We and Ours - How This Big Blended Families Rolls

Almost 20 years ago, on the cusp of ending my first marriage I met another woman with a family larger than my own. We had both just moved to Vermont that summer and we met at our new church with our swarms of children upstairs in the Sunday school. Someone who knew we both had big families introduced us and I immediately took to this wonderful woman. While we were speaking another woman came up and introduced herself to my new mom friend. She immediately asked her about where her children came from. “Are they all yours? Are they your husband’s? Is he the father of all of them? Is your family like a yours, mine, and ours situation?”. I was shocked. My new friend, the mother of the other large family, looked at the woman and said very matter of factly “They are ours, ours and ours”. A wonderfully confusing answer which left the interloper confused and making a quick exit. I was left a little dumbfounded. While I had been on the receiving end of many weird questions myself, I had never had anyone inquire about the parentage of my children.

At the time I had 5 small children and had just moved from Houston to Vermont. Many people in Texas commented to me about the size of my family. Nine out of ten times it was an older grey haired man in the grocery story who would say something to me like “You do know where those babies come from, right?”, it was always delivered with a know it all smirk. What always surprised me about it was that that question is of a sexual nature and I was a young mom pushing a shopping cart full of children that heard them too. It never happened to their father or when he was with me. I am New Yorker enough to say something super snide or give an eye roll that makes the other person feel like the moron that they are. I most often acted like I never heard them or turned it to the truth…”I am incredibly lucky to have this beautiful family.”. Until that day in Vermont I had never heard someone say something weird to another mother about her family.

I never ask women with large families how they got their babies. I never ask women with one baby where they got it. It never occurred to be to do so. I never cared. They were moms of kids. I never saw a need to question the genetics or gestation of their babies.

I grew up in a little one square mile town in Westchester County where there were LOTS of big families. For some odd and fun reason, the babies of these big families were all in my small grade in school. I thought nothing of playing at the house with ten children or the house with 8 children. I did it regularly. More than one family had 6 or 7 kids and and several families in town had 5. It was common in my community. I never felt it was in any way odd. I did think it was fun. As the youngest in my own family, I always wanted a big family. In college my father used to tell me to stop telling boyfriends that I wanted ten children. He said it would scare them off! I remember laughing hysterically when he told me this. What he didn’t realize was that I was very serious. Somehow, some way, I was destine to have a big family. I would have found another way if it didn’t go the way it did.

Don and Tricia a couple years in to this journey, Empire, Michigan

After my divorce I thought dating with 5 children would be impossible. It wasn’t. Time after time I met men who told me they always wanted more children in their previous marriages. I found this fascinating.

Almost two years after my encounter in the church, I met and fell in love with my husband. Between us we had a 6 year old, 7 year old, 9 year old, 11 year old identical twins, and two 13 year olds. We dated for four years to make sure we had it right so we would not put our children through another divorce. We married the first day of August in the backyard of our new home combining our two families…7 children and the flower girl and ring bearer AKA Rosie the pet guinea pig and Cornelius the pet rabbit.

Our bridal party. Colin, Brooke, Jasper, Willie, and Adam in the back. Courteney and Scotty in the front.

Adam, Willie, and Scotty Captiva, Florida

We blended our new family really, really well. I have said this a million times but it was much harder for us as a couple to learn to share a household as full blown, functioning adults than it was for our kids to blend. We were each a little stuck in our own way of doing things and were each used to being in charge. We had to learn from each other and compromise. Our kids on the other hand were super enthusiastic and embraced their new siblings with complete joy. I like to joke that the conversation went like this. “How many video game controllers do you have? Great, bring yours over to my room and we can play. We can be brothers.”

Our three babies Courteney, Adam, and Scotty on Sleeping Bear Dunes very close to the Heaton summer cottage.

My collection of 7s on the kitchen mantle at Starlight Farm

The house we purchased was the big old 8 bedroom farmhouse in town that had been on the market for years. No one wanted it but the insane people with seven children. We loved it. We became a family in that house. We were home for our 7 children. We have engaged a great deal of time to make things as fair was we could for family harmony. We were the parents that did things. Did the school forms, made the doctors appointments, bought the back to school clothes and the school supplies, we delivered kids to school and went back to drop off forgotten lunches, we went to parents weekend. We dealt with all the things parents deal with, medical issues, broken teeth, upset feelings, behavior issues, and great successes. This was not about who was genetically related to each other. It was about love. Don was the sports dad and I needlepointed and filled the Christmas stockings. We had a lot of very busy years. Don took charge of all things which involved organization, order, and cleaning. He was into car maintenance, bus schedules, and school calendars. He did the dishes. He is really good at all the things I am bad at. I did the grocery shopping and managed our social calendar. I’m the blabber mouth, the communicator. I had all the really hard conversations while he cringed but was happy that I was saying the tough things. I brought up all the difficult topics at the dinner table like safe sex, birth control, drugs, friendship, dating issues, and safe driving. We learned teamwork as parents. It took us a while but the two of us managed to create a united front. Don and I became a team. Sometimes that parent team hid in the garage or in a bathroom laughing together saying “Oh my god, what do we do with these kids?”. This happened more than once when we caught kids doing things we ourselves did as teenagers.

Courteney, Willie, Colin, Scotty, and Adam in the backyard where we were married, Dorset, Vermont

The boys are amused with Don’s shenanigans at Scotty’s birthday dinner at the cottage.

A big brother greeting from the darling little sister

The crew.

We do not use the word “step” in our family. Our children do not differentiate their siblings by genetic or marital connections. They use the terms “brother” and “sister”. We have 5 boys and 2 girls in our house. They are partners in crime. They look out for each other and get into great mischief together. And they bicker. Some more than others. When one got in trouble, it was with both parents. There were times some of them got into trouble together. Two nights ago I received a text from a hotel in Maui. Two of our kids were overjoyed to discover that they had both coincidentally ended up in Hawaii, a mile away from each other, on the same weekend. I can 100% guarantee that at no point did one say to friends “This is my step sister” or “This is my step brother”. They are brother and sister, in life and in their hearts. One of them asked me to pay their bar tab. Was it a surprise to the other? Probably not. I am sure they had a big laugh about it. What they don’t realize is that I am so happy that two almost 30 year old siblings would go out of their way to spend the afternoon together thousands of miles from home. That venmo was not taking advantage of me. That venmo filled my heart by saying that my children love each other and want to be together. The next day I got a photo of them sitting out by a pool. I treasure it.

Donnie Heat making breakfast for the crew at the cottage on Lake Michigan

We use the word “ours” to describe our kids. We also use the word “mine” to describe any and all of them. I fall in love with my husband a little more every time I hear him proudly call one of the kids “mine”. He earned that title 9 million times over. And he is theirs. “He is theirs.” That sentence is 17 years of devoted love by all parties involved.

Two brothers hiking along Lake Michigan with Don

BUT… and there is a BUT… Not everyone is okay with this. We have come across a few people who can not wrap their heads around the work we have done and that we are a “real family”. I was at a social gathering at some point a couple years ago and something came up about my family. I was asked by the person sitting to my left how many children I had and I said 7. The person sitting to my right leaned across me to the one on my left who asked the question and said “Tricia has 5 children. Two of them are Don’s”. This morning I told one of my kids this story and my daughter said she hates when people do that. She questioned why someone would want to diminish her relationship with her siblings and her father as “less than”..

A long ago Christmas at my sister Puddy’s in Lyme, Ct

I have noticed this more in the past year or so. Just recently I was telling a story about one of our children who lives in Europe and the person next to me leaned over and said “Is that your child or Don’s child?”. I usually follow the lead of the friend I told you about in the beginning of our story and say “our child”…and sometimes it stops there and sometimes it goes on to “no, really, is that one of your children or Don’s?”. The other question I get is “did you give birth to all of these children?”. It makes me wonder what kind of nonsense adopting mothers and fathers have to put up with.

A family game of mini golf in Michigan.

What I have come to realize in thinking about writing this story… is that these infrequent questions given to blended families, which feels like they are trying to separate and divide really hard work is actually people attempting to label our lives in their own criteria. Don and I have spent almost two decades with the goal of nurturing and loving all the children under our roof and raise them as your own.

I was going to end this here but another thought just washed over me. There is a completely different side to this story and those are the stories of adults who were loved very deeply by parents that came into their lives. While we do attract a few detractors and labelers we also attract many, many more stories of great love and great joy. We have several people in our lives, adult friends, who share stories of great love and affection for parents who came into their lives through marriage and raised them as their own. I love when they tell us those stories because they know we get it and we know how deeply they were loved by dedicated mothers and fathers who saw beyond the labels of genetics.

Mr. Wilson, 3rd Time is a Charm

Five years ago I arrived at our local dog park in Manchester, Vermont and I ran right into two women whom I saw there often. I noticed they were both in tears! Crying at the dog park! They were walking up and down the field together very distraught. I didn’t think they knew each other very well so I was surprised. They immediately came over to me and told me the whole story. A dog they knew and loved from the dog park had been taken to the shelter in our rural Vermont community. I didn’t know the dog or the owner and was surprised to hear this story. These women were devastated for and so worried about this little dog they had come to love dearly. Due to living circumstances, neither of them could possibly take him home.

For the past few months I had been contemplating getting another dog. Our magnificent 110 pound black lab Dudley was very playful and I thought he would enjoy the company. I could not believe this opportunity had literally been dropped right in front of me. I decided to go to the shelter and take a looky poo at this little dog I had heard about. I realized I needed a second opinion and went home and grabbed our son Scotty, who I knew would be brutal in judging odd little dogs at the shelter. He concurred that he was the right man for the job because his younger sister was completely unable to be objective and would take home any rabid beast if the opportunity presented itself! Scotty and I arrived at Second Chance Animal Shelter and found the little guy above. His name was Gizmo. He’s a funny looking little guy who dances around on his hind legs like a circus dog to get attention. He was hoarse from so much barking. He had been returned to the shelter by two different adoptive families. The little black dog flat out, with every cell in his body, refused… under any circumstance, or under the influence of any sedative, to get into ANY type of animal carrier. He’s like a crazy hyperactive toddler who wants to be held… a lot. He likes you to hold him so he is sitting upright… looking around the room or into the eyes of whomever you are speaking. Scotty and I decided this miniature bundle of energy was absolutely perfect for our big crazy family. We put him on hold for 24 hours so we could bring Dudley back to make sure they could tolerate each other.

Meeting “Gizmo” at Second Chance Animal Shelter

My husband was in Boca Grande at the time. Too chicken to call, I sent him an email telling him I’d found the second dog I wanted. Don was expecting another black lab, not a weirdo named Gizmo. Scotty and I returned the next day after school with our lab for a “meet and greet” and left 20 minutes later with the weird little dog, his plaid sweater, and a dog bed he knew as his “poof”. I am a woman who never calls a piece of furniture a “poof” so I was a tad annoyed by this revelation. When I returned home I found an email from my husband telling me that he’d thought it over and he felt adopting some odd, little dog was a huge mistake. Oops! He was already home with his new family! Poof and all!

Scotty and the dog he chose.

We immediately knew that the name Gizmo would 100 percent not work for us. I questioned the vet about changing a dog’s name and she told me if you pet them and feed them when you call them their new name, they will adjust quickly. On day four, we decided on the name Finn. Looking back on it, it is clear this dog could have easily handled a weirder or more exotic name. My husband and eldest son Japer have since given him the last name Wilson…AKA as Mr. Wilson.

Dudley and Finny Foo Foo, Dorset, Vermont

Finn has other peculiar habits that we have learned about over time. When I leave the house he runs and takes one of my shoes in his mouth and keeps it with him until my return (resulting in my shoes strewn all over the house, making it impossible to find a pair!) We have recently figured out that he occasional sneaks a shoe outside when he runs out to greet us. After our 2021 moves and packing up homes I have realized I am currently missing an UGG slipper and a Jimmy Choo ballet flat. I am not amused.

