family
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Do You Believe in Magic?
- March 24, 2019
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: family
5 Comments
I was at a chateau in the Burgundy region of France for my cousin’s wedding when a butterfly flew in my room. It hovered there for a few minutes, flapping its orange and black wings, just hanging around, and then it flew outside and landed on the hundreds-years-old stone façade, taking in the view. I
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That Moment When…
- September 6, 2018
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: midlife
It doesn’t take much to get to me these days. There are little moments that knock at my heart like tiny little baby fists, not particularly painful but still palpable. I can never be sure when one of these moments will float by like a dust mite or take up residence in my mind, pushing
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130 Things to Do as an Empty Nester
- July 29, 2017
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: empty nest
The empty nest is your chance to do anything you want – if you could just figure out what that is. Find a job Quit your job and start a home-based business Go back to college and get a Bachelor’s Degree Go back to college and get a Master’s Degree Go back to college just
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Love Always, Me
- October 31, 2016
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: midlife
It started around the age of eleven, when I was a 7th grader in search of my place in the social hierarchy. I’d spend hours searching for just the right one to convey the perfect message to the recipient. In my head, I’d debate whether the words were too sappy or too adoring, too generic
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The Skill of Gratitude
- August 1, 2016
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: midlife
I was not raised in a religious home. Though culturally I have always been deeply connected to Judaism, it has never been a way for me to find consolation or reassurance in difficult times. My identity is firmly planted in the roots of my grandmother’s Yiddishkeits, my father’s voice when he recited the Kaddish on
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Summer, 1970, Long Island
- May 30, 2016
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: midlife
I was 8 years old the summer of 1970, and that was the summer I didn’t go to summer camp. We lived in a sweet little house that my father spent hours painting and fixing, though his handyman skills were severely lacking. His younger brother, a hippie with a wild afro, who lived in our
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Why Housework Matters
- June 15, 2015
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: family
There was an op-ed piece in the The New York Times entitled “The Case for Living in Filth” about the role men and women play in the management of the home. Among the writers and philosophers cited in the article are Karl Marx and Simone de Beauvoir, one indication that the topic of housework and the
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Selling Our Home of 24 Years – Part One
- April 20, 2015
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: family, midlife
I know this place. For twenty-four years we’ve lived here. I arrived, almost thirty years old with my one-year-old baby girl in my arms. I had fought moving to this suburban community for two years, but my husband was right – it was the perfect place to raise a family. So that’s what we did.
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Don Draper, My Father and Me
- March 30, 2015
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: family
When Sally Draper got out of the car on an episode of Mad Men in 2014 entitled “A Day’s Work” and turned to her father, the handsome and tortured Don Draper, and said, “I love you, Dad. Happy Valentine’s Day,” I saw my father and me. I saw the love that she felt, despite her father’s mistakes, neglect,
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Sailing Away on Her Last Spring Break
- March 3, 2015
- Posted by: Sharon Greenthal
- Category: parenting
How can it be? How is it possible that my little girl is nearly done with college, and setting sail on a cruise through the Caribbean for her final spring break…ever? How can she be nearly twenty-two…wasn’t I just twenty-two a few minutes ago? I remember my big spring break trip – for $168,