Featured
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Summer memories: “The Art of Collecting Beach Stones”
“Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.” ~Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty Summer is in full swing and Fourth of July celebrations are gearing up. Some of you will be heading for the beach or hitting the highway for a road trip. With that in mind, I’ll revisit a few previously published posts and articles with a summer theme over the next week. Here’s a favorite essay I wrote for Michigan Blue magazine on the art of collecting beach stones. To read it online, please click here. Wherever you live, I hope the sun is shining! ~CL
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Are thank-you notes old-fashioned?
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward In one of her recent advice columns, Amy Dickinson (“Dear Amy”) said the largest percentage of her mail comes from baffled readers who are hurt or angry because they didn’t receive thank-you notes for their gifts. At the same time, many other readers who leave comments on her columns don’t believe it’s necessary to write thank-you notes now. One young bride said she didn’t have time to write thank-you notes for her wedding gifts because her life was “too busy.” (Never mind that she’d found the time to mail out invitations…
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A short survival guide for grads
At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.” ~Paul Freund Like most moms, I spent years lecturing my child on the importance of working hard, eating healthy meals, writing thank-you notes, and ironing his dress shirts. But I neglected to impart other nuggets of wisdom along the way. As my dad used to say, earning good grades is important, but learning how to get along with people is even more important. That’s why I wrote the following list of graduation “survival tips” and shared them in my local newspaper column before my son…
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Life without Facebook
“I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say that is sounds like a huge waste of time.” ~Betty White This year I’m celebrating six years of Facebook sobriety. In my experience, Facebook caused more harm than good and I had to quit. Once I did, my emotional wellbeing, social life, family relationships, attitude, and productivity all improved. If you missed my Oakland Press column on the topic, you can still read it online here.