Women Who Eat Chocolate

I write what I feel and lately I've been feeling a lot. A little bit like life inside our fence is a bit narrow and tight. Read on from my column on The Holmes County Bargain Hunter :  Missy's Life inside the Fence We built a fence around our yard when we bought our house back in ‘96. Our kids were tiny, and my husband had grown up knowing many fences that surrounded baked-tile courtyards, with stucco buildings. They were warm, happy places you could sit and have coffee in the morning or find shade in the late afternoon as the hot sun slipped away from the day. It wasn’t a way of keeping people out; it was part of their culture, a way of affording privacy in tightly packed streets full of people. I had never had a fence, growing up in the center of Berlin, and was used to running barefoot through the neighbor’s yards. It didn’t matter where you ran; you were always welcome, allowed to roam at will through the neighborhood. There was a wild freedom to it, knowing your light ...

As I contemplated my third cup of coffee this morning, I was also thinking on other things. There's the usual world peace, homelessness, and mom getting her wig today for her upcoming chemo treatments. Lots of things flitting through my mind, per the usual Saturday morning. I sipped leisurely. There's also things that don't matter as well. Some of those things include whether my toilet has been cleaned, my ignoring the alarmingly large amount of sticks brought down in the front yard over winter, and the size of Donald Trump's privates. For that last thing, I drained my coffee cup and set it down gingerly. Clearly, the angry people of America will feel better knowing he has the size to handle anything the presidency has to offer.  Friends, this election has drained me and it's only the first of March. I blame myself for watching all the debates and getting sucked in like a whirling dervish. I'm the first to admit that I live tweet all the action. Here ...

Sappy and sentimental - that's me. But I've learned to let go and that's the key. Read my column posted several weeks ago on The Holmes County Bargain Hunter: Reaching a moment that you strive for is like taking a drink of water when you are parched beyond measure. For me, it was that moment when you see your kids leave the house for college, or for a job that will take them somewhere that you don't see their faces but several times a year. The house settles into its bones, moving and sinking into a comfort that doesn't hold racing up and down the stairs, or the shaking that comes with sibling fights and rivalries. Like the house, solid and cozy, I let myself sink in and accept my creaks and groans — the settling of a body that's housed three children and bore each fight, scar and tear. I envelope the silence around me, gather it into my palm, and move ahead to what my now entails: words written and organized, songs played against a blank canvas of time and ...

Newest column freshly posted on The Holmes County Bargain Hunter : I just rolled off the weekend – Thanksgiving weekend – and I do mean roll.  The table at our family gathering was heavy-laden and food was partaken of at a rapid clip.  The dressing, glorious in its vintage enamelware pan, is the heaviest of all. In all its fried glory, it is the most anticipated part of the meal – at least for me. I don’t make dressing on a regular basis — who does? If you do, I’m sorry, but there are certain foods I savor on the holiday – unless I’m eating in a local restaurant and get a bug for bready goodness. A dish appears on our table every Thanksgiving called cranberry salad, and lots of noses are turned up. I take a small helping because for one, I like its tart goodness and the way it cleans the palate and enables more food to go down. Bad reason? Nah. Thanksgiving only comes once a cycle.  With Thanksgiving tucked away, that means one thing – lots of sales! Even though this i...

I'm back writing my column! I've missed it, so swing by The Holmes County Bargain Hunter and have a read. Life is weird, but doesn't that make it interesting?  Herrera is back and ready to catch up Friends, I’ve missed you. Life takes a swing and you’re off on another venture, sometimes leaving behind something that was near and dear. This column was near and dear, but I had a few other things to do, so I was gone for a while, stacking up words neatly in piles. I’m bringing them out and dusting them off to let you know what I’ve been up to since we last chatted.  I’m writing my novel and it’s almost done.  It was a weight that sat directly on my chest, mostly taunting me through the years to finish. I’m nearly 60,000 words in and can see the finish line — albeit hazy in the distance. The last part of it seems to be moving at a snail’s pace, and that’s not for lack of being a fast typist. I do have typing medals to brag about from Oscar Miller’s class that I wore pr...

Mostly, we ramble along in life doing things the same way because nothing tells us to change. We've always done things a certain way, so we keep on doing them.  What if something comes along that nudges us and says, "Hey, this is wrong. We need to rethink this. Maybe we need to change how we do it?" There will be stubbornness and whining, because we have to learn a new thing. It's like a child, performing tasks and making mistakes until they learn to do it correctly. They find it annoying, but it's part of life.  Isn't it the same with us? Everyone is saying we've become too sensitive and touchy - that we call racism and are intolerant of those who "don't really mean anything by it." Either by the words they say, or their actions that speak one way and do another.  But... What if we've been doing it wrong all these years?  What if it's time to change and learn a new way? The cries ring out, "We used to do it this way! W...

This.  This is what I can muster for today. Love casts out fear.