All The Home Forum
- For this family recipe, too many cooks were just enough
Every time I make my vegetable beef soup, I’m reminded of the people who inspired each additional ingredient I’ve added to it over the years.
- Overcast, but not downcast
After any random social gathering we end up with an umbrella or two. They belong to the newcomers, freshly arrived in the Pacific Northwest.
- To learn to skate, you must learn to get up again – even 10 years later
Inspired by Olympians, our essayist first learned to skate at 8 years old. Years later, she’s learning anew how to get back up after a fall.
- The nuts and bolts of writing, but not nuts and bolts
"I won’t even attempt to put together furniture from Ikea," Sue Wunder writes in an essay. Even handling a can opener produces eye rolls from her son.
- How ’bout them apples? My winter work ensures a bountiful fall.
Apple trees are pruned when they’re dormant – which means I have to make a frigid climb into the canopy.
- Wisdom, chaos, kindness, and piglets
Acts of unselfish kindness can change a person from grumpy to gentle, or at least that’s what happened to my friend Mr. Fletcher.
- A treetop view of the mall’s rise and fall
My husband witnessed one of the nation’s first shopping malls being built in the 1960s. But where can towns store their teens now?
- A warm memory of a bitter winter
As an American woman, I was a curiosity on the streets of Chuncheon, South Korea, in 1968 and a further surprise at the public bathhouse.
- I find plenty of news in old books
“I am not much taken by the new books,” Michel de Montaigne declared in the 16th century. I'm carrying that torch into the 21st.
- In the Cold War’s depths, a glimmer of light
Essayist Peter Bridges had come to Moscow’s U.S. Embassy just prior to the Cuban missile crisis. He found something unexpected in Russia: hope.
- At the airport, I’m overtaken by grace
My trip had been a disaster, due to my own reticence. And now, who is this man tapping me on my shoulder?
- A Christmas tree for Mrs. Mueller
Our class tree was the perfect gift for our widowed neighbor. It took an inside job to get it out of the classroom.
- Finding their voice, and a gracious way of giving (animation)
The carolers’ first stops left much to be desired. And so they adapted, they improvised. And they sang their way into an arena of good cheer.
- A city girl’s epiphany splitting wood
The meditative quality of log splitting can lead to many brilliant ideas – ideas that must be shared. Or so it seems.
- You call that ‘weather’? A Kansan and Californian debate.
The weather in Kansas is intriguing, if not always pleasant. California’s is delightful, but repetitive.
- Writing to the writers in my life
What I’ve found, on the whole, is that writers love all kinds of writing – including letters from readers like me.
- When strangers become links in a chain of compassion
When a stranger on the subway helped me recover my stolen lunch, I knew I had to pay it forward somehow.
- For me, the flower-child option arrived just in time
My authentic self suffered through a home perm and much of high school, until I was rescued by the 1960s.
- Everyday feats that are arguably Olympian
Being the world’s fastest human is one thing. What about other records, like forgetting to bring reusable shopping bags to grocery 216 trips in a row?
- A bold call for local reform, a quick text to Mom
Abruptly home from college, my son and his friends started a local political party. Then I – his mother – became their candidate.