Founding Mother

I went to a book launch party earlier this week for the book Founding Mother, by Laura Kaye and Stephanie Dray.  Set in Revolutionary America, this book follows the life of Abigail Adams, who was the wife of second president John Adams and mother of sixth president, John Quincy Adams.  The book is based upon thousands of hours of research into her papers and letters.  The book was officially released on Tuesday.  

The authors spoke to us about their book, their research, and Abigail Adams.  I learned more about Abigail than I had ever known before in my life.  I am enjoying the book!  It's a good read!

Below are a couple of pictures from the event.

Both photos were taken by Park Books on Main, the sponsor of the event.

Random Photos

 A random collection of photos that have accumulated on my phone over the past couple of months...

We went to see Patti LaBelle in concert.  The woman is absolutely amazing!  What a treat!

The Beach on a chilly April day is delightful!

Who doesn't need dinosaur sand toys?

And below - two different varieties of flowering cherry trees from around my neighborhood.

They were so pretty this year!

2026 Goals - May Update

This has been a busy month.  The husband had cataract surgery on both eyes this month.  The surgeries were a week apart.  He is seeing so much better now.  Even better, for the first time since he was 10 years old, he is able to see long distance without his glasses. He wasn't able to drive for a while during the recovery.  And he hadn't been able to drive at night for a while.  All in all - I'm really glad that everything is over, and he is on the road to recovery.  

At the end of the month, I went to a crop in Delaware where I found myself catching up on the many photos that I had converted from Dad's slides at the Preservation Station in Baltimore County.  I feel like I have accomplished many of my goals! 

1) Lose 25 pounds.

Weight Lost This Month:  1 pounds

Total Weight Lost to Date: 4 pounds.

Slowly making progress! They say that slow weight loss is sustainable weight loss. I sure hope so.

2) Visit 1 new to me state.

Hawaii

I'd love to visit another new to me state this fall!

3)  3 repairs/improvements to the house.

Project #1: Add surge protectors to the heat pumps and the house.  It's not a sexy fix, but it will definitely keep the heat pumps around for a longer period of time!  We've noticed an increase in the number of power surges we've had lateley. The newer HVAC systems are very sensitive to power surges and they can damage the equipment. Honestly, who wants to spend to replace an HVAC system?  They are not cheap.

4) 40 Bags in 40 Days Challenge

It's been a while since I've done this.  You get 40 bags or boxes of stuff out of your house over the 40 days of Lent.  I did NOT get 40 boxes out over the course of Lent.  I got rid of 6 boxes.

I'm beginning to realize that I did this a little backwards.  My goal is to empty out the storage unit - and I'm making excellent progress on this particular project.  Once I get everything out of the storage unit and really begin purging things, then I will get the 40 boxes (and then some) out of the house!

Boxes out of the house during March: 6

Boxes out of the house during April: 4

Total to date: 10 boxes

5) Organize old correspondence/letters

I found a treasure trove of old letters and notes from high school.  I have them in a box to sort through next month.  The bigger question is - what gets kept and what gets thrown out?  Do I really want to save any evidence of high school me?  Most likely, NO.

On the other hand... I was given a box of old papers from a historical organization that I volunteer with to organize.  I was in my happy place, organizing that mess!  Many of the documents were of historical value, and there were a lot of photographs.  The photographs have been placed into acid free albums and labeled to the best of my ability.  The documents were sorted and organized into binders in acid free pages.  The next step - for someone else - is to digitize those documents so that back up copies exist somewhere.

6) Big backyard garden project.

I want to put in some sort of shelter for the local pollinators.  I've been searching through the garden catalogs for something.  I saw something when we were in England a couple of years ago that really tickled my fancy!  I have thoughts.  I just need to make some things happen!

7) Finish the cross stitch project I've been working on for 3+ years.

This is finished! Well over 3 years after I started, the project is finally finished!  I need to block this out and get it professionally framed later this year.  

From the end of February.

End of March

Finished!

8) Transfer Dad's slides to digital.

See my post here about transferring the slides!

9) Put those images into an album.

See my post here about the album.

10) Fill my America 250 Passport with lots of stamps!

I made it into Washington DC earlier this month and walked around the National Mall.  I added several stamps to my passport!

11) Clear out the storage unit.

Almost.  Husband can't haul out the last of the trash until his doctor gives the go-ahead after his cataract surgery.  We are literally 2 dump runs away from being finished.

 

12)  Do one totally irresponsible and fun thing each month! 

When I went scrapbooking with my friend - I count that entire weekend as irresponsible!  On the way down, I stopped at several places that were of personal interest to me.  Barnes and Noble.  A new to me library branch.  The outlet malls at Rehoboth.  The beach, the boardwalk.

Oh, let's not forget the food!  Crabby Dicks. Panera.  Agave.  Fishers Popcorn.  We ate well!

13) Go see Falling Water. (Frank Lloyd Wright) 

This is a Bucket List item. 

14) Visit 12 new to me bakeries.

        1) Eli Mochi Donut

        2) The Reister's Daughter

        3) Leonard's Bakery (Honolulu)

        4) Tour les Jours

Dad's Slides

 This has been a journey, ya'll.

To recap: 

I hadn't seen Dad's slides in years.  (Like 40).   Dad passed away 20 years ago.  

I also hadn't heard from my step-mother since Dad passed away in spite of numerous attempts to contact her.

During the pandemic, I received a phone call from my step mother to come and get his "stuff".  As soon as the travel restrictions were lifted, I drove up and picked them up.  Among the many things in the stash that she gave me was a treasure trove of slides.

