We got some very good news this month about Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound — the book is a finalist for another award! If you read my posts about winning a 2008 ASPCA/Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award, you know how much I love feeling those shiny embossed seals on copies of our book. So […]

There I was, happily baking bread on Christmas Eve morning, listening to Chicago Public radio, when a “public service announcement” came on plugging this week’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Sweater Drive & Storytelling Festival! Hanni and I will be giving a presentation at that fest at 1 pm on Wednesday, December 31 — it was a […]

The great comments you left after reading my Christmas from Scratch post got me thinking. Maybe Chicago Public radio would be interested in airing a piece about our Grandma Moos and how she was a recycler wayyyy ahead of her time. And so, I rejiggered that post a bit (translation: made it shorter) and submitted […]

I came home, checked our answering machine. There it was. A message from my nephew. The message was alarming. Not because of what Robbie said. Just that he called me!   My extended family lives all over the country. We consider ourselves “close.” But we rarely, if ever, phone each other. We email. We send […]

My Grandma was “green” long before Kermit was a tadpole. She cleaned houses for a living and walked to all her jobs. She never owned a car; never even got a driver’s license. Her carbon footprint was far smaller then her real one, the one she left all over Elmhurst, Illinois with those practical, black, […]