"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...."

"And This gives life to Thee..."

"Bloom where you are planted..."

“In the air, there’s a feeling of Christmas…”
I was looking for my Christmas ornaments. It was the Fall of 2007.  I hadn’t had a Christmas tree in all the time I’ve lived in this apartment.  It occurred to me to celebrate my transition into a new life by creating one of my beautiful Christmas trees, loaded with lights and decorations and wrapped in pink tulle.  I took on cleaning out my closets to find my boxes of ornaments. It’s funny about closets – New Yorkers always seem to want lots of closet space, AND what happens is that we bury things in there for years.  Then we forget.  We forget what we have and what we value and what has long ago lost any use or worth to us.  We let it all l

“And This gives life to Thee…”
I’ve always loved writing…. more accurately, I’ve always loved words….  I read so much as a child that my mother was always calling through my bedroom door, late at night – as I hung over the side of my bed with a flashlight so I could read “just a few more pages” of my latest novel – “Linda, stop that reading!  It’s time to go to sleep….!”  Reluctantly, I would lay down my book an

“Bloom where you are planted…”
I’m a real estate broker, and I just sold my penthouse listing that I’ve had for over a year.  When we first put it on the market last year, we had an offer in three days – great price, cash sale.  My owner almost couldn’t believe it – two guys walked in, took one look, and the next day, we had a great offer….  That was in August.  AND… in New York City, in a coop, it’s a good two to three months from “accepted off

“I guess the Lord must be in New York City…”
After 9/11, it got personal…. In the aftermath of those days of serving at the armory, and those nights of writing about it to all my friends, I was left alone with my own fears…  Before September 11th, I had been interviewing for a job.  It had looked good for a few weeks.  On the Friday after the towers came down, I received a call that they were putting the job on hold.   During the busy da