Julie's Musings | Julie Saffrin

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…

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…

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,…

NEW C. S. LEWIS CHRISTMAS WALL ART PRINT

November 23, 2018 • Julie Saffrin • Leave a Comment

Christmas. What it’s really about is what C. S. Lewis expressed perfectly: “Once in our world, a Stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.” If you’ve been looking for a simple saying that expresses how you feel about Christmas and are looking for something that will fit perfectly in a 10-inch by 12-inch frame (my preference is a gold frame), then you have found such an item. For awhile now, I’ve wanted to create something simple yet profound. That said it all about Christmas. It’s now up in my Etsy store, in juliesaffrinsstuff If you…

A VERY BRITISH CHRISTMAS CARD

November 20, 2018 • Julie Saffrin • 1 Comment

Many of you know I love anything having to do with Great Britain. And if I could have my druthers, I would visit there every year. But, because that is not likely happening, I’ve decided to bring Great Britain to me. And to you, should you desire. It’s in the form of a British Christmas card. Yes, Merry Christmas to you and me all year long with all things British hanging on the tree. Meant to give you a jolly holiday – and to anyone else who is an anglophile but can’t get there this year. Introducing the Anglophile’s British…

CREATING YOUR OWN GIFT WRAP PAPER WITH SPOONFLOWER

November 8, 2018 • Julie Saffrin • 1 Comment

In September, 2018, I, along with four fabulous women, hosted a bridal shower for a friend’s future daughter-in-law, Sarah. During the opening of her presents, the bride received one wrapped in paper we all loved. It was gift wrap that held repeated images of the bride and groom. The bride’s mom had had it created in England. I loved the idea and wondered if I could find a place in the U. S. to do the same thing. Yup, at Spoonflower. I wanted to create an random, off-kilter black-and-white polka dot image so it could be used for anyone and…

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