It’s Thanksgiving week, so to me it’s now officially the holiday season.
Some of you might be old enough to remember when United Airlines launched its “Fly the Friendly Skies” campaign back in 1965. They later moved away from it, and I just read they relaunched it two years ago – right before the COVID-19 pandemic grounded flights for months and put the kibosh on…
This is the big week before Halloween and my neighborhood is decorated with all sorts of blow-up spiders, ghosts and other ghastly creatures. Some folks have covered their homes in fake cobwebs while others have opted for orange strings of lights. Then there’s my house adorned with only a Ha…
I remember reading a humor column a long time ago by one of my favorite writers, Erma Bombeck. She was the best and always made me laugh.
As I write this, we’re enjoying a sunny late September day with a high near 80 degrees.
It’s usually tough to think about most of September as still being summer when the leaves are already starting to lose some of their luster, the sun angles are lower, days are shorter and everything around you is suddenly covered in pumpkins, hay bales and pumpkin spice dust.
They’re here! Well, OK, not here in Southwestern Pennsylvania (yet), but Washington state is close enough. I’m talking about those extremely creepy and downright scary creatures they’re calling the murder hornets. Have you heard about them? Asian giant hornets are two inches long and their s…
Have you been to downtown Pittsburgh lately?
Chartiers-Houston Community Library will welcome area jazz musicians, “The Dan Baker Group, for an outdoor concert at 7 p.m. Aug. 21. The concert is the result of a collaboration between Chartiers-Houston Community Library and Washington Jazz Society to end the summer on a high note. The con…
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved watching the Olympic Games.
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I think my house is slowly trying to kill me. It’s not like the Amityville Horror house or anything creepy like that. If that were the case, then the house surely would have tried to electrocute me a few months ago when I changed out a light fixture for the first time in my life. I double, t…
Temperatures have been all over the place this spring and now early summer. June had 20 days above 80 degrees but the first official 90- degree day of the year for Pittsburgh didn’t occur until Monday, June 28. Pittsburgh saw a high of only 66 on the 22nd, then soared to 92 on the 28th, and …
Do you play the lottery? I sometimes do but usually only when jackpot amounts soar past $100 million – as if a prize of $5 million, $20 million or even $42 million isn’t enough to entice me to play. The last time I bought tickets, I didn’t even get one number correct.
Last week’s dry, warm weather motivated me to do some yard work. In addition to mowing grass and cleaning and mulching flowerbeds, I sighed and began the exhausting but highly satisfying task of trimming hedges.
Did you dodge the raindrops long enough to mow your lawn last week? Between downpours and chilly temperatures, it’s been a struggle, and my grass had grown about 6 inches tall in many spots. I desperately needed to mow it.
April is almost at an end, and suffice to say this month has had, well ... some issues. It seems to me like April 2021 is having an identity crisis. It can’t decide whether it wants to be part of spring or hold onto winter’s chill.
I saw a commercial the other day from a luxury carmaker touting its new electric sedan. Electric cars seem to be popping up everywhere now, and even auto racing has an all-electric circuit, which blows my mind. I can’t imagine going to a racetrack, hearing the announcer say, “Drivers, start …
I went for my somewhat daily walk around the neighborhood the other day for some exercise and was enjoying the sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures that have been in place the past couple of weeks. Birds were chirping and a few kids were giggling as they played nearby. It was peaceful…
It’s almost here! Can you feel it? Spring is right around the corner with daylight saving time, St. Patrick’s Day and warmer temperatures all hinting that we’re about to turn the corner and veer away from what has been a very snowy winter.
