturday as the day where we can air some of our previously published, but less exposed works, if and when we feel like it.  I hope people will start the movement and keep it alive through interest in re-posting on Saturdays, because every… Read full post »