You may think Easter sweet treats are all about those chocolate eggs that you hide around the house for the kids to find (or not). But in our family, it’s about Noodle Pudding! This is no mashugana. And it’s notkugel! It’s noodle! Have you heard? I’m famous! Well, sort of. I’m the Queen Of Noodle Pudding. In my family that is. Fame in any form is fun. My fame only continues as long as I keep making the noodle pudding. Every Holiday, including Easter, I am tasked with bringing the noodle pudding. And this year is no exception. So, with the help of my sous chef Tom, who is also my sweet-treat husband, we set to work. I’m calling him the King of Noodle Pudding from now on. We’ll share the crown. Now, don’t get confused. Mine is one of those familiar dairy dishes with cream cheese, sour cream and lots of butter, but NO raisins. I hate raisins. My Aunt Miriam made her noodle pudding with raisins, and that’s where my love for noodle pudding ended. That is until my old friend Sheila gave me the best noodle pudding recipe EVER! It’s easy to make. Easy as pudding! Enjoy!…

Spring is in the air, (hopefully) and so is our desire to get into shape. But instead of thinking seasonally when it comes to your health – think long term. I’m going to give you three bits of advice so that you can be independent for the rest of your life: Move every day. Eat well. Sleep well. At the ripe old age of 82 I have done it all. I lost 50 pounds twenty years ago and kept it off. Tom and I walk every day. Rain, snow, or shine.   Tom and I walk every day with our neighbor Ed, a former WWII Navy Vet. Ed is turning 93 in a few days. Yup, you read that right. 93. Ed walks every single day, except when it’s slippery. He is truly an inspiration. Our friend Ed, 93 and going strong!   Youth is a forgiving time, but when you treat it poorly, the consequences catch up to you eventually. That’s why it’s important to get out there and walk the walk. I say that metaphorically. If you have a treadmill at home, do that every day. If you enjoy swimming, make it happen. The point is to stay active, just…

  You know that frustration you feel when your computer is behaving badly but you’re so in love, you can’t bear to break up with it? Turns out that relationships, including the ones we have with our computers, are very complicated. That’s how I’m feeling right now about my Mac. It’s a MacBook Air and I’ve had it for about 8 years which is like 70 human years. Computer years are even tougher than dog years. If my computer was a PC, I would have been through two more by now, but not with Mac. So, while I’m still trying to hang onto my “best” computer companion, I’ve reached out to Apple Tech Support and any geek/nerd I can find. One of my problems is that my MacBook is not “going to sleep” when I want it to. Which makes it really tough to get updates. Yup, you heard me, Mac will not go to bed! I have to hold down that little button on the top right until it finally goes to sleep. Then after I count ten seconds, I push that button down again, Mac turns on, but not before it flashes a notice at me, The computer shut down because of…

Happy Birthday Tom! Tom is three-quarters of a century old today. WOW! Happy Birthday to my sweetie. Birthdays belong to the owner and are always a time to celebrate. They are a memorial of the past year and a celebration of the coming one. A chance to look to the future. If you could change your birthday, would you? I can’t think of anything I’d change. I’m 82 years old and I still look forward to my birthday. At my age every day is a celebration of life. If I could pick one of the four seasons – winter, spring, summer, fall – I would keep my fall birthday, with its lapis blue skies and leaves of orange and gold. In our family, we have oodles of birthdays to celebrate, with five adult children and their spouses and twelve grandchildren and two granddaughters-in-law. From the time they were old enough to go out with Tom and me, each grandchild always had a special day of going out to eat, shop, play, or however they wanted to celebrate. The great Little Pub Let them eat cake! From Alina’s Cakes. Your birthday is the best day of the year. You own that…

Baby it’s cold outside. Boy is it ever! But Tom and I are all snug as two bugs in a rug with our wood stove and our stack of fresh logs for the fire. The wood will keep our heating costs down and our toes all warm and toasty! While I’m recuperating from foot surgery I am under house arrest as I work on my next book, The Unforgettable Miss Baldwin. It’s set in the Gilded Age of New York. Everything about this book makes me smile and laugh. Lots of funny bits, so it’s keeping me warm. A good chuckle will do that for you. And when I want a break from editing, I can peek out the window and watch the winter birds who call our backyard home. I do love our winter birds, they have the most brilliant colors — like the cardinal who doesn’t migrate, but molts into a gorgeous shade of red. It’s my favorite shade of red. Even the female’s winter brown feathery coat is perkier than her summer variation of brown. We have one or two male hollies on our property, and lots of females producing those red berries that pop out around…

