At Home

I got my first camera for Christmas when I was almost 9 years old. The first pictures I ever took were of my brothers opening presents.

Over the years, I took many photos, often of family, friends and our home, but occasionally stranger subjects. (My mother got increasingly frustrated by the photos I kept taking of the trees in our front yard.)

In the late ‘90s, my favorite national-brand peanut butter came out with a silky-smooth chocolate version. I kept a box of crackers and a jar of the chocolate peanut butter on my desk at work for the late afternoon blahs. It was truly wonderful. They did make other flavors, but I never bothered with them. There was no point when there was chocolate peanut butter in the world.
Eventually, it was taken off the market and I moved on. I tried not to think about it too much, but from time to time I thought of it and wished there was a way to have it again.

That question looms strong in the lives of many people: young and old, male and female. And, if you don’t learn the most effective “tools” and methods to manage your anger, it can either explode, with the potential for hurting others — physically and/or emotionally — or it can implode, go inside of you and cause physical/emotional pain, even a serious disorder.

I am a sucker for a good country living/small-scale farming/local-eating memoir (any and all of the above). I grew up in the country. My family raised much of our food in our garden, kept chickens bees, and baked our own bread, as much as we could. Reading these memoirs reminds me of home, I suppose.