Finn is full on living his best “blue haired special” life. He starts asking for his dinner at 3:15 and puts himself to bed at night by 7:30. He goes upstairs to sleep on our pillows until we come to bed and he moves reluctantly to his prized “poof”. Finny Foo Foo fell madly in love at first sight with Don. The feeling was NOT mutual! Don arrived back in Vermont 4 days after Finn’s arrival and the day I was leaving for a trip to NYC with my friend Amy. I got several phone calls over that weekend about the horrible decision I made to bring this “disastrous little dog” into our lives. I called the kids and told them to keep the weird little pooch away from Don until I got home. Within a couple weeks they became completely devoted to each other. Don is obsessed with our little Finny Foo Foo and the feeingl is mutual...that is until Finn finds Don hugging me. Then our little Finn Wilson pounces high into the air to try and knock Don’s hands off of his mama. I find this behavior extremely annoying but my husband finds it wildly fun. He will come running, laughing into the room, and throw his arms around me and wait for the attack.

Due to the complete and total hysteria about pet carriers…I mean really BIG hysteria, Linda Blair head spinning type hysteria, we now drive back and forth between Florida and Vt for the sole reason that our Finn refuses to get in a carrier for a flight. We had a vet try to sedate him for a practice run with a carrier and I swear to God, it make him worse! We now put the poof on top of duffel bags in the middle of the backseat so he can get the full view of the cockpit and the road. We strap in the baby, and he rides quietly and obediently from state to state with his chin resting on the driver’s shoulder. He is the most perfectly imperfect backseat driver extraordinaire!

Finny Heat Heat having a little nap in the sunny living room at Starlight Farm, Dorset, Vermont

My Father was a Sailor

My childhood family memories could be summed up by this one photo.

My wonderful loving father Bill Thorn loved to sail, and sail we did... every weekend and every vacation. He was widowed at 48 with 3 children between the ages of 7 (me) and 21. After we lost my mother the teenage friends of my siblings often joined the trips. I’m sure it was part of a great plan to keep the big kids on the boat.

While spending so much time on a boat might sound glamorous to non-sailors, it’s not. Sometimes it felt a little like Swiss Family Robinson. Lots of salt, sun, big waves, and mildew! We were sunburn and windburn at all times. We lived off deli sandwiches, chips, and canned soda on these trips around Long Island sound and up and down the coast to the Vineyard or Nantucket. I had an orange snoopy sleeping bag and was lulled to sleep by the waves and sounds of the clang of the rigging.

There were madcap adventures like my father falling off the boat, not once but twice while on the mooring by himself, trying desperately to figure out how to get out of the water and back on to the boat. My daddy navigated with a slide rule and a chart, a depth finder, and the stars. My brother and sister became amazing sailors and navigators. I, the youngest brought bags of barbies, books, and needlepoint and played for hours down below. I became the default family cook because I never got seasick. I have vivid memories of being very young and making and passing up sandwiches to my sister who was calling down the orders.

All strong swimmers, we swam off the boat without life jackets and no land in sight. This was so joyful until my dastardly brother and sister got stuck babysitting me and took me to Jaws in Edgartown. Have any of us recovered from that movie?

My father remarried my stepmother who brought a candy jar on the boat with tootsie pops and my life was vastly improved! Soon afterwards a boarder terrier joined the crew. I’m writing this from Orlando airport where we have been removed from a broken plane. Not unlike being run aground, I am stuck in place. I just realized I’m wearing the exact outfit my father is wearing in this photo. Sailor style sticks with you.

The 2020 decision to sell Starlight Farm

Last month we sold our family home in Vermont. It was something I never thought we would ever do. I envisioned keeping our wonderful home forever and giving our children parcels of the 16 acres to build their own little individually styled guest homes. I envisioned weddings and grandchildren, Christmases, and Easter egg hunts. Maybe we would build a screened-in sleeping porch down by the waterfall. Maybe we would plant fruit trees. For sure our family would have a geographically ideal plot of land should global warming continue at the pace it is now.

Stitching near the waterfall.

My magnificent view from our master bath.

Mama bear looking to borrow a cup of sugar.

The changes the world went through with Covid-19 redirected many of my visions. In a year when we found ourselves closed in our homes I looked closely at our living situations. In a year when we stopped going to stores and stopped dressing for social events, I realized we needed so much less. In a year when I was cleaning out closets, the basement, and a large storage room, I realized we just over all, in every single way, needed less than what we had. I began to think about simplifying and purging. In the spring of 2020 when we were all quarantined at home, I began to rethink how we lived. With 6 of our 7 children very far away, quarantined in their own homes… I began to change my dreams. My dreams involved going to them rather than trying to get them to Vermont.

My favorite morning view.

My husband and I are very enthusiastic travelers. We love nothing more than setting out on adventures together and we were looking forward to taking our now adult children with us. I am a studied packer. I am one of those weirdos who has 225 pins saved on my Pinterest account with ideas on minimalist packing and traveling the world with a small suitcase. When we travel I love to challenge myself to bring as little as possible. I aim to blend in, feel comfortable, and travel light. I love it. I love living out of a suitcase with a neutral wardrobe and a few fab necklaces or scarves for a splash of joyful and chic colors. I do not love managing stuff and the reality is….I’m not good at it. In fact, I am actually really terrible at managing stuff. I may lack the “put it away” gene, and I am a master ostrich who would rather bury her head in the sand than clean out my closet or look under my bed. I am very good at putting things in piles to go upstairs or downstairs. I just really lack the fortitude to actually get those piles up the stairs.

Important words to think about as we went into lockdown. LOVE JOY HEALTH FAMILY FRIENDS PEACE MOTHER EARTH GRATITUDE

In the past year I have not been to any stores to buy clothes. I ordered one pair of fabulous Ugg slippers during the first month of lockdown when we arrived in snowy Vermont, I bought the most fabulous (and unfortunately expensive) Australian organic facial moisturizer, and a couple pairs of sneakers. For the past year my already owned beautiful clothes and shoes have gone unworn and my jewelry has not seen the light of day or left the safety deposit box. Why would I ever need more, when I don’t use what I have?

Little kitchen suppers when we were a small group.

My fabulous fine china collections have sat untouched. Tablecloths hanging in the closet, still in their dry cleaning bags from two years ago. My house felt more like a museum of a previous life, one we all hope to return to.

Chili dinner in the kitchen. Tulips from the Dorset Union Store brighten up the table.

In the meantime, there were certain items in our house that became the wonderfully loved treasures they deserved to be. I restarted my love affair with the kitchen equipment and utensils I had been collecting since my early twenties. We cooked glorious meals 3 times a day. I scoured my vast collection of cookbooks and we signed up for meals that were delivered to our doorstep. Hello Fresh and Marley’s Spoon arrived twice a week filled with ingredients and recipes. We learned how to make totally new meals while avoiding shopping while quarantined. We signed up with a fabulous food co-op that was gathering farm fresh food from our treasured Vermont farmers. We also found dog eared recipes and made long ago favorites. We each once again fell in love with favorite pots, we fought over favorite knives, and we dug out potato peelers, lemon squeezers, cheese graters, egg slicers, and meat thermometers. My egg poaching pan remains a favorite and I’m still waiting for my husband to fulfill a promise he made to bring back the soufflés he wooed me with when we were dating!

After driving from Florida to Vermont we quarantined and didn’t leave our house for fourteen days. Meals delivered to our doorstep helped make that possible.

Northshire Grown food boxes filled with specialities from Vermont Farms became our weekly treat!

We embraced “dressing down.” I said goodbye to “hard pants”; this phrase still makes me laugh hysterically and think of my niece Rachel, who was the first I heard use it. Sweatpants, tee shirt, and the boys’ discarded worn flannel shirts became the staples of my wardrobe. That pair of Ugg slippers became my all time favorite footwear and I wore old sweaters until they had so many holes in them that they were delegated to the precious pile of “nightgown sweaters”. (For those of you who don’t know what nightgown sweaters are…. they are fabulous old cashmere sweaters which are so old and holey yet still so wonderfully comfortable… completely inappropriate for public viewing yet absolutely wonderful over your nightgown.)

We also pulled out the games. We played games by the fire. No TV, just roaring fire, and family laughter, arguments, and smack talk. I loved every minute of it. Our youngest daughter got her fill of this time. We treasured having her and missed our older children dearly.

color sudoku

Frank Lloyd Wright puzzle from the wonderful Northshire Bookstore

There are only two other collections that I remained devoted to and used regularly….our library of books and my needlepoint collection. All of those design books I have been been hoarding over the years became my regular textbooks…as I studied every photo time and time again. I admired, critiqued, and learned from every square inch of each text. My needlepoint was my sanity savior. I have said this numerous times over the past many decades, there is nothing like filling in a flower, an area of background, or finishing one particular color to make you feel like you have accomplished something huge in your day. I needlepointed a great deal during 2020, finishing over 35 projects. It was my meditation and I loved every minute of it.

A belt I painted for my friend Eric Holch. I don’t usually do customs but I couldn’t resist the offer to collaborate with my favorite Nantucket artist! He designed it and I painted it for him.

As we ended a full year of living at home, our suitcases left untouched, our closets full of unworn clothes…this very important year in the history of our planet, as we coped with a global pandemic, things changed for everyone around the world. As families across the globe lost loved ones (including our own family, losing one of our most loved)…we realized we needed less, we needed less square footage to store all the things we never used, we needed less land we never walked upon. For the first time, instead of actively seeking our next adventures outside of the home…we just needed to be home. Home was safe, staying home kept others safe. We were on the team trying to help stop the spread of the virus. We needed less house, less stuff, and maybe that looked a little different than all the visions we had for so long.

A customized needlepoint pillow shows the location in which it was stitched.

So we find ourselves in a new home that checked off new boxes of things we needed and wanted, a couple thousand miles away. We have less rooms, less land, less closets, less storage areas, and less stuff. We sold two homes and the furnishings in them. We had a massive (Covid friendly) estate sale and sold all the treasures we had collected over the years. We brought with us our kitchen equipment, sweatpants, games, books, and needlepoint. There are even a few hard pants around here somewhere, which I am 99% sure I no longer fit into. We brought our favorite art, much of it made by our children. My husband brought his musical instruments and I brought my paints. Only one Ugg slipper made it in the boxes as the other has been buried in the backyard of Starlight Farm by my little furry friend. The remaining slipper will need to be disposed of soon. That’s okay, I am fairly certain I don’t need warm fuzzy slippers here amongst the palm trees.

2021 begins the year of less for us, with less material stuff and less responsibilities for stuff. With less things we don’t need….I am confident there will also be something more. What that will be, we will have to see. I will be sure to let you know!

Giving Thanks at 5 am the day before Thanksgiving

I am sure I am not the only one who is sitting here in November thinking….”how is it possible that we are still thick in the middle of this?”. I remain, after all of these months still taken aback as I see everyone in masks, feeling like we are in the middle of some unimaginable pandemic movie of my nightmares.

