by Marlene Bumgarner | Dec 21, 2023 | Aging, Child development, Christmas in Yorkshire, Cooking and Eating, Family, Grandparenting
Mom’s Christmas Pudding My favorite holiday tradition would have to be baking for Christmas. My mother would come home from church one Sunday and announce – “Right! it’s time to make Christmas Pudding.” I didn’t know for many years how my mother received...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Aug 23, 2023 | Aging, Family, Grandparenting, Travel
Hello again! This summer has gone by too quickly. My original plan had been to write every day, but that didn’t happen. I thought it might be fun to look back over the last three months and figure out where the time went. June My last post here was a tribute to...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Apr 20, 2023 | Aging, Community, Family, Grandparenting
April 4. This is hard. Harder than I expected. Deconstructing my Santa Cruz house to reconstruct it for today’s market is, essentially, deconstructing the life I lived in it for a decade. Workmen are removing the wall decorations, TV screens, bookcases,...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Oct 20, 2022 | Aging, Child development, Community, Cooking and Eating, Family, Grandparenting
Pumpkin Patch Traditions Long-time readers know that when I lived in Santa Cruz my oldest granddaughter and I enjoyed visiting a pumpkin patch each October. As the years passed, I watched little Bean progress in her relationship with the pumpkins. At first, she just...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Jun 25, 2022 | Aging, Child development, Family, Grandparenting
Saying Goodbye to my Granddaughter One might ask – what is there to grieve about? No one has died. No one is even sick – this week – thank heavens. No one has abandoned me. But I’m grieving just the same. My daily care of baby Brighton, my...
by Marlene Bumgarner | Mar 27, 2022 | Aging, Child development, Community, Family, Grandparenting
A New Grandchild My first thought when my oldest daughter told me she was expecting my first grandchild was “at last!” I was sixty-four years old, with four adult children more focused on their careers than on starting families. Most of my friends were already...