When I was a young girl, far-off relatives would send the family a fruitcake every year before Christmas, and every year it would sit in the middle of the dining room table untouched. In moments of desparation, I'd try to carefully extract the tiny bits of cake from the surrounding fruit and nuts only to end up frustrated, cursing it. But maybe a fruitcake is more than just a fruitcake...

Fall feels like the possibility that something new and exciting is about to happen. There's something in the air. Even the color of the light is a little different. To make sense of this...

Ah, the ’60s were great, weren’t they? Doris Day, clean-cut all-American astronauts, Mitch MIller, Look magazine... How we all long for that joy-filled, unpretentious time. Let’s take a look back at that wonderful era as seen through the lens of our advertising media. What were we selling ourselves? What did we want? Oh, and see if you spot the fake ad...

My feelings about this town can be summed up with the fact that I'm most happy when I can see it in my rearview mirror. A go-go dancer in a micro-micro bikini doing her dance is right in front of me and not 10 feet away, a giant plastic SpongeBob Squarepants advertises the “SpongeBob in 4-D” ride; you know, for the kids...

Uh, that’s hard for me to look at too and way too big, but looking through the newspaper ads (yeah, we still get a real paper newspaper), I learn that moms just love $48.97 diamond heart pendants...

Years ago, when I was still in school, I worked the costume jewelry counter at JC Penney.  It was a pretty sucky, mind-numbing job and didn't last too long; but I remember the days leading up to Valentine's Day, the rush of last-minute guys shopping for wives and girlfriends.  They certainly weren't the big spenders; we didn't have anything over let's say $50...

Our friend Laura G. has sent us a new story. When I read it, I was struck by how it applied to my family at this moment in time. Last week, my mother-in-law was in the hospital for a few days. She's okay, but we, our son especially, have to deal with the fact that she's getting older...

These were the words used in a search query by someone (likely a high school freshman) who found StoryRhyme.com. To the seeker: I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you didn't read the story, did you? Because if you did, you'd know that O. Henry's use of irony is not exactly subtle. In fact, if at first you didn't know what irony meant, you would after reading "The Gift of the Magi..."

Update: Jim And Della's Gifts; Irony... Okay, since it's the season of giving and since I don't want to feel like I've got spiders in my soul like The Grinch, I'm directing this post to the many of you who are seeking the answer to the question: What is ironic about the gifts Jim and Della gave to each other. Also, what were they really giving...

At the age of 2, Grandma moved with her parents and brother from Kansas to the Arizona desert to homestead. Her mother (my Great Grandmother) taught school in the one-room school house and owned and ran the general store. Life was hard in the small ranch town. It was remote and often lonely...