When the pandemic first started and we were watching our brave Italian friends cooped up in their apartments and as Americans started to see empty toilet paper and hand sanitizer shelves…. my own family faced tragedy. The day after I purchased my first batch of emergency cleaning products, I received the call you never want to get. My darling, dearly , DEARLY loved brother had been rushed to Johns Hopkins and had stopped breathing on the way. Without more than a thought of ”where is my purse?”, I jumped in my car, drove to the airport, and boarded a plane to get to his side as fast as humanly possible. My brother Henry was my person. He was all of our person in the Thorn family. He was our heart and soul, our wet your pants laughing comedian, our biggest fan, our biggest teaser, our fiercest protector, and our most hilarious and steadfast team cheerleader. He was in Johns Hopkins on life support. I had to get there as fast as I could. For the first few days of his stay, they thought that maybe Henry had COVID-19, the first case to come to Hopkins. After days of severe visiting restrictions and the need to wear PCP equipment to hold Henry’s hand in his special room, the causes of his condition were determined and COVID ruled out. We would loose my award winning perfect big brother, we would also escape COVID ourselves due to his non contagious, non virus related medical emergency diagnosis. We would also, before the end, get a birds eye view of one of the best hospitals in the world, preparing for the worst. We watched from inches away, the A team preparing for battle. I will forever have the greatest admiration for health care workers, the sacrifices they have made during this pandemic, and the price their families have paid. This same admiration flows from my being for first responders, front line workers, food providers, essential workers, teachers and school officials. These heroic people are our angels on earth.

When I returned from Johns Hopkins in early March, I was shell shocked and horrified by the loss of my brother. While the world prepared for lockdown with impending concern, I was frozen and speechless. As a normally micromanaging and hovering mother, the on the regular, unsolicited Dear Abby, advice spewing creature of my childrens’ nightmares….I went silent. I would look at my husband with big brown pleading eyes and he would assure me they were all fine. My father was a prepared sailor, a WWll ambulance driver, and an insurance company executive. I was trained and genetically prepositioned to have my little army ready for battle, unexpected doom, and any emergency which required non-perishable rations and Twizzler. I was made for this job and I completely was not there, when the calling came. Thank God, Don and I raised equally equipped kids who knew exactly what to do without that harassing mother woman texting disaster preparation plans. They have been rockstars throughout this global nightmare.

When we left our home in Florida in the end of March, I filled our car with our college age baby, my business, our dogs, and my beloved hubs. We left our summer clothes behind because they didn’t fit in the car. I was sure I would be back for them in a few weeks. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that today, on the morning before Thanksgiving, that I would find myself here.

Here is in an inn in Bluffton, South Carolina. That baby and my husband are sleeping soundly in the room while I type. Other loved ones are minutes away asleep at my sister’s house. The rest of our loved ones are scattered around the country, Canada and London, respecting International travel bans, protecting health and following travel restrictions with our support and admiration. Those of us who have come, have come to honor my brother, who died in a time in history when funerals, memorial services, and celebrations of loved ones are impossible. Those of us who have come, have come with those who could not come, in our hearts. This week, we will celebrate the biggest heart and most hilarious spirit. In a tiny way, we will honor our biggest cheerleader.

It would be easy this year to ignore the title of my blog post and revert to dwelling on the horror our family, our country, and our globe have experienced the last few months. The loss of life, jobs, income, homes, and normalcy has taken a huge toll on humanity everywhere. I especially worry about the impact it has had on both children and mental health. I also am riveted by the plight of our heroes, many of them everyday people, who have risen past the horror into the helping position. I am cheering for our volunteers who are feeding families, I am cheering for our visionaries who see the problems and find the solutions. High five to those of you who are seeking out elderly neighbors and making sure they are okay! Bravo to those of you who are standing up to inequality and caring about others besides yourself. Thank you to those of you who are protecting our planet.

In a year without international adventures I am turning my eye towards home and community, and simple pleasures. Here are 10 things off the top of my head I am thankful for. Please feel free to add your own in the comments!

1. Those blessed souls who create television shows and movies and put them on our screens with magical systems like Netflix, Acorn, Hulu, and On Demand. If I could bake you a pie, I would. You have both kept me sane and also kept me out of my family’s hair. We all thank you!

2. Let’s hear it for the clean beauty gurus. I learned so much the past few months regarding clean beauty. As someone who doesn’t dye my hair or alter my face, I am all about good moisturizer and cleanser, gorgeous lip color and fabulous mascara. Since I am not putting chemicals on my hair or in my skin I have taken a big interested in what is going on my skin. I learned about my favorite products this year from beauty counter representative @ktschrader, blogger @nan.philips, and @indiaamory sharing what was in her beautiful pouches. Thank you ladies!

3. Drew Barrymore. Drew has been a shining light during the lockdown. Happy, cheerful, honest, encouraging. For kicks, read her blog post about her zoom meeting which went very, very wrong. Every parent needs to know…. they are not alone juggling kids and work.

4. The Southern Coterie. Thank you so much ladies for bringing amazing content and educational programs to your membership. I learned more during the last few months about running my business than I dreamed possible.

5. Rita Konig. Holy mother of God. If any of you know Rita will you please tell her there was a crazy woman stuck on top of a mountain in Vermont quarantining half the summer soaking up every word she said during her Create Academy course!! I feel so smart now!! Plus she justified all my life long luxury shop indulgences and antique hoarding!!! LOVE YOU RITA! I am dying to start my next house project!

6. My girlfriends. Sitting outside with you this summer was my bread and butter. I am so grateful to each one of you. XOXO ROCK ON “HOT MOMS”! I love you!

7. Safe cars. I have driven more these past 8 months than ever before. If I could grant a wish, it would be that everyone have safe transportation. I am so grateful to have been able to travel in a bubble to deliver children, visit my mother, and see pretty sights during a trying time. I have always loved a Sunday drive. Now more than ever I appreciate just going for a ride, looking out the window and admiring your vegetable gardens or leaf piles as we go on our merry way. You just know, this is going to be the year of the holiday light displays, right?! Tis the season to be tacky. Bring it on!!

8. Facetime. Thank you so much to whoever invented this magical product and brought it to every device I have. As a visual mother, who wants to look at her grown children, this product has brought me joy and kept me sane. So grateful to look at my babies.

9. People providing food and water. Right now in our little community in Vermont volunteers and donors are working tirelessly to provide food supplies, and holiday meals for friends in need. This is happening all around our country. Our friends at @kenyadrylandseducation fund are working tirelessly to provide Northern Kenyans with food needs and clean drinking water. The schools are closed and students are home with their families. The loss of school meals is crippling.

10. I am so grateful to my father Bill Thorn. He has been gone for several years but his heart beats loudly and lovingly in mine. It is because of him that I am so grateful and I admire people who do generous and kind things. He was so observant of those doing good in the world, he was both complimentary and appreciative. He did funerals really well, he loved his family, and he often had a little happy Winnie the Pooh like humming going on at the dinner table as he ate something delicious. I will spend the next few days striving to honor his beautiful soul and his amazing son.

I send off this Thanksgiving wish to all of you. May your souls feel love. My you find little things to bring you great joy during this holiday season, may you connect either purposefully or accidentally with someone else who needs joy. And may you feel peace and enjoy pie.

I am grateful for you, dear reader.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Tricia

Traveling in the time of Covid- Summer 2020

I have just arrived in Michigan and am taking an enormous, deep, breathy sigh. I have finally made it to our family summer cottage on the lake after three weeks of extensive zig-zagging cross-country travel. As luck would have it, I arrived on the eve of our eldest child’s 28th birthday, for which I am so grateful. I was delighted to be able to participate in the celebration of our family big brother!

I arrived just in time to see my crew playing lawn Yatzee!

I have found traveling during Covid both extremely stressful (real legitimate and frightening virus concerns) and extremely poignant (deeply important time with adult children). I walked away from this experience thinking every parent and their twenty-something child should do such a drive and spend so much time together talking and talking while on the road. However, I stumbled into this adventure and came to this conclusion after this unique situation presented itself with children number 6 and 7. I highly suspect children 1-5 are hugely relieved they escaped such torture!

This crazy zig-zagging extravaganza was completely unplanned. Each step was an unexpected chapter in the unfolding story of this crazy summer of Covid 2020. It began out of necessity. Our youngest daughter Birdie had transferred into CU Boulder last January after a life changing semester with NOLS in Tanzania - which included hiking across the beautiful African nation, sleeping under the stars (while at times avoiding lions!), living with a homestay family, climbing Kilimanjaro with neither a sherpa nor a guide, and a celebratory trip to Zanzibar with her now forever NOLS pals. Transferring into a winter community in January, living in an isolated dorm, and being sent home again in March due to COVID does not make for solid roots in a new University. It was absolutely not as fun and exciting as her dreamy and magical fall semester. She has been stuck with her parents since March, and like most college kids, she is excited to return to campus. Three weeks ago my youngest and I decided she needed a “do over” and we flew to Boulder to visit the now sunny, warm campus and find housing. Luck would be on our side for not only did she find wonderful housing in a great location, she magically stumbled upon fabulous housemates as well!

After flying earlier in the summer on a nearly empty Delta flight through the extremely empty Albany Airport and a deserted Detroit airport I was optimistic for a similar experience. I was very wrong. While Albany airport remains very vacant, our Southwest flight to Dever was not. Every row had 2 people per side and the stumbling around finding seats - which I usually love, felt exposing. The Denver airport was packed and unnerving. It was not the experience I hoped for or expected.

Upon our return to Vermont we packed up my car and my baby and I headed to Colorado. Two chatty gals in a vehicle for our college student and with a line up of both riveting and timely Audible books, we hit the road. My very accomplished driver gave mom many breaks and I had the time to get in some great needlepointing while listening to and discussing both best selling Untammed by Glennon Doyle and Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (Oprah’s latest riveting book club choice). We travelled state to state discussing many pertinent and timely topics including feminism, life choices, and our heartbreaking and unacceptable race problems in this country. We arrived new women, for sure! The needlepoint project I am working on is a beautiful and modern blue and white geometric design from Lycette in Palm Beach. There are 9 unique blue columns running through the canvas. The drive from Vermont to Colorado includes 9 states, a fortuitous coincidence creating a treasured heirloom to mark this particular time in our family and global history.

My wonderful canvas from Lycette. Pepperpot fibers and small scissors are kept in this fab India Amory bag for easy travel.

During this long drive Birdie and I needed breaks. Huge fans of Drew Barrymore, we searched aisles of Walmarts in Ohio and Iowa for products Drew was recommending and demonstrating on her Instagram account in celebration of Beauty Week. Drew has been a fabulous breath of fresh air for us during the pandemic with great blog posts, interesting IGTV videos, and fun little video posts. Her unsolicited demonstrations of her favorite face wash and Crest whitening toothpaste are darling, hilarious, and so humble. I laughed when she said Crest might want her to stop talking about their products! As if! These videos piqued our curiosity and started us on a hilarious beauty product hunt during our breaks from hours and hours of driving. We added a search for our favorite lip glosses to our road trip entertainment. I discovered two I am particularly fond of, they are Lancôme’s Juicy Tube in Magic Spell (found at Ulta) and Drew’s Flower -Petal Pout in Sangria (found at King Soopers in Fort Collins, Co.)

The hunt for the best lip gloss entertained us during driving breaks. My two favorites are from Lancomê and Flower!

The second drive to Colorado was also completely unplanned. While in the midst of Colorado Drive 1.0, I decided to tackle Colorado Drive 2.0.. Youngest son Scotty decided wisely to join his siblings and move to Colorado. His crazy mother hatched a plan to make this happen. My father used to call me Patton when I was a young mother moving 5 small children back and forth between Houston where we lived, and his home in Bronxville. My dearest Daddy had driven an ambulance in WWII under Patton and he meant this knickname as the highest and funniest compliment. He would say to me “You can move an an army like nobody’s business.” Ha! Well this time, I did it on steroids. I wish he was here to see it and laugh with me. This was not the act of a high achieving dedicated mother! Hell no! This was the act of a desperate frazzled gray-haired gal during a global fucking pandemic! ! I was a woman on a mission. On a mission to GO ON VACATION!! My wonderfully darling and romantic husband and I had planned a vacation to his family cottage on Lake Michigan. I wanted to sit on the deck overlooking this gorgeous Great Lake, needlepoint, drink wine and eat white fish dip from Leland for God’s sake. I was on a time table to get these kids out of my hair! (And they were determined to get away from me!! Their tolerance for quarantining with the grey haired boring parents had long expired.) I say this in jest, but damn it, the two trips were really magical! At least for me!

