Laments About Muddled With Family

Love and Listening

Sorry. You Were Talking. I Wasn't Listening

annoyed wife talking and bored husband not listening

Longtime married couples think they’ve heard it all. But after decades, love and listening may go their separate ways. In which case, even the happiest of marrieds may discover they’ve missed something important. I know. It just happened to Handsome Hubby and me. Crisis loomed! Read more

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Favorite Family Recipes

Flavors and Memories

Favorite family recipes – more precious than silver, packed with more memories than scrapbooks and the hallway filled with yellowed photos of our ancestors. Every family has got a favored meal. Here’s the story of our’s. Read more

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Play the Field or Play for Keeps?

Hoops or Hubby?

Play the field or play for keeps

With the National Basketball Association season winding down and free agent trading time gearing up, I’m considering my options. Should I play the field or play for keeps? Stick with Handsome Hubby or …? Read more

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First a Concussion. Then a Cook

Ina Garten and Grandma Ida Helped Too

First a concussion. Then a cook

First I got a concussion. Then I learned to cook. It’s true, but like most truths, there’s more to the story. It actually took a concussion, a TV show, and echoes from the past to get me to care about cooking. Read more

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Endangered! Red Meat Carnivores

Beef Brisket Bye-bye

Endangered! Red Meat Carnivores

I come from a long line of now-endangered red meat carnivores. My grandmother made a mean Cornish game hen, but it was her Hungarian goulash and stuffed cabbage (stuffed with ground beef) I most fondly remember.

My mother’s signature recipes were chili con carne, roast beef, steak smothered in buttery onions and mushrooms, beef and peppers, and brisket. Oh, yes, the brisket. Read more

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Millennials Don’t Give a Sheet

And They Don't Make Their Beds Either!

Millennials Don't Give a Sheet

I couldn’t sleep last night. As I tossed and turned, I read an article that got me in a dither: Millennials don’t give a sheet! That’s right – they are rejecting top sheets. So, of course, I got up on the wrong side of the bed today, and as I made the bed, I decided I wanted to vent about, of all things, all things bedding!

A lot has changed in the world of bedding since I was a little girl. First, there’s this sheet crisis! Read more

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If I Ruled the World

Queen Me for a Day

If I Ruled the World

Ah, if I ruled the world and could be Queen … just like on that popular TV show of decades ago, Queen for a Day. I’d right some wrongs, enforce some rules, and, maybe settle a petty score or two! I mean what’s power if you can’t abuse it just a teensy bit, all the while wearing a tiara and robe, parked on a royal throne? Read more

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A Hurricane-Hound Brings Sunshine

by guest contributor Olga

Hurricane-hound brings sunshine to our home

“In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire …
Hurricanes hardly happen.”
                                                                     My Fair Lady, Lerner and Loewe

Hurricanes also happen in Florida, and as a result of one, this hurricane-hound now calls California home.

It was all so scary at first – given up to a Florida shelter and then scooped up by a huge, noisy, metal bird and taken to a different shelter in a strange new city. Read more

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Trick-or-Woof!

Happy Bark-o-ween!

Trick-or-woof

Trick-or-woof! So barks Olga, our four-year-old Labrador, and ruler of our roost.

OK. Scary she’s not. Silly she is.

So, Olga is opting for elegance, not fierce, furry or fiery this Halloween.

But trick-or-treaters beware! Olga’s got an ear-splitting warning/welcome bark and a face-drenching lick!

And while Handsome Hubby and I are away vacationing, guess who’s next week’s Muddling through Middle Age’s special guest columnist?

Hint, hint. She’s a middle-aged muddler’s best friend! Woof!

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Diet Daze, Praise and Prays

Cabbage Soup by the Bowlful

Diet Daze, Praise and Prays

I’ve got religion! And like all religious zealots, I speak of nothing else. My new-found religion is not a traditional religion, nor is it New Age hippy, dippy. My new religion is my new diet. More specifically, it is my new-found diet success! Read more

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