Beach House in the Burbs

Our vacation is coming up (I thought it would never get here). And that got me to thinking about the best vacation I’ve ever had. It was a couple of summers ago when I went to Greece for three weeks. So, check out my vacation memories, then tell me about your own. Let us see the world from the comfort of our computers through your eyes. The trip to Greece wasn’t a typical see-75-cities-plus-50-islands-in-three-weeks tour. I spent two weeks in Thessaloniki in northern Greece (with a weekend side trip to Crete), then a week on the volcano island of Santorini . My husband, Chris, (who’s practically perfect in every other way) won’t fly. So, I have to find travel companions elsewhere. Fortunately I have a family (parents, sister) that I like and that likes to travel. My sister, an anthropology professor, travels to Greece almost every summer. Two years ago she taught in a study-abroad program in Thessaloniki. My mom and a friend of hers signed up for the program. My dad and I, who never t...

My sister just got back from the Greek island of Crete, where she spent a month “working.” She’s a physical anthropologist and was cataloging human skeletons—not very old ones by Greek standards, only 600-700 years! Anyway, she brought us back this little painting on wood. It says “good morning” in Greek. Pronounced ka-lee-MEH-ra. The traditional place to hang these, according to Susan, is over the bathroom mirror, where you will see it every morning. If we’d done that, it would have been butt up against the ceiling and tall as I am (5’10”) I never would have seen it. So we hung it between our bathroom mirrors. It makes me smile every time I see it. (The bathroom walls are pink, not purple, which is the color they look on my computer. Chris calls it Barbie's dream bathroom.) Now, I mention all this Greek goodness to explain the new screen doors. See, we got a cat. New cat, Dusty, scared old cat, Miss Kitty—whose name ought to be scaredy cat, since she’s afraid of everything—so that...

This blog post, Writing a Novel, A Love Story, from Libba Bray is hilarious about the ups and downs of writing a novel: http://libba-bray.livejournal.com/36896.html Enjoy!

The first time we walked into our house, my reaction was, “Ohmygod, it’s dark as a tomb!” My second reaction was, “We can fix that.” The house had 2 acres, nearly unheard of in the northern suburbs of Atlanta even 14 years ago, and a pool. With a remodeling contractor husband, Chris, I knew we could redo the eyesore of a house that came with the great piece of land. The biggest project we tackled, and we’ve redone the entire house inside and out, was the kitchen. It sat in the middle of the house, dark and uninviting, walled off from the tiny dining room, with almost no counter space. Shortly after we moved in, the oven and the dishwasher both died. We replaced the dishwasher immediately. I could live without an oven, but not without a dishwasher. In fact, we lived for five years with only an oven from the 1940s that one of my mother’s friends gave us. About the size of a large microwave, the oven lived in a separate room from the kitchen because it tripped the breaker if any lights or...

Every summer our yard turns into a jungle. With nearly two acres of trees, little grass, several hundred daylillies and a willingness to let it all be natural, by this time of year, the yard begins to look like no one could possibly live amongst all that greenery. And while I gaze at photos of beautifully manicured and landscaped plots and suffer pangs of garden envy, I get over it by picking blackberries throughout the month of July. For those of you who've never picked blackberries, let me tell you, it's a challenge. Blackberry bushes have big, sharp thorns that prick at your clothes or bare legs. And they grow in the shade. You can't just stand at the edge of a blackberry thicket and pluck berries without getting dirty. Nope, you have to get in amongst the thorns, where chiggers and snakes like to live. The first time I remember picking blackberries I was a teenager. My uncle had told me that snakes like to live where blackberries grow. My job, I decided, rather than act...

Olive Riley, who has been called the oldest living blogger , died over the weekend at a nursing home in Australia. I confess I wasn't familiar with Ms. Riley or her blog  until I read about her death this morning. And I don't feel sad about her passing. I didn't know her. She was 108. It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. What I feel is uplifted by her life. My 90-year-old grandmother (a spring chicken compared to Ms. Riley) is in a nursing home. She had a stroke several years ago. But even before that horrible event, it seemed that her willingness to expand herself and her world had faded. We tried to get her interested in email--she has children and grandchildren scattered around the country--or books on tape--she loved to read, but her eyes were failing her--but she couldn't summon any interest in new technologies that might have helped make her days better. Now, she's not in the physical condition to learn anything new. And it makes me wonder. Do peop...

When people ask what I do, I have the hardest time answering. I've said, "depends on what day it is," and "if it's Tuesday, I must be a writer." But neither of those really say enough about the fun I have on a daily basis. Take today, for example. Today I was doing manual labor in an un-air conditioned warehouse in Georgia in July, on the production end of my husband's large-format printing business. (I'd link to his web site, but it's under construction. When it's up, I'll post it.) Not only does he print really big stuff--signs, posters, museum exhibits, etc.--he also has an enormous CNC router--a computer-run router for cutting shapes out of wood, plastic, sign board, all kinds of materials. Today I was running the router, cutting life-size superhero shapes out of this lightweight plasticy/foam boardy stuff, that I'm sure has a name. I don't know what it is. You more astute readers will be saying to yourselves, "She ain...