And thus began “Tricia’s moving company, the one that is running on pure crazy” chapter of The Summer of 2020. I flew home on another crowded plane through a crowded airport (YUCK!). Rented a minivan, drove to Vermont, did one load of laundry and repacked my suitcase, fell fast asleep, and got up the next morning to a packed minivan and hit the road again for my second drive to Colorado in 7 days. I had our barely 23 year old son, his 22 year old fiancé and their gorgeous Dr Suess-like pup Otis. While my first drive included a cooler and an expert sandwich maker by my side, this trip was fueled on gas station food, particularly candy and Diet Coke. While I will be detoxing for months from the chemicals and sugar I ingested, my heart will be full forever from the three days I had my son in the co-pilot seat. There were no books on tape or music on this trip. This will forever be known as “Mother and son do not shut up for one fricking second for three days.” (As I type this I think of my older children reading this thinking “Holy Hell!! Thank God I was not trapped in a car with mom for three days!”) Scotty’s fiancé Miranda somehow survived this blabber mouthing and at one point played a couple true crime podcasts for us.

Otis the beautiful Dr Suess like rescue waits patiently in the front seat for his parents’ to return at the rest stop.

Two child school enrollments were completed, housing was both secured and outfitted, and a few fabulous dinners were had with my gang. This whole experience filled my heart. Target has all my money. My two youngest children live half a mile apart. Two wonderful brothers are in close proximity and mama got out of dodge. It was all so damn good!

My final departure from Denver airport was complete. My wonderful spaced out seat on United was a pleasure and I made it safely to Traverse City. It is here, in a cottage built by my mother and father-in-law in the early 60s that I begin my quarantine for the umpteenth time. The turquoise waves are rolling rapidly and loudly towards the beach. The wind is blowing and I sigh. 12 days more days of quarantining until I feel like this trip was truly a success.

I’d like to share with you some non-factual and purely opinionated travel tips I have.

1. Some airports are deserted and feel super safe. Some airports are crowded as hell and you have to ride jammed in windowless trains to your gate. Some security lines are empty and some are like Studio 54 and have you winding through paths of people with everyone well within 6 feet of you on every side.

2. Some travelers are very cautious and avoid you like the plague, literally. Some do not believe in science and boundaries or covering their mouths when they cough. It’s like Lord of the Flies meets Darwinism. You try to keep yourself safe amongst people who don’t believe there is a virus. (insert eye roll.)

3. Some states have mask requirements. In some states you will not see a mask at all. (We found the later to be shocking and unnerving.) It’s worth doing research on state mandates if you care about this stuff before you travel.

4. Most restaurants in highway rest stops are closed. A cooler full of great bread and cold cuts is a dream during road travel. A creative sandwich maker like my girl Birdie will make you realize sandwiches with Thousand Island dressing and pickles really are THAT good!

5. We found the roadways to be rather quiet, hotels to be at minimum capacity, and precautions like no daily housekeeping comforting. With the exception of one state, all hotel workers were in masks, behind screens, wearing gloves, and really welcoming to weary travelers. A special shoutout to the Hotel Boulderado which made me feel particularly safe on all three trips to Boulder!

6. Outdoor dining is great. Outdoor dining where mask-less people walk by close to the table on the sidewalks, not so great. Try to choose tables that don’t border the walkways.

7. Many of the shops and restaurants in some airports are closed. Airlines are not serving their normal fare. Bring snacks and other comforts and entertainment with you.

8. Over all, I am personally more comfortable with road over air travel at the moment. I have been in 3 empty airports. I have also been in a very busy airport 3 times.

9. If you find yourself needing a rental car bring a variety of chargers and a phone holder that pops into the fan vents. I have found myself numerous times without CarPlay in rental cars, only cigarette lighter charger outlet, and phones with maps falling on the floor while trying to drive. I found what I needed in gas stations along the way and it made my driving long distances so much more simple.

Best wishes to your own families as you navigate the new normal!

Looking forward to a few days doing this, and doing it right here next to this beautiful lake..

Human Rights Activist and Global Health Student Decided to Stay Put

Randa Chehab is a dear childhood friend of mine. I spent many summers as a young girl with Randa at a girls sleep-away summer camp in Chatham, Massachusetts. Randa was so much fun, with a huge contagious smile, a hearty belly laugh, and big blue eyes which looked like gorgeous pools of the most beautiful water you have ever seen. Growing up in the 70s with transistor radios blaring throughout the camp, all the girls would join into song when the Beach Boys “Help me Rhonda” came on the radio and we would serenade our lovely childhood pal with “Help me Randa, Help help me Randa.” The irony is not lost on me that our Randa is the helper and a new version of our ballad needs to be let us “Help Help you Randa!”

Like many of you who found friends on social media, several years ago I was so joyful to reconnect with Randa, who I had lost touch with in high school. It has been my honor to have a front row seat in watching Randa go. As one of the best childhood athletes I knew, it was not surprising to me that yoga would play a role in Randa’s adult life. However, having the privilege of viewing what she has been doing for others has been a complete honor. I was worried for her as a I read her updates about being stuck in India during the global pandemic. I asked Randa if I could share her story here, with all of you. I would like to share our Summer of Love needlepoint profits with her organization and I wanted you all to know why.

(There is a trigger warning I need to share: there is mention of childhood trauma in this story.)

1. Can you please tell us a bit about your background, where you went to school and what you studied?

I went to Smith College, got my undergrad in developmental psych, and rowed crew for the 4 years I was there.  After college I worked for years in outdoor education with the Colorado Outward Bound School and the National Outdoor Leadership School. After many years full time in the field (35+ weeks), I decided to put down roots up in Bozeman, MT, where I lived and worked on an organic farm and I also went to massage therapy school. I  was nationally certified (and still am) in therapeutic massage and bodywork. In 1999 I went on to PA school. I come from a family of physicians and so felt like I was a bit of a black sheep and needed to blend in more. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison  and passing my boards, I  decided to follow my heart with yoga. I just could not understand our health care system.

My yoga teacher at the time left Bozeman and handed me her students. I was so not ready to teach but she told me my heart was in the right place so slowly slowly from there it evolved into an incredible adventure. I have had a studio in Bozeman since 2002 and have been traveling internationally to teach since 2009.

2. I know you have been to India several times, what were you doing
there previously to this trip?

I've actually been coming to India since 2006. I come in the winters to
immerse myself in the practice of ashtanga vinyasa yoga with my
teacher, Lino MIele. Yes he's Italian!  He comes to the south of India for 2 months every winter. I practice with him and assist by helping with the other students. It was in 2006 I met my business partner's family.

3. You moved to India before Covid, what did you go there to do? Why?

Yes, I arrived in  India on Oct 2, 2019. My move is twofold.  My
business partner and I set up a home stay and yoga centre here in
Kerala about 35 km north of where my teacher does his immersions, in an old Portuguese settlement.

4. What is the Portuguese settlement like? What is a home stay?

It's basically an area of fisherman and very well educated and very Christian.  Every km for 9 km there is a Catholic church, names like Joseph Fernandez, Darvin, Beena Perriera. A homestay means the people that run the place must live at the house. Guests can have a room and can have access to the kitchen and my business partner will also cook but charges. He's a chef and he understands how the system here works which is not straightforward.

5. Where are you getting your master's in global health?

Northwestern University in Chicago (Feinburg School of Medicine). I am finishing my masters degree in Global Health, focusing on ending violence against women and girls. Ending violence against women and girls is one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.  Needless to say  I wanted to have a soft landing after doing my work in gender based violence up in the north of India. Kerala is a well educated state.

Just 2 weeks after landing here last fall I flew to Kolkata to meet my
organization, NISHTHA. www.nishtha.org.in
Nishtha is a grassroots organization that started in 1975. Mina Das is
the director now. It was her father, the local village physician who
said to his wife, "we need to do something for these women and you need to do it because you are female!" ( She’s nearly 90 now and I had the privilege to meet her during my time with NIHSTHA).

I know from my travels and time on this continent, females are at a
total disadvantage. From the time of a fetus onward, with sex selective abortions still happening… the girl child has been considered a burden. It's unfathomable  because women run the household and if there wasn't a woman running the household so much of India would collapse. Also for a country to climb out of poverty, how does it happen if half the population is kept down? Melinda Gates speaks of this in her book, The Moment of Lift.  This culture has such deep roots in tradition and in 2020 I feel the tradition is not serving the people.  Even the most educated women I know here feel helpless at times. AND the family reputation is an altar. Many girls and women are sacrificed on that altar.

6.) Can you tell me a bit more about the program about women and girls? I thought the poster about how women are regarded was riveting. What is happening to the women and girls? What does the program do to help them? How big is the program? How do donations support the program? What do they need the most?

NIHSTHA now has 10,000 girls it looks after in about 225 villages
south of Kolkata. It is building capacity for education and basic human rights! Honestly the message of right to live, right for shelter,
right for protection and right for development for both boys and
girls and men and women.  There are 3 groups for females. Divided by age: young girl, teenagers,  and then the women's groups. All
support groups and each support group will communicate with each
other, like big brother and sister programs. Safety networks are set up
within villages to end child marriage and save women from abuse.
Women have also been given micro-loans and as you can see from the
photos are entrepreneurs with street food, textiles, pottery, etc. It
is impressive. A lot of money goes towards education, school uniforms, and hygiene kits.  There is a feed the grannies program. Elders can be outcast in poor rural areas. 600$/ month will feed 100 grannies. Educating children of sex workers, giving daycare and physio to children with disabilities... It is a tremendous organization

This was so key for me. It was actually Prilita Das' husband who
was a village physician that said to her back in the early 70's we
need to do something for these women as after marriage, they are so
isolated and living conditions are so poor. So it was initiated by a
man that gave it to his wife as gender issues were big back then. Now
Mina Das, Pirlita's daughter and her granddaughters run Nishtna. I met them all except the husband. He passed years ago. The fact that
Prilita is still alive is incredible. She’s in her mid 80's and for India she is way past the average lifespan for a woman. When I met her I burst out crying, and bowed to her feet.

7. When Covid struck, I know you were trying to figure out what to do about staying or leaving, how did that all play out? Can you please tell us about how Covid is affecting India?

With the dense population of India and the high percentage of those living in poverty I refer to India as a powder keg in terms of COVID. India went on lockdown suddenly with barely any warning, which meant no domestic or international flights, no trains, no buses. All state borders were closed for nearly 10 weeks. Only essential shops, hospitals and government jobs were open and for limited hours. Literally the country came to a screeching halt. Pretty devastating.

By the time we were given repatriation options it was way too risky. As a global health student and my training in medicine I knew i needed to stay put. Flying meant putting myself and too many others at risk. I call the flight now the COVID CAPSULE. Repatriation flights were going from Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi, all hotspsots! We are very lucky here in Kerala. I mentioned before there were no domestic flights, no trains, or buses etc. so a private driver and the drive time made no sense. Too dangerous. My global yoga community was also telling me I was better off in India as they gave me a peek into their countries;
Italy, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Russia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the USA.

8. Where are you? Are you safe?

I am safe in Kerala. Our Health Minister is a rockstar. She has done a tremendous job. The case numbers are rising as we have all the Non- resident Keralites  (NoRks) returning from other countries and other states. But for now local transmission is very low.