Mario Lemieux has always held a special place in my heart. We’re roughly the same age and I felt like I grew up right along with him while watching his playing career, amazing feats on the ice and growing family. His injuries and medical setbacks, inspirational comebacks and transition into …
Every once in a while, I wind up reading something that makes my jaw drop, prompts me to burst out in laughter or simply leaves me stunned. All of those scenarios applied when I read the news release from the power company leading up to Valentine’s Day. They were reminding customers to fill …
It’s January, the skies are cloudy and dreary, and it’s cold and snowing outside. This kind of weather doesn’t inspire me to get out and get moving unless, of course, it’s on the ski slopes. Skiing is such fun and terrific exercise, but I can’t make it to the slopes every day. In warmer weat…
Well, we’ve made it! 2020 is slowly slogging to a bitter end with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging but with hopes renewed that it may come to an end in the new year. The first vaccines have been given approval and are starting to be administered. It really is amazing to me how quickly they…
It’s been one heck of an interesting year, to say the least. Now that we’re approaching Christmas, I imagine you’re busy shopping for gifts, decorating or baking cookies – unless you already did that back in October. Ever since the pandemic pushed us into lockdown last spring, it seems as if…
I can’t decide whether this year is flying by or dragging itself over the finish line and slowly grinding to an end. A commercial the other day featured a coffee mug with a fake review for 2020 saying, “Very bad. Would not recommend.” This made me laugh and think back on what has been either…
Well, we got through Halloween and Election Day and the sun still came up this week.
I can’t decide whether 2020 seems like the slowest year ever or the fastest.
Have you eaten out lately or at all since March?
If you’re reading this, breathe a sigh of relief. No, the COVID-19 worldwide nightmare is not over yet. I’m writing this Monday afternoon, and NASA says not one but two asteroids with estimated diameters between 60 and 90 feet will pass by Earth tomorrow night. So if you’re reading this with…
I’ve read a lot in recent years about the benefits of being mindful. This is the process of concentrating on and enjoying one thing at a time and is the exact opposite of my usual multi-tasking. I have been trying to employ mindfulness since it’s supposed to relieve stress and actually make …
Have you been busy cleaning out closets and reorganizing your stuff? It seems like one byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic is that people found themselves with plenty of time on their hands, stuck at home either not able to work or not able to go anywhere. I’m reading and hearing about everyo…
We’ve finally started summer and I’m already tired of yard work.
Well, we’re in the “green phase” now in most of Southwestern Pennsylvania after months of a lockdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the stay at home order still in place, let’s just say we’re all living in a world where “casual Friday” has morphed into “yoga pants on days that end in Y.”
We’re halfway through the month of April and that means we have about two weeks left on the current stay-at-home directives because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s April Fool’s Day and it certainly feels as if the world is playing a cruel joke on all of us.
Last month, we had a stretch of five 50-plus degree days and three straight days without any precipitation. That may not sound like anything special, but it marked the first time this year we went longer than two days without rain or snow. Two of those three days were sunny with barely a clo…
There we were spending a perfectly quiet Valentine’s Day in Washington, D.C. My boyfriend’s enormous group of colleagues had checked out after their work conference and we went upstairs to change for dinner. While we were changing, a dramatic transformation was afoot in the hotel lobby. We h…
It was the day after the big game and my co-workers still looked a little tired from Super Bowl LIV festivities the night before.
If you’re a regular reader of this column, you may recall that I recently wrote about riding the bus to work in downtown Pittsburgh some days rather than fighting traffic on the parkway. Not only is this a less stressful commute, it also saves me time and money and gives me about a half-hour…
No, I’m not talking about marijuana, although it is legal in Colorado, and it’s everywhere. I mean everywhere. As soon as you leave the airport, you start seeing billboards and signs advertising dispensaries and all sorts of CBD and marijuana products and vendors. I had no interest in any of…
As I write this, the sun is shining and the temperature is soaring into the upper 50s, which is pretty mild for late November.
How long is your commute to and from work? Or do you even have one anymore?
It’s that time of year when leaves have reached their peak golden and rust colors and are beginning to fall, and kids everywhere are excited to put on their Halloween costumes and go do to door for trick-or-treating. I’m prepared with my giant bag of candy which I will try to hand out rather…
Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and not just because of the warm, mainly dry weather, lower humidity and colorful foliage.
Columnist Kristin Emery buys a new car that both amazes and confuses her.
As I write this, Hurricane Dorian is churning just north of the Bahamas after devastating the Abaco Islands. My heart breaks as I see the footage of 20 feet of storm surge overwhelming cars, homes and lives.
I am constantly amazed at how many people are on the highway and how much traffic there is everywhere you go nowadays.
Warm summertime temperatures motivate me to get outside and take a daily walk (most of the time). Sometimes I take my smartphone with me to play some music to enjoy through my earbuds and to keep me going. To those of you who are also products of the 1980s, this is the equivalent of those gu…
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