Did you hear about the lady leaving Pizza Hut with one large pizza and two small children. She put the pizza on the roof of her car to take care of her children and then promptly drove away. Fortunately, passing motorists were able to stop her. “Hey lady, your pizza is on top of your car!”...

It was last week that I was standing in a familiar grocery store looking for a package of Pecan Sandies, when it hit me. An overwhelming odor of mold or fuel oil, but at industrial strength. Then, through my teary eyes, I saw her, as my brother would say, “All dressed up as a party favor”...

Whenever I live through a week like last week, I can’t help but wonder what is in store for the rest of the year. My husband was off work for the week between Christmas and New Years. We opted to stay at home for the week to get things done around the house. I haven’t worked so hard in months...

You have seen the Indiana personalized license plates around town for some time. Personalized plates were created to show your personal creativity while traveling Hoosier highways. You can state your profession on your vanity plate. ‘SHAMPOO’ can been seen in town, driven around by a hairdresser. ...

My nephew was helping me search the attic for a particular box. Naturally, he did more looking around than being of any actual help. He came over with a book of what he called ‘funny-looking postage stamps’. They were not postage stamps, but trading stamps, I told him...

Now that Christmas is drawing near, eventually the time will come when the in-laws come for a visit. I have a few suggestions on how to make the visit memorable. It might make a difference if they return next year. Think of the decorations. When decorating your house, think more, more and more. A house can never be over-decorated. Decorations should dominate the field of vision at all times. Explain to them how you have been so busy decorating and celebrating for Christmas...

November, the month of elections and turkeys. A likely combination if you ask me. Another election is right around the corner, and I must admit politicians can be some of my favorite people. They are, and have been some of the most colorful people ever placed on this earth...

Notice all the houses decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving Day? Driving around town you see more than one cement goose lawn ornament dressed as a pilgrim. There is a Minnie Mouse statue dressed as Pocahontas. Early in the week you could hear the leaf blowers throughout the different neighborhoods. Streets were lined with piles of leaves waiting on city crews...

My nephew Doug is getting ready for his first big game. He is a football player now. When he first brought home his uniform, he wore it for most of the day. Doug came over and showed us his football gear. He looked so tiny in his football uniform. I could almost cry when I saw how the mammoth equipment engulfed him. His bright-red jersey should intimidate any opposition team...

Halloween is a uniquely magical time of the year. Children turn into adults. Adults turn into children. Halloween past was spent with my three nephews. With only a flashlight the three kids, dressed as ghosts, were shuffled from one house to the next. By the end of the evening, each bag was filled to capacity. What other time of year could a kid load up on a mountain of candy and other teeth-rotting goodies?...

Some pets live lavished in royal treatment. It must be nice to live a dog’s life, a canary’s life or even a cat’s. On a recent visit to my aunt Jean’s house, her cat, Pumpkin, joined us for dinner. His menu of choice: room temperature tuna (in water, never in oil). ...

In spite of the recent rain and temperatures, yard sales flourish. “One man’s trash is another one’s treasure,” is a prime definition of the yard sales held each spring. On any given weekend from about May to August, signs will appear all over town for yard sales or garage sales...

When I was a child, I thought my Aunt Julie talked funny. True, she was speaking English, yet she invented certain words. I was certain that these words were hers alone because I never heard anyone else in my family use them. I never heard them at school, at the playground not even at church...

These past winter months, I noticed unusual bits and pieces in my daily life. My knees and sometimes my elbows ache. Some mornings my shoulder blade feels like it is on fire. I told my husband one morning and he said simply, “Oh, it’s probably arthritis.”...

I was pretty sure of what I saw on my brother-in-law’s boat last week. But I thought I’d ask anyway. Yes, he fixed his boat with duct tape. “Once you get in the water with it, it’s stronger than steel,” he says...

What is worse than a little boy having a bumper sticker? A little nephew putting that bumper sticker on his uncle’s car, that’s what. It caused a wee bit of a commotion. True, maybe his uncle takes his commitment to his automobile a tad too far. Yet, the little guy putting a bumper sticker on the car wasn’t the smartest thing he ever did...

A friend, whom I’ll call Suzie, reads her horoscope each morning as she drinks her coffee. Lately, she has been giving me advice on how I should handle the day. I am not a superstitious person. I do not believe in fortune tellers with a deck of cards, nor do I believe that my life can be ruled by the alignment of the planets. I do have to admit that every now and then, when she gives advice, she can come curiously close to the facts...

My Great-Aunt Sarah stopped by last week. She lives in a “tiny” farming community in southern Indiana. We enjoyed her visit, but late on Saturday night she mentioned that she was way too old to enjoy life in “a big city.”...

As friends relived old times during the course of last evening, the subject of nicknames arose. So, I started scribbling them down, which is basically what I intended to build this column around. I went to school with Carla, whose nickname was Hurricane...

If you’re like me, you have troublesome days getting into the groove. Try spicing up the conversation around the office. At the office today, the topic around the water cooler was: If you were recuperating in a hospital, who would you want in the bed next to you, excluding relatives?...