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.…
Read MoreWRITING A LETTER TO AN AUTHOR WHO CHANGED YOUR LIFE
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…
Read MoreQUAINTLY & CO. SUBSCRIPTION BOX OF MARY POPPINS RETURNS
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…
Read MoreHAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
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,…
Read MoreA NEW DAY
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,…
Read MoreNEW C. S. LEWIS CHRISTMAS WALL ART PRINT
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…
Read MoreA VERY BRITISH CHRISTMAS CARD
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…
Read MoreCREATING YOUR OWN GIFT WRAP PAPER WITH SPOONFLOWER
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…
Read MoreHOLIDAY BOUTIQUE NOVEMBER 17 AT CHRIST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN EDINA, MN
If you’re looking for a holiday boutique to visit on Saturday, November 17, 2018, Christ Presbyterian church’s Holiday Boutique is back! Last year, the church was in the midst of a renovation and did not have boutique. This year, the renovation is complete! This is the 16th annual boutique they have done. Boutique hours: 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The church is located at 6901 Normandale Road, Edina, Minnesota. I’ll be in the Multipurpose Room at Booth No. 5. Stop by and say hi, should you be dropping by! I’ll be signing BlessBack®: Thank Those Who Shaped Your Life…
Read MoreWRITING RETREAT IN MITCHELL, SOUTH DAKOTA
So easy for me to put writing off and fill time with other things. Hard for me to say yes to shouting down my fears and just type. Really helps to get away and force myself to just write, without little shiny bulbs to distract me. The last weekend of October, my friend, Barbara Majchrzak and I, did just that. We got away on a writing retreat. And it was a time of great concentration, advancing my manuscript, and for Barb, celebrating a finished manuscript. Barb and I go back a long way, like I think at least twenty years.…
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