I sat on the edge of my chair, my eyes focused on the clock hanging above the chalkboard.  Tick tock. Tick tock.  The second hand slowly inched forward. I held my breath.  Tick tock. Tick tock. The second hand hit the sweet spot on the clock making the school dismissal bell sound. I scrambled from […]

As August draws to a close, school buses are back on the roads, blackboard rails have chalk dust in them again, and back-to-school shopping is pretty much wrapped up. But as I walked the aisles of notebooks, pencils, and backpacks last week, there was one item that seemed to be missing from the store shelves. […]

I was chatting with a friend the other day when I suddenly realized I’d missed a good chunk of the conversation. My brain jumped off the focus train without my being aware of it and went on its own little excursion. I didn’t do it on purpose. I never do, but I confess. I’m sometimes […]

  The word potpourri comes from the French word pot-pourri, which means a pot of something rotting. Since synthetic fragrances are a perk of the newer ages, people used potpourri as an air freshener in ancient times.  Some claims date potpourri back to the 12th century. The servants would fill bowls with potpourri as soon […]

The sun makes days, seasons, and years. The moon makes months. But who invented weeks? What makes Monday a Monday and why does it come so relentlessly every seven days? Why is Monday night sacred to football? What about “luckless Friday the 13th,” “Flashback Thursday,” “Taco Tuesday,” “Payday Saturday?” and the long-forgotten “Monday is laundry […]

As a young girl, I spent many weekends with Grammy.  After lunch one Saturday afternoon in early March, I sat next her. Together we scanned the local newspaper looking for films being featured that weekend at the Palace Theater, a 20-minute bus ride from her house into downtown Dallas.  After selecting our film, off we […]