9. I first heard about the cyclone that hit India from you. Can you please tell us what happened in India? How does this affect the
organization you have been working for? (For those like me who did not know, a cyclone is what we call a hurricane in the U.S.)

Cyclone Am phan hit West Bengal May 20th. Total devastation and destruction. It took a few days before I could even reach my organization by phone. It was very, very unsettling.  80 % of the homes in the villages I support were destroyed. All agriculture lost including COVID rations, and there is no access to clean drinking water. As you probably know with COVID and lockdown there was a rise in domestic violence globally. In Kolkata, girls were not able to go to school and women could not go to work. Now girls are being forced
again into early marriage and women cannot work as the cyclone destroyed what basic infrastructure they had. So it is really a dire situation. I do know how strong and resilient these women are however the girls are my biggest concern. Nishtha has made such strides for equality in many arenas but our situation is really critical at the moment.

10. What can we do to help?

Mina, as you recall, the Director of NIshtha,  asked me to raise money for clean drinking water. I am now channeling my efforts for this basic need. Nothing else can happen without such needs met. There are still over 63 million people in India without access to clean drinking water. She wants to install Water ATMs. We will start with 2 villages, each water ATM serving 20-25,000 people. We hope to reach our goal of 15-20 water ATMs.

11. What is a water ATM and how much does it cost for one for a
village? Last year I raised money for drinking water in Kenya. When
people know what they are buying, how much it costs, etc, it's easier to raise the money for such an important cause.

A water ATM is a purifier of an already established water pipe. They are like a cash machine but dispense clean safe drinking water. For every rupee invested in clean water 4-12 rupees are made back. With the water ATM one liter of water is one rupee. My organization priced one at 700 USD. Initially we are going to install a water ATM in 2 villages. One village serves 20,000 ppl and the other 25,000ppl. The director of Nishtha would like to install a total of 15-20 water ATMS.

12. Please share anything else that you think would be helpful to thework you are doing?

Tricia, what can I say? India is a country in a development bracket with Brazil, Russia and China. It is no longer a developing country but it still has a very large percentage of its people living in poverty. When you work in
human rights it is important to see the big picture because we are ALL connected. The most marginalized take the biggest hit. I was sexually abused as a child and I come from privilege. I want to pay it forward.
Help these women and girls have a voice, ownership of their bodies, pride and joy, and equal opportunity. Education is key and a strong support group. Building community resilience to trauma is something
NIHSTHA is doing very well.

13. Any word on your ability to travel in the future?

NO regular international flights as of yet and not until after July 15th at the earliest. It’s been mentally draining playing out scenarios in my head. I was supposed to go out for visa formalities and have been on an exit permit since March 29th! I had a ticket to Sri Lanka mid-March but India banned all visas suddenly so if I left I would not have been able to get back in. Immigration will give me 30 days once international flights do start. Until they start again, immigration will give me monthly extensions for my exit permit.

Update since original rough draft was written: I “spoke” with Randa last night. She feels she did the safe thing staying in India. She felt if she traveled she would be part of the problem. At the time her state side medical professional friends told her India was safer. Now Covid has arrived in India and where Randa is.

To help support Randa’s mission please consider donating to https://yoga-gives-back.networkforgood.com/projects/98836-randa-chehab-s-fundraiser

Quarantine Journal- Part 2: Things I Have Re Fallen in Love With

10 simple pleasures I have fallen in love with during the time in self quarantine.

1. Taking time for tea. As someone who has never had a cup of coffee in my life, I am particularly in love with tea. I have different favorites, but I always prefer a black tea without flowery or perfumey flavors. My usuals are Irish Breakfast, PG tips, Darjeeling, Orange Pekoe, and Prince of Wales. My current favorite tea in stock is Taylors of Harrogate: English Breakfast. I have in quarantine taken the time to use lovely sugar bowls and creamers to hold half and half or heavy cream.

2. Lots of lovely old clean dishtowels. My wonderful stepmother always collected tea towels when we would travel. I remember her enthusiasm when we were on trips when I was a child to Bermuda, Ireland, and England. She was thrilled purchasing fun printed dish towels with designs that reflected the destinations. I have continued this tradition. Let’s face it, I never met a dish towel I didn’t like and have a vast collection of colorful, fun, and soft worn treasures. We have stopped using paper towels and every morning I thoroughly enjoy throwing yesterday’s towels in the laundry and selecting new ones for the day. I also love lovely country style knit dish rags for the sink. They are a little dingy in color but they are soft and smell fabulous when I put them out each morning.

3. Giving the dogs a treat. This has always been my favorite part of the day and one I overzealously have used to create nudgey pups who know they have a softy at their disposal. With time moving at a slower pace, I find myself spending more and more time in the pantry talking to the dogs as I give them treats. Daisy is particularly interested in pantry conversations. Finn really just wants me to get to the point. The treat.

4. Bleaching the sink. We have a big 3 bay white porcelain farmer’s sink. It is almost the width of our double window overlooking the waterfall out back. I have recently purchased some fantastic Bleach Alternative from The Laundress and my favorite household job has become bleaching the beautiful old sink.

5. Clean sheets and the smell of clean pillow cases. As a child I attending Camp Avalon, a girls’ sailing camp in Chatham, Massachusetts. Our chore every Sunday was to change our sheets and send the dirty ones off to the local laundry service. (Lucky girls!!) To this day I love changing my sheets. I love getting into clean sheets on that first night, and I particularly love the feeling and smell of clean pillow cases. I am a pillow girl. Clean pillows are the best.

6. Books. I am a book collector. I have my grandmother’s history books, my father’s childhood classics (including a first edition Winnie the Pooh) and a vast collection of cookbooks. As a single mother I worked numerous jobs at a time to keep my children and I afloat. One of my favorite jobs was working at our local independent bookstore. I made myself a little promise that with each paycheck I would purchase one art book. Reality took over wishes, but over the course of 7 years I did acquire an amazing art book collection. There are decades of novels collected over the years, and over the past 20 years I have collected shelves and shelves of interior designs and architecture books. My husband joined our marriage with his own large collection of books. A Buddhist and meditation guru, Don has collected rows and rows of spiritual books. Also known as Doctor Doolittle and Indiana Jones in our house, my outdoors enthusiast has a vast collection of bird and animal field guides. Golf and garden books are a regular gift for my guy. Together we have added a vast collection of travel guides and travel lit gems. When we bought Starlight Farm it came with a fabulous little library surrounded on two sides with floor to ceiling sturdy built-in bookcases. We have filled every inch of shelf space. Don and Courteney and I are loving rereading and exploring our own library.

7. Morning Fires. Starlight Farm has two fireplaces. Our living room has a tall brick architecturally unique and interesting structure. Our kitchen has a fireplace which I think looks Southwestern with its white stucco exterior and rustic wood mantle. In the winters when the house is full of revelers we have the fireplace going at all times. Our soon to be son-in-law and my great girlfriends Amy and Kari are the house fireplace stokers when they are in our nest. In the car heading from Florida to Vermont I began my mental “checklist of Hugge”. What were we going to need to feel really at home for weeks on end? Needless to say we called our favorite wood source and had a half quart of cord dry wood delivered in our driveway for our arrival. Morning fires are a luxury in chilly April, one I treasure greatly. Something so simple brings me such joy.

8. Everything old. I am a magpie. (Insert my entire family rolling their eyes.) I collect oddities. As the youngest children in both of our families both Don and I each entered our marriage with a collection of beautiful family hand-me-downs and treasures. This includes Don’s gorgeous thin narrow red hutch which has become the family trophy cases and houses all of our children’s beloved childhood clay projects. In our dining room sits my family’s dining room sideboard from Bronxville, an English Antique my mother bought with her friend and interior designer Jane Mitchell in the early 1970s. Other family treasures include lamps, side tables, gorgeous desks, piles of dishes, candlesticks, andirons, fireplace screens and tools, and a great deal of art. I have added to these treasures over the years with things like a wall size Union Jack, antique toy horses, a child’s saddle, a life size carved Indian head, and a very large wooden bear. Tag sales and consignment shops have been my source for midcentury dining room chairs, mixed matched 3 Bears style kitchen chairs, the most comfortable Swedish living room chairs on the planet, and old games to hang on the walls. I really like the quality of old pieces, I love the pantina and the uniqueness of the items. And the prices can be fantastic! For me the hunt for these items is a big part of the pleasure. I have had great joy over the past few weeks cleaning old wooden tables, fluffing cushions, rearranging basically everything in my house, remembering loved ones that acquired them, and reimagining how to you use old pieces in new places. Last week Courteney painted our powder room and Don and I moved his grandparents’ gorgeous ornate antique gold mirror into this simple space. My favorite piece in our house now adorns the smallest space.

9. Cooking. I can cook. I’ve always been able to cook and do it well. I haven’t always chosen to do it. I have over the years gone from making delicacies to mess hall cook for a family of 9. Our eldest son Jasper is an incredible cook and when he’s in the house I happily step aside or work as his sous chef. The past few years Don and I have really gotten into eating out and can often be found at the Pink Elephant on our favorite tiny island. Over the past few weeks acquiring groceries has been a bit of a challenge, and I have reclaimed my title as head chef. I do not like going on the grocery store and exposing myself to the other shoppers. I have come up with some routines to bring regular and varied groceries into our home. We have joined a CSA, arranged for occasional curbside pickup at our small independent health food stores and at times visited our small independent country stores for items like butter. Last week we added our first ever meal delivery boxes and are currently testing and comparing Martha Stewart’s Marley’s Spoon and Hello Fresh. Although this seems like a lot when I write it, it’s not. When you are navigating 3 meals a day for 3 people, it’s just about perfect. My cooking journey is joyful, nutritious, and another creative outlet. I was absolutely delighted when our youngest son called and asked for some of my recipes. I’m thinking of creating a cookbook for our children.

10. Inner Clock. I was a big night owl as a child. My parents would put me to bed and I would play, talk to myself, and entertain myself for hours upon hours in my nursery off their master bedroom. When baby sitting me, my teenage older sister used to go to bed long for before her charge. Boarding school and college were a night owl’s dream. Motherhood of school age children and being a teacher was a huge sleep struggle. Nothing like an early morning school routine to buzz stomp a night owl life. I find myself thriving in the world without days of the week and clocks. I literally have to make myself go to bed between 2 and 4 am. Our friends in Barcelona would be so thrilled to see my ditch my American schedule. I have graduated to someone who can eat very late dinners and thrive.

What simple joys have you refound during this time? Please feel free to include them in the comment section.

Kitchen cleaning has become more fun with sink bleaching.

My favorite art in my house!

I’ve raised the bar in cleaning and laundry with products from The Laundress.

Browning Couscous

First CSA box arrives to an enthusiastic household.

Working on a daily vegetable sauté to use during the day to enhance our menu and nutrition.

My poached egg pan is one of my all time favorites. You fill the bottom with water and each egg has it’s own little cup.

Starlight Farm breakfast special.

Don participates in the Heaton family pop tart making party on zoom.

Some of the wood delivery is stacked at the left. The burch logs were found on the side of the road two years ago and are getting used as well.

Kitchen fire set at 7:30 this morning.

A Giant Thank You to All of You Kenyan Water Warriors!

I write this on Thanksgiving morning as I fly from Vermont to Boulder for a celebration with our children. I’ve never been to Colorado and I am so looking forward to taking it all in, while most importantly celebrating the gratitude I have for our family. 

While I am obviously grateful for the many gifts I have (of which I count frequently in a Gratitude Journal I carry in my purse), never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted the source of one of my biggest joys to date.  For this year, not only am I grateful for all of you, those who have followed my dream on this wonderful needlepoint journey….but also those who have followed the journey across the globe to Africa with me.

