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Trip Report: Tips for Traveling to Norway
What’s the old saying: Use it or lose it? Hopefully, that does not apply to writing because I definitely have not been “using” that muscle so to speak, at least when it comes to blogging. Anyway, I’m going to try to just jump right into it, without first consulting a doctor or anything, and I’ll…
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How to Become a Successful Freelance Writer in 11 Easy Steps
I have an acquaintance who recently reached out to talk about how they “might approach getting into freelance writing.” This sort of request happens fairly frequently and I always oblige. I have to say though, my track record of selling freelance writing as a career is less than stellar. Maybe it’s my sales pitch. Here’s…
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How is the Year Almost Over? (Welcome to Nothing Week)
Well, hellloooo. And welcome to my favorite week of the year – the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. That weird in-between time/no-time where no one is working or doing anything productive. We’re all just lying around, embracing full decay mode. Just like all the memes on social media have suggested. We’ve certainly been…
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How Is Summer Almost Over?
Whelp, it’s finally here. Sheryll’s Solo Summer (SSS) is coming to an end next week, as my schmoopies-for-life comes back from his sabbatical taking care of his father. It truly has been a long three months. And a lot of physical and emotional work for my beloved XFE in the midst of an unprecedented heat…
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Lessons in Living from ‘The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning’
Last week kind of got away from me. It was eventful. Our cats chased a mouse from the screened in porch (we have a crack under the door) and into the house during the final Vanderpump Rules Reunion episode. This has happened once or twice before, and usually, my live-in mouse remover/exterminator XFE takes charge…
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Indignities of Aging I Was Not Prepared For
Young people: heed my advice. Do not get old. I do not recommend it. 0 out of 10. Negative stars. It sucks. And yes, I know the alternative is not getting old, aka: death. But sometimes, the indignity of watching your own slow degradation makes death seem like an attractive option. I got my second…
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Life and Mountain Laurel in West Virginia
Whew. It’s been a long-ass six (or seven?) months since my last post. Not like a whole second global pandemic long, but not too far off the mark. For the last – gosh, I want to say, for 10(!?) months — my lovable and wonderful non-husband, XFE has been dealing with aging family members’ health…
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Trip Report: St. Regis Bali (also, Revisited)
Winter has settled in at the cabin, it gets dark at like, 4:30, and with the holidays and probably snow right around the corner, I thought I’d travel back in time to much warmer days—ie: my ongoing trip report for Southeast Asia. When last I left off, we had just finished the first leg of…
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Trip Report: Singapore Revisited
I’m writing this from the very back of the struggle bus. We got back from our Singapore-Bali-Indonesian islands vacation about a week ago and we are still trying to get back on schedule. I don’t know if it’s because we’re old or just out of practice or what, but both XFE and I are having…
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Can’t We Just Stay in Our Bubble?
It’s official – COVID lockdown has ended. I know this because I’m pretty sure we were the last holdouts and we have finally loosened up our protocols. We are no longer sheltering in place, just the two of us and the cats. We’ve slowly peeked our heads out of our collective shells and gradually started…