Janet's Blog

When I was born, Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th president of the United States. Even as a young child, I knew that he was the president, and I had a somewhat vague idea of his job description. I knew that he was worthy of my respect because all of the adults I knew spoke of him in a respectful way. Since then, ten more presidents have come and gone, and number 45 sits in the White House now. For the most part, I have respected our presidents, even when I haven't always agreed with all of their policies. Some presidents have done a better job than others, although U.S. citizens have not always concurred about which presidents were most effective. My whole life, though, I have believed strongly that our country is, indeed, led by a person we call the president. Even now, for better or worse, I believe that Donald Trump is the president of our country. I know what he looks like. I know about his policies. But, I don't know him personally and, quite frankly, as with most ...

I lost over two pounds in one week's time, without even trying. I highly recommend this effective weight loss method. I think I'll call it the Dental Work Diet. Now, I rarely diet, since I have been blessed with a fast metabolism. In fact, until I hit menopause, I had to work hard to maintain a reasonable, healthy weight. I must admit that I got mighty tired of hearing people accuse me of being anorexic, because I wasn't. Instead, I was a rare woman who could eat anything I wanted and still stay too thin , according to my mother and other assorted friends and relatives. My metabolism has apparently slowed down just a touch over the past several years. I've put on a few pounds, in mostly the right places, enough that the A word has not come up in quite a while. In fact, I wouldn't mind losing five pounds or so. And now, I have a head start with this new Dental Work Diet. There's only one catch. First you have to have some expensive dental surgery. In my cas...

This morning, when Levi first woke up, he asked me if he could watch a movie called Matilda . I didn't have to give it much thought. After he finished his Saturday morning chores, Levi found the movie on the free cable Pay-Per-View channel, and I let him watch the movie he had requested. Then, I sat in the family room and watched part of  Matilda  with him. Perhaps you remember the movie, which first came out in 1996, or even the book it is based on, a 1988 classic by one of my favorite children's authors, Roald Dahl. He also wrote eighteen other children's novels, like James and the Giant Peach , and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Like many of his works, Matilda is a rather quirky tale about a child who is magically able to overcome a desperate situation, emerging in triumph at the end of the story. Today, National Adoption Day, was a perfect day to watch Matilda with Levi. Our youngest daughter, Victoria, was almost five when she joined our family t...

This is the time of year when I remember the hotel people, those permanent residents who considered my family to be their family. This time of year brings them to mind because my family usually included them in our fall wild game feeds, and even Thanksgiving dinner, when we stretched out two or three banquet tables, in our apartment living room, to accommodate everyone. While my family attended the Christmas Eve children's program at church, one or two of the old men usually played Santa, moving our presents from their hiding place in some storeroom or convenient hotel room, to our apartment, where they carefully placed the gifts under our Christmas tree. I was only five when we moved to the Oxnard Hotel in Norfolk. All of the permanent residents there were lonely, old men, mostly retired from their lifetime livelihoods. I was too shy to talk to them, but my brother, Dan, who knew no strangers, got to know them well. They got a kick out of his large vocabulary and willingness to ...