Last June I attended the annual Spring Fling event for the Kenya Drylands Education Fund AKA  KDEF (pronounced Kay-Def). Although I have a been a big admirer of the organization since meeting my dear and remarkable friend Sarah Hadden, I seemed to be one of the few in our town who had not yet met Ahmed Kura. I knew many people who knew Kura, as he is called, and spoke so highly of him but I had yet to have the opportunity to meet him myself. Don and I had already signed up to join the nine day KDEF Safari trip planned for October. I was anxious to meet the man who would introduce us to his country I had heard so much about. Like all great meetings, I had no idea the joyful turn this introduction would take.

During the luncheon event Kura addressed the crowd and spoke about his experience growing up in the very rural part of Northern Kenya known as Korr. For fear of butchering the factual and inspiring story I will give you the very brief gist. After a parental death and a remarriage custom, Kura, the youngest of a very large family, found himself as a child without a home or parental support. Growing up in Northern Kenya, in a pastoral community Kura was unable to attend school beyond the government-run free elementary school. I have since learned from our mutual friend Sarah that Kura was absolutely devastated that he didn’t have the fees to attend secondary school and that he at one point tried to sneak into the private high school classes to learn anyway. Sadly, the school administrators would not let him stay without paying the school fees. Pause here please, and imagine a 9th grade boy in rural Kenya trying to sneak into a cinderblock classroom to learn and being told to leave. How devastating that must have been! Long story short, an older more established in-law eventually found Kura an American sponsor, a professor from Georgetown University, who paid Kura’s high school fees. This man Kura is very wise, speaks more languages than you can count on one hand, and has world class social skills. He could easily have a very lucrative career anywhere in the world. What he has done instead is dedicate his life to his people, to help create an organization in his homeland which supports education for those in need, provides mentor programs to ensure student success, and delivers feminine hygiene products for school girls so they don’t miss any days and can reach their maximum potential without marrying at a very young age. That day in June when I met Kura, he was in Vermont telling a very interested group about these fabulous initiatives. His whole career is about making life better for his people. This ADD luncheon guest was distracted, I got sidetracked by a detail in the presentation. Did someone say something about clean drinking water? Was there a need? Do they not have clean drinking water in Northern Kenya? Was there a drought? What was that little snippet I just heard? Who needs water?

A few days later during a dinner party I asked Kura what the water situation was like in the North and “How much does a truck load of water cost in Africa?” I learned that a truck load of water costs $350.

As I mulled over what to do with this information I learned that Kura had returned to Kenya to discover that Marsabit County in the Northern Drylands was in dire straights. There was no water and the pastoralists were in severe medical danger. Lives were in jeopardy. Women and children were walking 10 kilometers to get drinking water. Children, pregnant and nursing mothers, and the elderly were the most vulnerable.

I offered to help, Sarah Hadden and Kura, the co-directors of KDEF decided that in order to do their wonderful work,  their recipients and their communities needed water. I started blabbing all over about this, on Instagram, on Facebook, and through email, I blabbed about the water crisis to anyone who would listen. We also planned a party at our home in Vermont where we could raise awareness and some funds. This was not an organized effort, there was no Go-Fund Me, there were no publications, nor a formal ask, it was just word of mouth by the town crier. Do you remember that scene in the first Harry Potter movie where the Dursleys were trying to keep Harry from getting his invitation from Hogwarts and the wizards send thousands of them into the house? We had some serious Harry Potter Owl Post magic happening too. Checks started coming. And coming. And coming. They came from old friends, new friends, instagram friends, friends of friends. Needlepoint shops collected and sent funds. Checks came from a little island in the Gulf of Mexico, and from all over Vermont. People just kept handing me checks, mailing checks, and contributing online. Every one of our family members jumped in.  EVERYONE WANTED TO HELP!!  I am seriously tearful after typing that sentence. I can not thank you all enough. As friends and family in America shared their resources and Sarah was managing the influx, Kura was driving all over Northern Kenya evaluating the drought situation. The farther he got into the more rural areas, he was finding village after village in deep despair. As fast as KDEF was finding need, money was flowing. I would tearfully send Kura messages that simply said “I found you some more water”.  Sarah Hadden and I frequently looked at each other in shock and with tears in our eyes. Water started flowing immediately when the first checks arrived. 100 percent of the over $22,000 raised went directly to water in Marsabit County. In most villages it was water truck deliveries, a temporary solution until the rainy season came. In two villages water wells or catchments were repaired so that those villages had a permanent solution. In both cases, local workers were hired for the repairs to keep the money in the community where the water was needed. 

In October Don and I joined seven other Vermont friends on a trip to Kenya. There is no question the highlight of my trip was visiting all the villages you provided water for. In village after village, the community came out to greet us. There was dancing and singing which brought me to tears every single time. Village elders spoke to us in ceremonial celebrations sharing their deepest gratitude to all of you who sent the water to their desperate villages. In one village a local Kenyan Government official came to pay his respects. In that same village the Chief said “The world has forgotten us but you did not.” Each village happily allowed me to take photos knowing they were being shared with the amazing people who sent them water. I had the most wonderful conversation with the driver of the water truck. I thanked him profusely for the many, many hours each week he left his family and drove around the drought area delivering water. He thanked us all in return, he said he had the best job in the world. I also spoke with the mason who spearheaded the well and water catchment system, he too felt it was a honor to join this team providing drinking water.

Thank you one and all for your generous donations. Fifteen thousand people got water for five months, two villages have long term solutions. Many lives were saved. The people of Marsabit County thank you!! I am just lucky enough to be the messenger.

We get ready to leave Sumburu and head up north to the drylands.

We traveled in a caravan.

Local Villagers were waiting for our arrival. Pictured here are Sarah Hadden, myself, and Kura with our welcoming dancers. The woman on the right in the striped dress is the assistant Chief.

This well was rehabilitated. I have a dream that some day my grandchildren will pilgrimage to this special spot and see my name and date on this well.

Kura presents a special surprise

Opening this well was my greatest honor. I was so excited about the whole experience that I didn’t even realize it was Halloween until I read the sign.

Kura translates information between the Vermonters and this beautiful community.

American co-founder of the Kenya Drylands Education Fund (KDEF) Sarah Hadden turns on the fresh clean water

Two miles of pipe had been installed underground to ensure this water was carried to the village. These woman will no longer have to walk 10 kilometers for drinking water for their families.

Beautiful dancing and singing

Local children are so fascinated to see their visitors from across the globe.

Kura, a Kenyan government official, and the town Chief talk to us about the amazing impact this new well has on the community.

I absolutely loved his outfit. Grateful elderly men came to the event.

KDEF Co- Founder Sarah Hadden and board members Ellen Baer, and Pam Art enjoying this beautiful day.

These are herding/pastoral communities. Animals are their financial resource. Without water, their animals will die.

In another village the community shows up to meet us and collect water from the KDEF water truck. Everyone is excited to see Kura who provides help to their communities in many ways..

More gatherings of joyful water recipients in each village.

We were all invited to sing and dance with the villagers, our Deb enthusiastically always jumps in!!

In these communities gathering water is the job of the women and children. In the background you can see one of the village homes.

The children are both excited and mesmerized by their American visitors. I was mesmerized by the young children carrying their little siblings on their backs.

Tom greets the children.

In another village we met the whole community outside of the school. I was most excited to see the woman on the right with the red necklace. I had seen her in one of the videos the first day the water truck drove into her village. She addressed us all during the town meeting and asked that we send her sincere thank you to all of the donors. The older children wear their green and white school uniforms. Thanks to a new donor these younger children will have uniforms when they begin school again in January. Each school uniform costs $6.

Deb plays with the kids. Deb is an orthopedic surgeon so it was not uncommon for people to ask medical questions when they knew her profession.

A second classroom, an outhouse, and two hand washing stations are new additions to this school. A large fence was donated and installed to keep animals from running through the school yard and harming children.

This is the brand new classroom built at the school. The wall behind me is painted with black paint as a chalkboard.

Don says hello to all the women who came to meet us.

This smile made my day.

villagers come and line up their water cans.

This beautiful water truck was donated by a family from Vermont.

This sweet boy supervises water delivery.

Tuesday in Vermont

Deep country breaths...

It’s been a whirlwind since we arrived in Vermont. The first week we were here two great friends Sarah Hadden and Lisa Helmholz-Adams hosted two amazing events. I have written about the Period Party (to raise awareness of Feminine Hygiene needs) and The Feast of Venus event to raise money for Hunger Free Vermont. Both of these events were planned and executed by friends in our community who are seeing beyond their own needs, rallying troops, making epic things happen, with kind compassionate hearts. The next event I am looking forward to supports our local Summer Lunch Program. This program creates summer meals for children in our community who participate in the free lunch program. Think about this for a moment, kids who get free lunch and or breakfast at school….go on summer vacation… and those meals don’t exist anymore. I am so grateful for the wise souls who realized that there was a need, and created a program to fulfill those needs. It is a program very close to my heart and I look forward to hearing what they are doing and how we can help.

In the meantime I have been in the midst of time with our children and needlepoint adventures. HQ is being set up, packages arrive daily, and we are making some new dreams come true.

I am taking in the sights, smells, and feels of being back in the mountains. Yesterday I needed to take a long drive through the country to deliver a very special package. I passed farms, and mountains, lakes, and lots and lots of horses and cows. I saw signs for local country events. Country stores dotted the roads, along with 200 year old steeples, and old stone walls. It was a visual feast of riches.

Deep breaths of mountain air fill my lungs.

1973

Our barn in Chester, Vermont

In 1973 my widowed father married my wonderful stepmother. I was 8 at the time.  My stepmother came into our lives with great love for my father, a yellow VW Bug, half a house in Vermont (which she owned with her sister and brother-in-law) and 12 new cousins for me. I’d only been to Vermont once before. And I’d only been on one ski vacation to Lake Placid before Vermont became such a huge part of our lives. I was the child of a sailing family. I knew nothing about life in the mountains. Nothing. 

The Vermont house, Chester, Vermont

My mother had died a year and a half before I started skiing with my new cousins. I was the baby in my family, and then the baby in my family who lost her mother at 7. I was doted on and spoiled...by my father, my two older siblings, my grandmother, and many others....and then I wasn’t. When I joined all these new family members at this house in Vermont I was thrown into the pack. All of a sudden I was in my Lanz nightgown in an old farmhouse, bunking in the same room with all the girl cousins, waking at the crack of dawn, eating a hot breakfast I did not like, and tossed into the way back of a cold but fabulous vintage Landrover with my packed lunch and hand me down ski sweaters on the way to catch the first Okemo chairlift. And it was fun as hell. Yes, fun as hell!  (For clarification purposes, it’s important to note that the “hot breakfasts I didn’t like” were lovely spreads of pancakes and eggs made by my aunt and uncle. I was Lucky Charms and Poptart girl. The issue was all mine.)

I didn’t want to take ski lessons. I’d done that for a week at Whiteface the winter before. I felt like a dork and hated being that baby in lessons. I’m a youngest child, youngest children do not like to be left in the dust by kids who know more. For some reason my parents and aunt and uncle all thought that given my aversion to ski school... it would be a great idea for my youngest two cousins to teach me to ski. They were excellent skiers. The whole family was. It apparently never bothered any of the adults that my new cousin ski instructors were 9 and 11! I seem to remember them receiving about 3 sentences of instruction with the basic theme of “don’t loose her.”  Both of my cousins happily took me off to ski with them. If they weren’t happy to have me in tow, they never let on. They made me feel like one of the pack. They also didn’t allow this tag along to alter their plans. I was going to ski, I was going to keep up with them. I was going to quickly learn to navigate all forms of lifts. And we were going to start our lessons at the TOP of the mountain. It’s actually a brilliant, although crazy idea.  I was forced to learned quickly. There was only one way to get down to hot chocolate. To this day, I can keep up with anyone and I’m not afraid. My form is not so beautiful but I’m smiling with glee all the way down the mountain. 

