Janet's Blog

My daughter, Meagan's, family raises chickens. Her hens aren't laying very well right now, but when they are, the kids gather the eggs everyday and take them into the mudroom, where a couple of the kids are tasked with washing and drying each egg carefully before they are carefully placed in cartons or egg trays, and refrigerated. The eggs can sit on the counter for a few days, if necessary, until someone has time to wash them, because eggshells have a natural, protective coating that keep them in good shape at room temperature. In Europe, eggs are usually sold unwashed, so they don't need to be refrigerated, but in the US, most eggs are washed before they are sold, making refrigeration necessary--because who wants to buy eggs spattered with chicken poop? When young children are in charge of gathering and washing eggs, a few of them are dropped. This isn't a great catastrophe, since there are always more eggs to gather, and there is usually at least one cat or dog who i...

Conforming is easy--you just follow the crowd. Wear the newest fashions, cut your hair in the latest style, use the currently popular slang. If you can afford it, you can do it. If you're unsure about what to do, just check any school. The most conforming schools insist that kids wear uniforms: polo shirts in the prescribed colors, khaki or navy pants or, for girls, a coordinating navy or plaid skirt or jumper. But even schools with lax dress codes are full of students and teachers who conform by wearing the latest contemporary fashion. T-shirts and jeans remain the most popular clothing, with shorts, sweats, and even pajama pants in the running for the most comfortable school attire. For people who want to conform, smart phones are a must; flip phones are sadly out-of-date, and we shouldn't even mention corded house phones. Young kids whose parents give them talk-and-text-only phones are careful to keep that information to themselves as they struggle to fit in with their peers...

My husband, Bill, has always been good at fixing things. Over the five decades of our marriage, he has rarely called for someone to fix something he is able to fix himself. That includes most plumbing repairs, even though he always reminds me, as he gathers up his plumbing tools, that he hates plumbing. Even as a young child, he was inquisitive and precocious, often taking things apart and constructing useful items from found objects. Bill's mother shared that he was a hard one to raise because he couldn't sit still, and was always into things. Over the years, he has repaired and constructed a variety of things, always working on some project or another. I guess there's a good reason he decided to become an electronic engineer. Have I mentioned that Bill holds several patents that have been widely used in the Cable TV and Internet industries? Both of our biological daughters have inherited their dad's ability to fix things around the house and work on significant home ...