Every other Friday I drive from my home in West Asheville to the food co-op on Biltmore Avenue downtown. I take the busy road outside my neighborhood and have a neat little trick for getting off at the correct exit, which I learned while riding on the bus. Once, a…
Whenever I get the notion that I need to let go of something, I want to walk a labyrinth to facilitate that action. Western culture, especially in the US is devoted to the getting and keeping of material things. We have been conditioned since early childhood to reap all we…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There’s a day we dread on our calendar. No, it’s not dental appointment day. It’s when my husband and I have to flip our mattress over in what I call The Mattress Maintenance Program. Sleeping well is essential for good health and there are rituals involved to…
=======================@======================= The main reason to have children is so that they can remind you what an old fart you are. Last Christmas I bought my husband a boxed set of DVDs of the TV show Northern Exposure. It took us a year to watch all six seasons. Then we loaned…
It might have been Scar from The Lion King who said/sang “Be Prepared”, but it is also the motto of The Boy Scouts of America. I was a Girl Scout for about three months. I think their motto back then was “We have cookies.” I think they should have been…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ok, it’s the second week of January and I have not made any resolutions. After reading several articles about the looming year, it seems my strategy might be in vogue. Resolutions are passe. Lists are out of fashion. Wanting to accomplish something might be better accomplished by not focusing…
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ~~~~~ :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Friends contacted us the week before Christmas to let us know they would like to stop by the Hobbit House on their way from one destination to another. We were delighted. We visited them during the summer in a similar scenario. I made bagels and my husband…
I hope everyone enjoyed the past few weeks of guest writers’ contributions to Ethel. My aim is to include a few musings of my fellow scribblers throughout the coming new year. This will, of course, allow me some extra time to work on other things like writing the next best-selling…
Guest Author: Tee Conroy Everyone is now jealous of Tee’s two new bathrooms. Though it must be said, she is generous with allowing visitors to use at least one of them. ))))))))2(((((((( The morning after that troubling call, I headed downstairs to my laundry room with a load of dirty…
Guest author: Tee Conroy Tee spends most of her time avoiding making decisions. She is a recent Mahjong champion and is preparing for her audition with the National Ballet Company by practicing Zumba and Hip Hop at the Y. She is a member of the Asheville Women Writers Co-op and…