We didn’t need to return the champagne. Two sips, done and yum! I’m going to tell you a little secret: I’ve never ever made a New Year’s Resolution. There! The cat’s out of the bag. Why? Every positive change I’ve made in my life happened because of slow, steady, hard work. Not after three glasses of champagne at 12:01 on Jan. 1st. You might say I do “Reverse Resolutions”. There are a few other things I like to do “in reverse” and that includes shopping! Yup! This time of year is all about “reverse shopping”. Every year after the Holidays are over, I put my precious packages under my arm, and trudge to the mall through snow, hail, and threat of 40mph winds, just like the postman used to do. Lately I’ve seen them driving around in their nifty mail trucks. It’s blooming lovely. Many years ago, you couldn’t return anything without a good excuse. That was before stores like Costco and Walmart came on the scene and began to implement their return policies, then all the chi-chi stores followed suit. And so every January begins the “reverse shopping” trips: the Christmas lights that didn’t light. The flickering battery candles…

My angel is all caught up in the holiday spirit. No matter what I say, she insists I take the time to enjoy the tree lights and sing Christmas carols. She even wants me to paint a winter landscape. She reminds me to be kind, patient and generous of spirit. She says, “Remember Scrooge? Of course! Who can forget the miser who turns into a kind and giving soul? A Christmas Carol is the classic Christmas Story by Charles Dickens that so many of us love to read at this time of year. It reminds us to have have joy and peace in our hearts and to be kind all year long. Scrooge, was a squeezing, scraping, clutching old miser. He hated Christmas, and said it was nothing but “humbug.” Well, we all know the truth don’t we? What ever you celebrate during the Holiday Season – it is a time for sharing and charing and giving. And that is what life is all about isn’t it? Here are the last two pages from the original book, A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens, pp115-116 (public domain-from the Library of Congress) But he was early at the office next morning. Oh,…

As a kid, my creativity took the form of re-creating. I took clothes apart and remade them into something different. I turned my mother’s gown into a dress. Mom was horrified. I also took apart radios and clocks and put them back together. Dad was supportive. I sometimes needed his help. I also began drawing when I was a kid. I drew faces and comic book characters, like Wonder Woman. Everything around me was an inspiration – to create. Music has always been a joy. I love to play piano and guitar. If only there was more time in a day to create new things, including all the ones in my dreams. Then there’s my professional life as an interior designer where I photographed the spaces I created. The interior design school I founded gave others a way to expand their horizons. Currently, my passion is writing and painting. Painting landscapes has been a way of connecting to nature and to explore the beauty of a sky, a sunset, sunrise, a body of water, a wave. I see a painting in everything, even a building, a portrait of my grandchildren, and a snowy Christmas tree. Everyone loves the creativity Christmas…

There are some Thanksgivings my husband Tom and I travel to Phoenix, Arizona to visit our grandchildren in the west. This year our Marietta, GA family joined us here in Phoenix. There are eleven of us, five are the kids. We love it, the cousins love getting together, we have fun, lots of laughing and telling stories and, of course, eating out, eating in, and eating on the big day.Thanksgiving is always a special time for us, a time to reflect on what we’re thankful for. I’m thankful for family and for the time we get to spend with them. Our New Jersey (in the east) seven grandchildren will party with us at Christmas time.   Grandchildren are the rewards for motherhood. Motherhood, a job no one is really prepared for. Parenting isn’t taught, and why not? All we have are the role models that parented us. Right? They didn’t go to school for parenting, neither did their parents. This is sometimes good, and sometimes bad We learn how to do so many other life jobs, but no schooling for parenting. How about a required course in college? Can’t graduate unless you’ve taken the parenting course. Oh my goodness, who…

I love to get dressed up and go out on the town. Even, now at my age (I just turned 82 years young!) I love to go out with my husband Tom. Just last weekend we went to a party at the ballroom dance studio where we practice our  fox-trot, waltz, salsa and so many more. Our talented instructors, Monika and Henry just celebrated their fourth-year anniversary of Dance Fairfield. Part of the Fred Astaire Dance Franchise. History has shown us that women have always loved to get dressed up. And yes, even be a little daring in their fashion choices. Being daring is different depending on the woman. For some women it means wearing a stunning gown with a deep décolletage or décolleté. Décolletage is the area of the neck, shoulders, back and upper chest exposed by the neckline of a woman’s clothing, low-cut necklines of ball gowns, evening gowns, leotards, lingerie and swimsuits, among other fashions. Even today, décolletage is seen as an expression of femininity, and in some parts of the world any décolletage is considered provocative and shocking. During the Victorian period, social attitudes required women to cover their bosom in public. For day dresses, high…