I converted the slides to digital at the public library.

And then, finally!  I went to a scrapbooking retreat this past weekend in Delaware.  It took 4 days, but the pictures are finally ensconce in an album.  Everything is labeled, events are journaled, and I added funny family anecdotes as I went along.  It's a work of art. I am so happy to have this invaluable memory of my growing up years!

The mess at my table.  I am not a "clean" crafter.  I make a huge mess.  That's why I pay for a table at a retreat.  I have a dedicated table for several days and I can make as much of a mess as I want.

Look at the quality of these pictures!  These are from Ft. Sumter.  We traveled there on vacation in 1975. I will say - Dad was pretty consistent about the quality of the film he used.  He was a Kodak man.  Most of the photos were on Kodak film, and they are well preserved.  Across the board, I did not find myself adjusting the colors.  I thought the colors had held up well over time.  There were several sets of slides on other rolls of film.  Some of them had deteriorated so much, they were just blank slides.  There were a handful I was able to save with extensive digital editing.

I got home yesterday and didn't really know what to do with myself.  This has been an all-consuming project for the last 6 years. I'm glad it's finished.  But I feel slightly adrift now... 

Rogue Tulips

We were traveling last spring and went through a town that had their annual Tulip Dig.  Have you ever been to one of these?  The town digs up the tulip bulbs, and the members of the community get to take the bulbs home, take care of them, and plant them in their own yards the following fall.

We were headed out to a wedding at the time and were not prepared to stop and dig tulips in our formal wear.  However, we went back that night to look at the empty beds and see if maybe, just maybe, some of those tulip bulbs had been overlooked.

There were no large bulbs left,  But when we looked closely at the garden beds, we found several teeny tiny overlooked bulbs.  And by teeny-tiny, I mean teeny tiny.  Many were smaller than a quarter and some were no larger than a dime.  I picked up the ones that I found, put them in a brown envelope, and stuck them in the back of the refrigerator until right around Halloween, when I planted them in the planter box in front of the house.  We covered the entire box with leaves, and then we put chicken wire over top of all to keep the neighborhood squirrels from feasting.

I had forgotten about them until earlier this month when they began to bloom!  They weren't large, but they are very showy.  Some of them look like they struggled to even be here this spring, but they showed up and brightened my day.

The forgotten, left behind bulbs produced the most amazing show I've ever seen.  I'll be pulling them soon.  Drying them out, and then putting them in a brown paper bag in the back of the refrigerator until Halloween, when I'll put them in a flower box once again and see what happens next year.

In the meantime, I'm very curious to see if the bulbs are any bigger this year than they were last year when I salvaged these forgotten little gems from the side of the road.  Maybe they've put off a few new little tubers that I can nurture (or ignore) through the next winter?

My Wayward Laptop

 My laptop quietly gave up on me last month. The journey to get it fixed has been a quest of epic proportions.  My laptop is a windows machine, so taking it to the Genius Bar was not an option. The Genius Bar has kept my phones and tablets working for years past when most people would have given up and bought a new one.

Anyway, the journey began to a call with a local tech guy. I should have known better - he ghosted me 6 years ago when I was attempting to get the keyboard replaced on my old laptop. Anyway, over the course of a month and many emails, he diagnosed the problem as a broken motherboard. But then, he stopped answering my e-mails, and the thought of getting it fixed seemed like a distant dream. 

Exasperated, I took it to a repair shop at a big box retailer near me. The initial diagnosis was broken motherboard, and I was told to “just buy a new laptop”. Ummm.. that computer is less than 3 years old. I don’t think so. The kid I spoke with eventually turned me over to his manager. 

The manager told me that we could and should send it off to their major repair center - it was out of state. That initial check would cost $150. So, I sent it off. $150 is significantly less than the cost of a new computer. He asked how high I was willing to go for repair. I said “Take the top of the line Apple MacBook Pro with all of the bells and whistles. Take 20% off.  That’s the price I’m willing to pay to repair this. (That’s a decent chunk of change.)

One week later, I get a text from the repair center. Total cost of the repair will be $169 to replace the broken motherboard.

My computer is now back in my hot little hands!

But then?  What's this?  The battery is dead.  As long as it is plugged in, I am fine.  But long term?  I need to get a new battery.  I've made an appointment with the folks at the big box retailer for next week.  Hopefully, that's a fix they'll be able to perform in store, and my laptop will only be out of commission for a day or two.

Anyway, if you've been wondering why my posts have been so sporadic?  This is why.  

Mean Moms: A Novel

Written by Emma Rosenblum, published July, 2025.

Buckle up, buttercup, because this book is a wild ride from beginning to end.  Set in the prestigious (read ultra rich) Atherton Private Academy in New York City, the book follows a set of Queen Bee Moms through a school year.  The publisher classifies this book as a satirical domestic thriller/fiction novel. I don't feel like that title even begins to cover the depth of the dark humor or the look at the social maneuvering that are found throughout this book. 

The fly leaf asks a question that haunted me throughout the entire book: What would happen if the woman standing next to you at school pickup was actually a sociopath?  And with that lead, the wildest literary ride I've had in a long time began. 

As you can tell from the title of the blog, I had children. Enough to fill a mini-van.  And I was very involved in their activities. I can honestly say, I've met most of the Moms that were caricatured in this book at some point in time.  While I am not and never have been wealthy (my kids went to public schools) The personalities of the main characters were accurately portrayed.  I've met these women.  You've met them, too!