Items of local interest to the four-state area (Western Md, Southern PA, Northern VA, and Eastern WV).
Only two weeks left, folks, and all over the four-state region, it really is starting to look and feel like the holidays have arrived. There’s even snow in the forecast for this week (poo-poo to you winter haters – I say bring on the holiday fluff!) Ever since I was a wee lad, one of my favorite holiday traditions was to drive (or ride) around and look at all of the houses that really went out of their way to…
I was forced into town this past weekend to pick up the final touches to complete my Christmas shopping for this year. While I bought most of my gifts online (an absolute joy at this time of year), there were some stocking stuffers and other knick-knacks that had me out and about among the masses to complete my Christmas lists. And oh, what masses there were. The parking lots were full, the mall was crowded, and I had to wait…
Let’s face it, 2020 has been depressing. The only glimmer of hope we have left before this god-awful year gets put behind us is the Christmas holidays. Yes, now that Thanksgiving has passed us by, I’m totally into the holly-jolly mood of the season. Normally, we only put up our tree on the day after Thanksgiving and the rest of the house decorations come sprinkling in over the coming days. Not this year. Like some Hollywood production, it all went…
Apparently, I shouldn’t have raised a hand against the year 2020, else – like a woman scorned, she hammers back with a vengeance. I should probably explain. Last week, I wrote a brief article on how 2020 basically sucked in a number of ways, but the fickle hands of fate must have read my blog and thought “who is this clown?” and “how may I now reap misfortune upon him?” Let me give you a brief summary of my past…
To say that I’m completely over 2020 by now is an understatement. What a year. The pandemic rages on (yet people where I live still refuse to wear masks because – you know – ‘Murica). My kids are attempting to get through their 2nd years of college and senior year of high school at home by staring at a screen all day. We’re shopping around for colleges (for my youngest) that may (or may not) be holding classes next fall,…
OK, so we made it through another Halloween, the clocks have been set back (for whatever reason), and I changed out all of my smoke detector batteries (a lesson hard learned from years past). Now it’s time to look forward to the two biggest holidays on the seasonal calendar – Thanksgiving and the “C” word. Notice I mentioned one and not the other, for it seems like every year Thanksgiving takes a back seat to that other ogre of a…
Well, this week marks another appearance of Halloween – and this year, it has the extra bonuses of being on a Saturday night, it marks the arrival of a second full moon for October, and it’s also the night we set our clocks “back” to Standard time (an “extra” hour of sleep for Sunday morning). It’s a spook-tacular trifecta! Even though the pandemic has put a damper on most holiday celebrations, it seems clear that come hell or high water,…
Food trends come and go (remember when everyone was excited about fondue?) and 2020 is no exception – even with all of the stress involved with the pandemic. There have been a lot of new food trends this year, so it’s time to take a look at them (and of course, give my totally biased opinion about each one). Flexitarians You had your meat eaters, you had your omnivores. There were vegetarians, pescatarians, and vegans. Now comes the “flexitarian” –…
Ahhhh, fall – my favorite time of the year, and October is my favorite month. We kicked it off right with a full “harvest” moon (and will be treated to a second full “blue” moon on Halloween this year). There’s even an extra hour of sleep built in to the last weekend of the month, as we’ll be “falling back” to Standard Time. Temperatures in my neck of the woods have settled into the low 70’s during the day and…
I’ve had the good fortune recently to be able to reconnect with my younger brother and his wife (who live on the West Coast). He and I have shared some good conversations, and one of the topics that has come up is future plans and what we think the next five, ten, or even twenty years will bring to our lives. We’re both at the age where friends in both of our personal circles have unfortunately started to pass away,…