If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! Image by Craft*ology via Flickr We recently visited our son’s family in Boston. We took our five-year-old grandson from Washington, DC with us to visit our five-year-old granddaughter. For something a little different to do in Boston, you might consider the New England Aquarium and make a day of it with a duck tour of Boston. We watched the duck tours gaily circling Boston Public Garden. In our case, however, our daughter-in-law had given our grandson an old, dog-eared copy of Make Way for Ducklings, that charming... (Read More ...)

How to Play the Piano When I was young I wanted to learn how to play the piano. I had friends who had pianos in their homes, and there was always an air of mystery and sophistication around them. But, I could hardly ask for a piano for Christmas. I knew my limits. Skip ahead 25 years. My son wanted a piano. A good friend, a good pianist herself, invited him to play around on her piano and then agreed that, if I went piano shopping for a used piano, she would try it out for me and give him beginning lessons. She gave me the name of her piano tuner and, as it happened, he knew someone who was... (Read More ...)

My parents thought it important for us to understand money. We started getting allowances in third grade and discussed stocks my father was considering at the dinner table. By the time we were all 12, we were earning our own money through baby-sitting and delivering newspapers and no longer needed an allowance. Money Savvy Pig When I was a Freshman in college, I was given a year’s grace to get used to college before having to earn my own spending money and buy my own books. Unused to all the free time you have between classes in college, I got a job after six weeks. And, yet. They did not explain... (Read More ...)

National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Who Plays String Games? A couple of weeks ago, my five-year-old grandson asked to go to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. It opened in 2004, but I’d never been. It is blocks away from and facing the nation’s Capitol building. It looks like it was carved out of a sandstone cliff. Filled with artifacts, beautifully displayed, it is particularly well-suited for children. A short film provides an overview of American Indians in our culture and history, and this is where you are advised to start your visit. Probably... (Read More ...)

Image via Wikipedia A favorite of our church’s auction items is Game Night. The host puts out their favorite games and everyone brings favorites to share.  I always learn new games. This year, my husband learned Texas Hold ‘Em, a phenomenon of a poker game that has been sweeping the country and about which we were curious. An introduction to Texas Hold ‘Em can be found here.  I learned Mexican Train, a variation on Dominoes, and Spoons, a fast, fun card game. In Mexican Train, you play dominoes, starting the first round with double 12s, down to double 1s. If you can, you play on your... (Read More ...)