This theme of kids going off on adventures continued.

The dairy farm next door.

This is the dairy farm which was next to our house. We were all told never to go over there. We were also told we were not allowed near any of the cows. Although these two rules are actually the same message delivered twice, we didn’t listen. One day when the parents were otherwise occupied or most likely not home, we walked right over there and crawled into the closest pen with the cows. Somehow, real or imagined we decided one of the cows was “charging us” so we ran and dove under the rusty barbed wire fence. Being the slowest runner and fearing for my life, I didn’t notice that the barbed wire was cutting a line across my lower back. This created a new predicament, I was wounded, there was no possible explanation for the parents. Again the youngest cousins... who were about 10 and 13 at this point became my medics. There were secret rubbing alcohol cleanses and smearing whatever else we could find in the medicine cabinet on my wound, one that I could not reach nor see without a mirror. It’s amazing now that I think about it, that the 3 of us in the bathroom together did not alert one of the mothers to trouble! The horror of the issue at hand was on the light side of the scale of justice, when we considered the consequences of the parents finding out we had been in the cow pen. I remember leaving that Sunday eve promising my cousins I would hide my wound from my parents when I got home. I don’t think any of us told anyone until we were in our 30s! I will be forever grateful I never got lockjaw or anything else you can get from rusty wire in a dirty cow field! 

These adventures continued. Suburban children in the mountains with their parents. Shooting cans, playing in the fields, riding tractors, hiding up in the trees from wildlife creatures. It was my own version of “Little House on the Prairie.” My wonderful new stepmother and her very fun sister made sure we did it all, some experiences were new and some were to keep the family rhythms flowing. My father and I were the only Protestant members of this large devoted Catholic family. Saturday mass happened on the way home from the mountain in ski boots and the ski sweaters. I often wondered what I was doing in this new church while my father and uncle were in the car reading the newspaper while the women and children were inside. I was told by my father I was welcome to join them in the car if I didn’t want to participate in mass. I tried this once or twice and decided an hour with old men reading the paper was 9 thousand times more boring than giggling with my cousins in the pews. As a result of years of family time in Vermont, I am as comfortable now in a Catholic Church as I am on a ski mountain.

I grew to love the seasons in Vermont. Winters were spent on the mountain, cozied up reading books at night, and family dinners around the table or at local Inns. I learned to quickly love pre dinner cocktail time around a fire at an old Vermont Inn. An Inn with a dog and board games in a real win! Summers were spent visiting the Jelly Mill, riding the Bromley slide, and swimming in Emerald Lake. All things my own children would grow up doing 

We were weekenders... we left Bronxville on Friday nights after my father came home from work in New York City. We drove our family wagon to Vermont. No seatbelts. Sleeping bags in the way back of the wagon. We left after a full day of activities on Sunday. I remember feeling so tired when I crawled into my comfy Snoopy sleeping bag. Now I realize, my parents must have felt even more so!

I moved to Vermont 17 years ago. A soon to be divorced mother with five small children between the ages of 3 and 9. A girl from Bronxville came via New Canaan and Houston. My husband Donald came 30 years ago from Michigan via Palo Alto and Santa Fe. We both found Vermont through Aunts, Uncles, and cousins.  We met here, married here. Our children are not weekenders. They are the real deal. They have Vermont in the hearts. And so do I.

Reflections at 5:43 am under the influence of jet lag.

As I sat down to write a blog on something entirely different from where I am going to go, my instant messenger awoke and brought me a plethora of fabulous messages from our son in London.  When he found his mother was still on European time and wide awake since 4 am we quickly switched to FaceTime and I had a long fabulous chat while I got to look at his handsome face and hear about his first week at work. While traveling (and wandering around places visually taking in the feasts of the sights) I had a lot of time to think. One of the topics whirling it's way through my brain .... is that of electronic communication.

As a HUGE Jane Austin fan, who also follows and absorbs other period literature which reflects on the societal interactions of people, I love observing human interactions, including communication with the written word.  Dropping by and leaving a social calling card, a written invitation, or a love letter...whether engraved on paper,  handwritten in ink, and delivered by various methods all intrigue me. Although I grew up in a home where thank you notes were a strict requirement, and then rebelled against them for a way too long period of time, I love nothing more than getting a correspondence. I love the mail. I love an invitation, a thank you note, or a friendly card. The thing I love most is a love letter or poem written by my husband. No wait, I love those with all of my heart, but the thing I love the very most is a letter, card, piece of art, or very thoughtful text from one of our children. I don't feel disingenuous saying this part about ranking our children's communication above that as my husband's because I would imagine he feels the same way.  

You hear so much negativity about everyone's noses being down to their screens. While traveling this month and observing people from all over the world, I witnessed this first hand. I did it myself at times. Yet, I think there is a very lovely part of this era in time....because in some ways, I liken it back to the Austin days, when written words were used to make social and love connections. Disclaimer: According to Doug Chapman's fabulous and intuitive book The 5 Love Languages, there is no question- my love language is words. 

Those of us of a certain age talk about how we grew up without social media, texting, portable communication, etc etc. We bask in this fact and talk about how hard it would be to be young now and seeing what everyone else is doing.  FOMO our kids call it. The Fear of Missing Out.  The comparisons are obviously challenging, especially for teenagers and young adults. When we were kids we didn't know what others were doing or what we might be missing. We had no answering machines. We had no call waiting. We had to call from a telephone located in a public room of our house attached to wall not far from adults and chances are you were going to get a parent on the other end of your phone call to your friend. My own parents monitored my greetings very carefully for a time and finally relented when I had the "Hello Mrs. So and So, This is Tricia, MAY I PLEASE speak with Bloopty Bloop." If that "May I please" was not said, there would be loud whispers at me, guiding me into correcting myself. All calls had to be made in very respectable hours. Communication with the world outside of your house stopped around 9 pm unless you were assured there were not parents home at the other house.  We didn't have man servants delivering handwritten notes at all hours of the day like the lovelorn in Austin's day.

I like to think of written communication whether it be emails or texts, or private messages as some sort as a modern way for old fashion communication. The fact that millennials, and now many of the rest of us, no longer prefer talking on the phone has taken us back to a time before we had them. A quick message to connect to new people is like as a social calling card dropped on a silver dish in the foyer.  An email invitation for dinner as a noninvasive way to invite a potential friend mimics the old fashion note delivered to their home. A text from a child telling you what they are really thinking or feeling, and a love email from your paramour resemble the written words of the Austin era.

As I end this piece my messenger awakes again. This time it is the identical twin of my earlier morning communicator. (And yes, they have contacted me in birth order.) This one is from France. This joyful boy is sharing news and thoughts and ideas. My heart is full. 

I must really blame Jenny!

The other day I accidentally changed the name of the blog page to "I blame Jenny". I only discovered this by looking at the analytics of this website on my phone and I noticed that my most dedicated website follower kept looking at "I blame Jenny". I was far from a computer and unable to change it, and really had a great laugh. If you know Jenny, you will share this laugh.

Jenny is my college roommate from Freshman year and one of my favorite people on the planet. 

In November, Jenny, and two of my other most favorite people on the planet, Sarah and Aimée (also very best friends from college) all came to visit me on this little island in Florida. A long overdue girls' weekend was had following a most wonderful 30th reunion at St. Lawrence University last spring. All three of these amazing women were instrumental in my life as a young woman. Thirty years ago- with them- I managed to get into all sorts of trouble, we laughed and laughed years worth of laughs, and we talked about everything under the sun as we grew from girls into young women.  Aimee and I also traveled the world together after graduation and visited almost all of the European countries on a fabulous walkabout. These women are part of the core of who I am.

Sarah, Aimée. Jenny, Tricia

Fast forward...November. How truly amazing to spend 4 days alone with these divine friends. No topics are taboo, no explaining who we are, with a deep understanding of each others parents, and a great desire to know all about each other's children and spouses we reconnected right where we left off. Our days were spent relaxing on the beach and riding golf carts into town- where Sarah did her usual amazing job as fashion stylist for each of us. Evenings were spent at my favorite restaurants eating the island's finest fare and enjoying copious amounts of tropical cocktails. ("copious" one of Sarah's wonderful words that reminds me of her every time I use it.)

But Jenny kind of ruined all the fun.... she started talking about weight and health. Damn it!

Jenny had tried the Whole30 with another college friend and was looking into doing it again. She fricking inspired us to give up dairy, alcohol, sugar, and carbs. Like some crazy preacher, we listened to her!! We had a farewell meal fit for queens on a gorgeous deck overlooking sunset on the gulf of Mexico. Farewell to each other, and farewell to all those food items we hold dear. 

There was a bet involved. We naturally divided into teams. Sarah, my partner in another adventure! This was the kind of bet only college friends make. Disgusting financial consequences  with pay offs to organizations you would never want to give money to. Plus there was the added bonus of the threat of dirty T-shirts designed by the other team to be worn on the streets of our hometowns. I can laugh now, but the threat was REAL! 

And thus I started the Whole30. 

The short version is that the first two weeks I was crabby as all hell as I detoxed not only from the items above but from diet coke. I thought I would miss wine, but in fact, I really missed my true love...gummy bears. I also missed Vermont maple syrup, which is hilarious, but I don't think I actually eat it that often. 

Once I got past the first two weeks I felt fantastic. REALLY, REALLY, FANTASTIC. I could breathe, I had amazing energy, and slept like a baby. I did the Whole30 for 37 days because I felt so good. I lost 10.5 pounds easily, no calorie counting, no portion control, just eating a fabulous paleo diet. 

Tomorrow I start again for another 30 days. This time there is a glorious light at the end of the tunnel. I was invited by a friend to join her at a yoga retreat this summer in Italy. Normally, I would have said no. The thought of getting in shape for this event would have seemed like too much! But this me says "YES" because I know with the whole30, I can do it. I just need to get myself back into the grove. Tonight we have really, really fun dinner plans with new friends. Tomorrow is a new day. 

As for the outcome of other challenge. Let's just say that in the end we are all winners because this challenge created a constant text conversation between the four of us. In honor of friendship we each donated to a cause we hold dear and we share the information on each cause with each other. The real win is the reconnection of a lifelong friendship with women I hold dear.

Health.

We had a health scare.  Everything is fine!! We are all good. But for two weeks, from December 20th til January 4th... I floundered in a state of full blown mother desperation and panic. I made a huge effort to suffer in silence, for talking about it, made it feel like a locomotive headed our way.  One of our boys had an endoscopy, and during the procedure, the specialist thought he saw “lesions” on our son’s vocal cords.  The irony was that the child in question was groggy from the  procedure and never processed the  “lesion” distress. Mothers, we happily carry the distress for our kids.   

We, our family, missed the bullet. After an afternoon with one of the best vocal cord doctors, we learned that there had been problems with the first round of photos caused by odd camera angles, and there are in fact no lesions. When they told me the news I burst into tears. My very confused 20 year old asked if I had been worried. HA!

I entered 2018 with one word on my brain. Health. My wish for you all out there is that you experience great health for you and your loved ones. No New Year’s resolutions this year. No goals. Just one word. To me 2018 is about gratitude for H E A L T H.

August 1, 2009 ~ After years of dating Donald and I got married- and we officially became a family!  Here is the best wedding party ever!! Dreams do come true!! Our backyard ~ Dorset, Vermont.

Now that our kids are between the ages of 18 and 25 and living all over the world, it's hard to get them all in the same place at the same time....and when they are....I often get so wrapped up in the fun that forget to take a photo!! The top photo is the last photo I have of our children all together.. It's about 3 years old and was taken in Lyme, Ct. by my brother-in-law Phil.

