She always tried her best... but...

I  have thought long and hard about this post, but I really feel I need to make it, directing it to the Trump voters I am connected with in this Facebook forum. The resident of the White House and his enablers have realized that courts require evidence to enable cases to go forward. They have failed repeatedly before judges, losing 33 suits so far, and winning only one small verdict that changes no vote counts. Ethical law firms and     lawyers have abandoned their cases. The occupant of the White House has decided he can no longer overturn the election by bringing ridiculous lawsuits. He and his Republican representatives continue to participate in the judicial system theatre of the absurd only to create havoc and instability.   Since his judicial scam has not worked, now the occupant of the White House is    trying to subvert the electoral process itself- attempting to take Michigan's electoral votes, Pennysylvania's electoral votes, electoral votes from ...

My mother was the next to youngest child of Polish immigrants. In 1924 when she was 4, her young father died, leaving her mother to support the family, children ranging in age from 14 to 1.5.  Speaking only Polish, my grandmother was functionally illiterate in English and she had no skills, other than cleaning, cooking, and growing a garden and chickens.  When the children were young and ate less, she was more or less able to keep her family fed with her industry, but as they grew, it became more and more difficult, especially in the winter when the garden produce was not available. Finally my grandmother was able to obtain a job in the kitchen of the YMCA a few blocks from her home. At that time, with far fewer restaurants, many single men ate their meals at the Y, and some even lived there. Meal prices were cheap; portions were large. So as my grandmother scraped leftovers from their plates when they came back to the kitchen to be washed, she saved pieces of meat; she saved ...

Facebook, for better or for worse, is the primary source of news for many people.    Years ago, after the 2016 election, I vowed to be someone who would fact check all the lies posted by the White House and report the accurate information, so my FB connections who didn’t have time to do it themselves knew the truth. As I explained in early 2019, I had to somewhat restrict my efforts because I watched in horror as the firehose of lies and malfeasance from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue become ever more pervasive, and I became overwhelmed. But I have continued to do what I could since that time, and I’ve maintained my stance of searching for and posting pertinent factual information. People need to know the truth, even if it's difficult to hear.    For the record, I have had scores of people contact me, some in person, some behind the scenes in Facebook, and some in public, to thank me for my work.    They know if I post something, it has been fact checked and it i...

I have never known anything about my heritage prior to my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were immigrants through Ellis Island, and we don’t even know the true spelling of my mom’s maiden name. Her dad died when she was four, and while I knew her mother, I was afraid of her. She was a large, loud woman who spoke broken English with a thick Polish accent. She died when I was 13, before I was brave enough to ask her about her life and family and understand that I shouldn’t have been afraid. I should have been proud.  I knew my paternal grandmother a little, seeing her maybe twice a year, but  I never had a true conversation with her.  My  dad was the oldest of 14, and he had left home before five of his siblings were born, so he didn’t know most of them well. His dad died when I was 5, so I have only a vague slightly scary memory of my grandfather, who my mother considered a ne’er-do-well. So I knew names and death dates of these grandparents, but that was it. O...

My daughter has four year old twins who love nothing better than to give her their art work. Her refrigerator is not magnetic, so she simply cannot easily display all of their masterpieces. She looked online for solutions and found large magnetic boards at $150 each plus $40 shipping. And she wanted three of them! So we worked together to come up with an economical solution. Large artist canvas from Michael's, purchased at 40% off, three coats of magnetic paint, followed by three coats of left-over spray paint, followed by dry brushing with on-hand craft paints to coordinate with the decor of the room -- and voila, magnetic 24 x 30 art displays (larger than the online versions) at about $15 each. She now has 3 wonderful accent pieces in her office with plenty of room to display lots of artwork and papers.

I am not a gardener. My mom was a gardener-- she had a green thumb, not just an olive green thumb, or even a grass green thumb, but a deep, lush emerald green thumb. Her whole life, even when she worked outside the home full-time, which was most of the time, she had a passion for her gardens. She grew trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals, vegetables, fruits... you name it, she grew it: it flourished. She got this honestly; her mother, my immigrant Polish grandmother, was a gardener. I don't know if it was by necessity or by choice, but I clearly remember my grandmother's yard-- there was none. It was all gardens. She had narrow brick paths that wove through roses and herbs; she had concord grapes on an arbor in front of a small chicken coop. (I was afraid of those nasty fowls- they sensed it and chased me mercilessly until I found protection behind my daddy's legs while my mom and her mom talked gardening.) My grandma had vegetables galore and enough perennials (at the time I...