2021 – I’m not a big fan of New Year’s Eve and all that it entails.  I’d much rather snuggle up for the evening with the one I love most, with a big bowl of popcorn and watch a classic movie, such as the one I share every year at this time, “When Harry Met Sally.”  Post a comment and tell us how many times you’ve seen Harry and Sally find their way to each other.  As we move forward in to a new year filled with hope for new beginnings and world-wide healing, we once again share this post.  Cheers!

I wrote this piece last year (2020) but it still seems quite relevant given that 2021 presented us with just as many challenges. This year, I’m hoping for a white Christmas, but since it’s unlikely to happen I’ll be at peace with the beauty of twinkle lights, the creativity of our spirited neighbors and some beautiful music. With that being said, I decided to pull this piece from the archives and publish it once again.

Grateful -vs- Thankful (2021)

I wrote this little ditty nearly seven years ago.  Where do the years go?!  It turns out that over the years this little grateful – vs – thankful tale attracts a great deal of traffic to our site, about this time, every year.  Which tells me I’m not alone in my thought process of trying to distinguish between the two.

Looking back on 2021. We had such high hopes, didn’t we? Surely, we thought, it couldn’t be as bad as 2020. It turned out 2021 proved to be just as challenging in its own right. If anyone thought we’d be done with Covid-19 by the end of the year 2020, they were sadly disappointed. At least here in the Divided States of America.

Halloween.  Dia de Los Muertos. It’s not so much that I’m madly in love with the holiday, although I do think it’s crazy fun. I am, in fact, madly in love with all things fall. The trees are bursting with color and mother nature is gearing up for winter as we near the end of October.

How to ride the DC Metro. Let me start by saying something I’ve said many times before and will most likely say again in future posts. One of the best features of Washington, DC is that it is a very walkable city. It’s easy to navigate because the city is laid out in a grid.  With that being said, if you’re not a walker or you just want to catch a ride, the city buses and cabs are easily accessible. Of course, so is the Metro.

Solomons Island is in fact an island, but you’d never know it to look at it on a map. There is just a small sliver of water that cuts its way across the peninsula. But one thing’s for sure, the big attraction to Maryland’s southern tip is water. Lots and lots of water. Solomons Island is where the Patuxent River meets the Chesapeake Bay.

White Flags on the National Mall in Washington, DC. It’s a site we never thought we’d see, but then the world in which we find ourselves is no longer the world we knew before the pandemic. 687,167 on the day we saw the flags. It’s a staggering number. A staggering loss.

There’s a new museum in town. Planet Word and it’s all about… you guessed it. The written word. You might be wondering what a new museum has to do with cocktails and cupcakes. Read more, as they say.

The Bishop’s Garden is just steps away from the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. It reminds me a bit of the classic children’s tale, “The Secret Garden”. Not so much because it’s a secret, which it isn’t, but because it’s a serene little garden tucked away behind a rock wall.