Blog | Julie Saffrin

FREE QUOTE BOOK FEB. 13-15, 2020

February 12, 2020 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

For all my life, I’ve collected quotes. So, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I’m doing a three-day giveaway of my book on quotes, “Kissing the Shoreline: Quotes and Reflections to Live By” You can download a digital (e-book) version for free on February 13th, 14th, and 15th, 2020. Here’s one of my favorites from the book. “Friendship is the warm cloak we wear over our winter lives. Friends wrap us with affirmation, enfold us with understanding, and protect us against the cold winds of hostility and criticism. Friendship is the cool breeze of our summer lives. Friends sail along with us…

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

January 3, 2020 • Julie Saffrin • 17 Comments

Minnesota, USA. After our 2019 post-Christmas-ing, we bid adieu to our son, Jake and his wife, Jenny, as they headed back to their new home in Arvada, Colorado. Rick and I headed up to the cabin to make sure all was well. We drove separately because I wanted to stay an extra couple of days to do some writing. He got a ten-minute start. In the way-back of my mind, Rick’s words echoed in my head that supposedly there was a snowstorm in the area. I know some of you live according to The Weather Channel or a weather app. I…

A SWEET AU REVOIR TO 2019, HELLO TO 2020, AND MY WORD FOR THE YEAR: PRACTICING

January 1, 2020 • Julie Saffrin • 6 Comments

Happy 2020 New Year, friends! 2019 had its tough moments, such as receiving middle-of-the-nights calls that my mom had fallen. She had a tough year, fracturing her right hip three times, but is doing much better and loving living near my brother, Steve, and his wife, Debbie, at her new home at Praha Village in New Prague. But, 2019 is a year I’ll store in my heart for always. It was a year where I learned (make that, practiced) bridge (“Relax,” my fellow bridge players constantly say, but the pressure is real! I love the game and the women I’ve…

A FREEBIE

November 16, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

Happy November! Hope your month is going well. Usually at this time of the year, I’m scurrying to create new items and have them printed and packaged for a booth I rent at Christ Presbyterian’s Holiday Boutique. This year, the boutique falls on my granddaughter Olivia’s birthday, so I won’t be there and I’ll miss seeing your kind faces and visiting with you. Being we’re nearing Thanksgiving, I’d like to say thank you to you, for reading my blog, for buying my books, and for buying at my Etsy store, juliesaffrinsstuff. I’d like to give you a freebie that you…

WHAT DO I SAVE AND HOW DO I SAVE IT

September 30, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • 9 Comments

I have reached a breaking point and could use some wisdom. I recently read the average household has 300,000 items. Well, I have three households and I’m overwhelmed with belongings and treasures. My mom was a saver, her mom was a saver, her aunts were savers. I have “inherited” both my parents’ things as well as my grandmother’s things. (My mom was an only child.) My mom moved into a senior living house 4 years ago. Since then, she’s moved three times. Each time, a little more has come home with me and now my house is stuffed. Help me.…

WRITING A LETTER TO AN AUTHOR WHO CHANGED YOUR LIFE

September 20, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

I have a friend, Gail Helgeson, who is a marvelous note-writer. She writes a note to someone every day. She slips little sayings, usually from Mary Engelbreit, into her notes and usually has a sticker or two affixed to the envelope. Her letters are filled with encouragement, swirls, and her signature. Sometimes the notes are small in size, sometimes, they’re cut-and-pasted sayings on construction paper. All keeper words. All soul-touching. Yesterday, Rick and I were on our way up to our cabin in northern Minnesota, and we took the new way we discovered this summer to get there. There’s a…

WHEN MOUNTAINS SING BY STACY MONSON. A REVIEW

August 7, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • 2 Comments

When Mountains Sing book Cover | https://juliesaffrin.com

My favorite kind of story is one that holds my attention, has memorable characters, and leaves you thinking about it after you have finished it. Well, it’s been four days and I can’t, nor do I want to, stop thinking about this book, When Mountains Sing by Stacy Monson. So many takeaways, including the title’s meaning. It’s beautifully written, with not an ounce of a saggy middle, and lots of belly laughs and touchingly tender moments. Most importantly, I’m not a person who likes camping so much, but I want to be a friend to HIKER GIRL! And you’ll want to…

QUAINTLY & CO. SUBSCRIPTION BOX OF MARY POPPINS RETURNS

May 16, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • 1 Comment

I received a subscription gift box from a friend last year for Christmas. Sheer delight for it was from Quaintly & Co and filled with novelty items from Britain. So, in late 2018, when I saw that Quaintly & Co was to release a Mary Poppins Returns-featured gift box, I splurged. And the box was practically perfect in every way. Here’s the card that came in the box, explaining the goodies inside And here’s a look inside the goodie box Sheer delight! Lip Balms Hand cream and nail file and some “proper” popcorn A Bath Fizzy and my favorite, a…

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

May 12, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • 6 Comments

So, hello. I know. It’s been awhile. There’s a reason for that, which I’ll get to in this 500-word-or-less post. (A new goal.) Since the beginning of 2019, life’s been hard for a person I love. Mom. She fell in early February. Hurt herself terribly. A collision with her apartment floor gave her a broken nose, and on her right hip, a hematoma, cantaloupe-sized. At the end of February, she had cataract surgery. She’d just healed. Then, April happened. I have to write it like it felt for all of us. A move, a fall, a middle-of-the-night call, an MRI,…

A NEW DAY

January 1, 2019 • Julie Saffrin • 2 Comments

For years, my mother has kept track of her daily pill routine, probably from years of working as a Pharmacy Technician at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. She starts each page with this simple header: She has decades-worth of these little spiral-bound notebooks. Besides tracking the time and pills she takes a day, many of her entries are mini diaries, including snippets of conversations, phone numbers, Vikings players, Twins players and their scores, as well as random thoughts she has on different subjects. I love the simplicity of this type of record-keeping, using just a 3 x 5 spiral,…

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