Even with all of the holiday hub-bub ramping up, we have another special event that is happening in our household this fall season. My oldest is moving into her first apartment. Yes, my eldest has finally landed her first “real” job in Washington, D.C., and we have been busy these last few weeks searching for places to live and getting ready for this next step in her professional and personal life. We spent all day on the Veteran’s Day holiday…
OK, so you’ve (reluctantly) agreed to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the family this year, or maybe it’s your first time tackling what is arguably the most difficult meal of the season to plan and prepare. It will be a formidable task. So much planning, the endless prep, the fight for oven space – the list goes on and on. There’s a whole gaggle of close family (and that weird cousin you only see once a year) in the other room,…
Well, Halloween has just ended, and as the time changes and the weather becomes colder, the calendar shows that there are only a few weeks remaining until the end of another year. However, before we ring in that “Auld Lang Syne” and say “hello” to 2025, we still have some pretty big holidays to prepare for, and they will be here before you know it. Thanksgiving is next on the calendar (although retailers will make you believe there is nothing…
Last weekend, my wife and I joined some friends for a weekend adventure to the Great White North, visiting our neighbors in Canada for a few days of winery visits and good company. We left Maryland last Thursday, and the drive north was full of fall color and beautiful weather. The trip to Canada is only about six hours from our neck of the woods, so it was the perfect time of year for a fall drive. We stopped in…
I’m not sure how many of you out there follow science and space news, but if you’re not watching the news coming from SpaceX, you’re really missing out. Now, I’m not a big fan of their imperious leader (Elon Musk), but his pocketbook is bankrolling this whole operation, so for that (at least), I give him props. He throws money at these far-flung space projects like he’s trying to win a bet with someone (maybe Mark Zuckerburg). For those of…
One of the things on our family’s “bucket list” is to someday see the Aurora Borealis – aka the “Northern Lights”. We talk about trips to Iceland, Norway, or Alaska, but in order to see the jaw-dropping splendor of this natural phenomenon in its prime, we’d have to travel in winter to places much more frigid than the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., which my girls are not too keen on, overall. Luckily, Mother Nature, in all her grand beauty,…
This past weekend, I celebrated another birthday. I turned 57, which is not old enough to qualify for Social Security, but still is old enough to say “may I have the senior discount, please?” at the movie theater. Anyway, at my age, a birthday is a good time to pause for a moment and reflect about the past, take stock of the present, and look forward to the future. I’ve made my share of life mistakes, but I’ve never had…
I’m always on the lookout for a great place to have dinner with friends and family. Market Street in Frederick, MD has several fantastic dining options, but for this visit, I traveled to the north end of that busy street for a taste of French cuisine at Up on Market Bistro. As the name implies, the bistro (and attached inn) is styled in the classic décor and furnishings of a typical French bistro or brassiere found all over Paris. Brass…
Well, another relatively dry and hot summer is in the record books, and I’m now looking forward to the cool nights and colorful landscape that makes fall my favorite time of the year, especially in the region where I live. In addition to the vibrant foliage, there are many other things that make autumn my favorite of all the seasons. What’s your favorite part of the fall season? Drop me a line in the comments below!
I spent this past weekend down in sunny (and wet) Florida, visiting family and also attending the parent’s weekend at my youngest daughter’s college – the University of Central Florida. Back when I was a Florida resident, UCF was just a small commuter school (think the size of Hagerstown Community College), but over the past twenty years, it has grown by leaps and bounds, now boasting the largest university population in the state with over 70,000 students. The construction on…