A Christmas like no other.....

Confession: I was not totally looking forward to Christmas this year.  We were on a small island in the Gulf of Mexico and would be heading into a very, very cold Vermont winter.  We are in a new house that I had never decorated for Christmas before, and other than my precious ornament collection, I really didn't know where my decorations were. AND...most importantly 5 of our 7 children were not coming home for Christmas.  With 7 kids between the ages of 18 and 25, it's not surprising that this would happen. We want our children to create their own lives in their own places. We are so proud of them and feel good about their independance. It just kind of stunk.  We knew how missed they would be. Colin is in the Netherlands in graduate school with a lot on his plate. Very exciting things happening for him in the next couple of months, he would however be taking exams right after the first of the year. It made sense for him to stay. We were so grateful when an invitation from his school friend Freddie (who we love) came in, to spend Christmas with Freddie's family in the Hague.  Jasper is on a "walk about" and his currently in Tokyo. I can't wait to hear more about his Christmas adventures!  Willie and Adam live on the west coast. Having just been here in October, they decided to try spending Christmas together in Oregon (SO grateful for the short flight to connect these brothers.) Our youngest son Scotty would be spending Christmas in Baltimore in his own apartment with his girlfriend, darling dog, and her family nearby. I spent a couple of days right before Christmas getting him situated with supplies for his first holiday there.

Christmas table in the barn with a white out snowstorm happening out the window

As the holidays approached we realized there were some other guests who might like to come to Vermont and some Vermonters who might like to join us. Daughter Brooke and boyfriend Ethan brought home their friend Nick from Boston. My sister Puddy and Phil came up to stay with us. Daughter Courteney and her friends from college are all home and in and out of the house constantly. Since this Christmas was Ethan's 26th birthday, we invited his family to join us in the evening for a birthday party.

Holiday drinks table all ready for a house full of people and winter storm Ethan! Needlepoint stockings are hung on the kitchen mantle because the living room fireplace has a roaring fire at all times.

Brookie and her Aunt Puddy in the cozy kitchen

Two things completely and utterly changed our Christmas.... "Winter storm Ethan" .....seriously, couldn't make that up if I tried....was going to dump a snow storm on our little loved Barn in Vermont....and Ethan's older sister was pregnant and in Burlington with her in-laws for Christmas.

As our household headed to our favorite restaurant for a big family Christmas eve dinner we got the news.... Ethan's dearly loved older sister had gone into labor. In between Christmas poppers, magic tricks (in the poppers), and the most delicious meal  chef Michelle at Chanticleer prepared....I got to explain the stages of labor as texts came in from the hospital. With the impending storm headed to dump a lot of beautiful fresh powder on our sleepy little Christmas village, several of Ethan's family members headed to Burlington to beat the snow and welcome their new baby.

We woke to the news that baby Bowen had made a middle of the night appearance in the early hours of Christmas morning. Twenty six years after her mother had delivered what the family dubs the "christmas miracle boy", daughter delivered a second "Christmas miracle boy". I'm still so in awe of this!!  Mother and daughter, both delivering Christmas babies on the same day!! Having received my own first neice on my 21st birthday, I completely understood the joy that Ethan felt about sharing his special birthday with his nephew.

After a fabulous Christmas morning filled with laughter, joy, and a holiday breakfast of Uncle Phil's famous praline french toast (With Vermont syrup of course), eggs loaded with veggies and Vermont Cheddar cheese, and amazing bacon.....Christmas was removed and the table was set in a non-red and green manner for a celebratory birthday dinner.  Long time friend of my husband's, and father of Ethan, Chip, joined us for the festive celebration. Champagne was popped and we celebrated the birth of a young man we all hold dear in our hearts, and a brand spanking new gorgeous little boy. 

Our hearts were full as the snow fell on us and we basked in the glow of a very magical Christmas.

Custom needlepoint Brooke designed for the arrival of baby Bowen.

The first time I saw the Dead I was 15 years old.....

I was in boarding school at the time and my friends and I decided to go to a show at the Garden.  My roommate Poos and I both had older brothers who had had lots of fabulous concert experiences and this seemed like the PERFECT idea to us.  We gathered a bunch of other girls and bought tickets. I laugh now wondering....how did we buy concert tickets in 1980? We had no credit cards, there was no internet, we were hours away from the box office. We barely had any money! We had a little school bank that gave us $10 a week (unless you called your parents and asked them to give you more, which we did frequently!).  We had pay phones which were almost always hogged up by girls chatting with long distance boyfriends. Yet, somehow we managed to get our hands on 6 Grateful Dead tickets at Madison Square Garden!

Since I grew up in Bronxville and lived the closest to NYC it made perfect sense to us that we would go to my house for the weekend to get to the show.  The part that makes NO SENSE is that my parents thought this was a great idea! Really?!?! My husband Donald tells similar story of his parents letting him go see Pink Flloyd at 15 in Detroit! (Then again, we let our youngest kid go to Ibiza...!!!)

My father's only rule was that he was going to get my 26 year old brother to drive the family wagon into NYC and would be waiting outside the show to pick us up. I though this was "Soooooooo dorky" but my father would not bend. He after all knew the last train would have left Grand Central by the time we were done. I'm assuming there was money or a bribe involved to coerce the driver.

The show was fantastic. We had a ball. And somehow we all were together when it was time to leave. I was flagged down near the exit by a 16 year old boy from Bronxville who was there alone and had no way home. He thought it was AMAZING that my brother was outside with a station wagon and joyfully jumped in with us for the ride home. Apparently a safe, free ride home from a concert...is not dorky after all!

The last Dead show I saw with Jerry Garcia was at the Meadowlands and I was pregnant with daughter Brooke who painted this canvas.

It takes a village of Vermonters to make the perfect pillow

Jumping for joy at seeing daughter Brooke's elephant pillow in the January issue of Better Homes and Gardens!! Thank you to Sarah Hadden (highlighted in another blog post) for stitching this gem and to Maria Timmerman at In Stitches in Dorset, Vermont for everything. She finished this pillow in dreamy purple velvet! In Stitches is one of my all time favorite needlepoint shops. Maria knows color better than anyone I know. She does all of my personal finishing.  I'm so proud of Brooke!!

Feeling immense gratitude for all of the people who keep the roads safe....

My intended lovely little road trip with my eldest daughter Brooke, actually turned into quite an ordeal!!! Not 15 minutes off the island in Florida, we witnessed (as the car directly behind it) a head on collision.  Although it happened very fast, to us it appeared to go in slow motion..... as we watched a car pull out from a full stop into head on traffic with no way to call out and warn or stop it.  By the grace of God, there were no serious injuries. I dumped our car on the side of the road and helped the elderly victims out of their car (doors crammed shut, airbags deployed) while another man called 911. Arm chair expert here diagnosed one of the elderly men with a broken wrist and a possible concussion, everyone survived what could have been a triple tragedy. The police, ambulances, and fire trucks were there in minutes.  Needless to say, when we got back on the road, I was very shaken!! My father was always very, very calm in a crisis. He was an ambulance driver in WWII, first for the British Field Service, and then for the US Army under General Patton. His calmness in an emergency wore off on all three of his children. We are pretty calm in a crisis but later need to download the stress of the event. Needless to say, this accident set the tone for a slow and cautious journey.

Our father Bill Thorn with oldest granddaughter Katrina in North Salem, NY

Our first stop was Palmetto Bluff to see my sister Puddy and her fantastic husband (who has been in my life since my 8th birthday party!).  Phil is our family's premier chef and superior event foodie provider. Oh how grateful I was to learn that he had made a wonderful paleo dinner to help me through my last few days of the Whole30. He'd researched what I could eat and made the most delicious steak and vegetable kabobs with a sauce to die for. Sunday was spent at the Montage Palmetto Bluff where the three girls had "spa day", lunch at the wonderful Buffalo's restaurant, and a little Christmas shopping. It was a perfect way to catch up with my sister before the holiday rush.

Photo of a garden in Palmetto Bluff by brother-in-law Phil Doetzel, who is both an amazing chef and a even more amazing photographer!

On Monday Brooke, little dog Finn, and I got back in the car early to head towards Vermont. While talking to my brother, known on my instagram account and in real life as....Mr. Spanky Pants..... we learned that a snow storm was going to hit our little town of Vermont at 3 am.  We had to make some quick choices. Knowing there were no snow tires on my SUV, I wanted to get to Vermont before the storm hit. The thought of being trapped for days in someone else's house or worse, a crappy motel with a little dog fueled my energy to get there. Quick thinking, Brooke and I made a plan to drop her in Maryland with my youngest son Scotty. She would fly to Boston from there and I would power through the night to get to Vermont. I literally kissed my 20 year old son Scotty on the side of the road while I handed over his sister and kept going.  I am so grateful for my family members who kept calling me through the night to check on me. My husband, sister, and stepmother win the prize, staying up much later than usual, calling to make sure I was alert and entertained for a portion of my 14 hour journey. I listened to Diane von Furstenberg read her book "The Woman I Want to Be" on that dark winter night. I am grateful for her company and wonderful stories!

My air traffic control coordinator Puddy Cat with my weather man Mr. Spanky Pants

Mr Spanky Pants all grown up. 

Little dog and I arrived to a warm house in the mountains just as the snow flurries began to fall, 2:30 am on the dot.

My family has had a home in Vermont since I was 8. I went to St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York where it's literally a winter wonderland most of the school year. And I have lived in Vermont as an adult for the past 16 years. I know snow. I do snow well. This week I have had my challenges dealing with the snow. I confess to having more than one meltdown moment. I kept thinking of the movie Baby Boom which was filmed in my community. Diane Keaton finally looses it. I was getting close to that point!  We are in a new house this year, having moved over the summer. I don't know where all those winter emergency things are. I had a devil of a time turning up the hot water heater, finding the snow tires in the garage, shoveling with a garden shovel, because our snow shovel seemed to have gotten lost in the move. I cleaned off my car with a broom, dug out all the winter clothes I could find. I was snowed in for two days with only the food in the pantry. This would be no problem except I was on my last days of the Whole30. Eating non perishable pantry food was not any easy way to finish the whole30! Dinner one night was olives stuffed with garlic! These hardships were met with joy as I built large fires, watched season 2 of the Crown, face timed with my darling husband, and needlepointed fabulous Christmas ornaments. 

Identical twin sons Colin (left) and Willie (right) in "Mont". Weston, Vermont 1997

Eventually the plows came, our lovely mountain road has been plowed several times now and sanded beautifully. Our driveway has been plowed by a wonderful family that live nearby. I've managed to get the snow tires on the car, and to the grocery store! The trip here was arduous but oh how grateful I am to be in Vermont for the holidays. The tree went up this morning. The wrapping starts today. I've had lunch with some girlfriends and have run into others. It's SO good to be home.

I have an ample supply of needlepoint kits ready. Photos and the shop will go up tomorrow.

Safe travels to all of you as you make your way around to do your shopping, visiting, and celebrating.  And a big shout out to the emergency responders, the snowplow drivers, and the folks who make and sell snow shovels and scrapers!! 

Our family one Christmas a few years ago in Lyme, Ct

LOVERMONT: Oh how we love you, Vermont

Tomorrow we head back to Vermont. To snowy, wonderful, Christmasy Vermont. Home.

When thinking about Vermont, I think about what makes Vermont so special to us. It's the childhood home of our 7 children. It's the place where Don and I met and fell in love.  It's gorgeous, or as my father would have said "God's country." But most importantly....it is the place where so many folks we love live.  Giddy with excitement about seeing our Vermont pals. xoxo