This year for Halloween, Don made a giant spider out of painted pool noodles and exercise balls, secured it to our roof, and then made a life-sized person, which he wrapped in synthetic webbing and hung from our gutter.

A few readers have asked for an update on the baby squirrel we found days before leaving on a two-week trip to my brother’s house. When we first came upon the little guy, he had been trapped in a storage building and was badly dehydrated. But since the wildlife rescue groups we reached out t…

For years, if one of my friends or family members were to say, “You’re such a Karin,” it might mean that person had displayed a feat of such uncommon clumsiness it rivaled one of my graceless moves. It could also suggest someone was guilty of slipping a disproportionate amount of their dinne…

Prior to sitting down at my computer, I spent most of the last hour lying on the bathroom floor as a squirrel tucked walnuts around me. He’d take breaks here and there to tackle my hand and I’d wrestle him for a bit before giving his belly a good scratching, and then he’d race back to my sle…

When my column last appeared in March in the Gazette-Mail, our part of the world had just begun to steepen its slide into all that is COVID-19. My office was scrambling to convert our technology so the staff could work remotely, and we were logging long days trying to find the suddenly impos…

It was pretty this morning. Unseasonably warm where we live. A single-day break between near constant showers.

There was a connection between the two things I didn’t recognize on my own.

Once upon a time, there was a very big couch that dwelled, for many years, in a very small house. Our very small house.

It wasn’t so long ago I was telling a co-worker I believed my days of having strange pets were behind me.

I come from a long line of tightwads who pride themselves on their skills at making do. We fix what’s broken and repurpose in ways that can either be clever or border on nuts.

One of the perks of this column-writing business is I get to talk regularly, usually via email, with people who have some of the most interesting perspectives on the situations about which I write. It can be a bit like having a slow, yet well-considered conversation, as the back and forth ca…

This is perhaps the first moment in my life when I feel a bit rich.

A few months ago, for no apparent reason, Wi-Fi ceased to work in our bathroom, putting an end to my longtime morning routine — listening to Steve and Jenny on V100.

Once in a while, I’ll be thoroughly engrossed in a movie or television show and then a character will say something that flips a diverter switch in my brain. The sentiment will kick me out of the show altogether, and my brain will go wandering off, down trails of its own. Before I know it, s…

There’s this thing I can’t seem to help myself from doing when I’m on vacation. Something I’ve actually done since I was a child, on summer break. It’s that I allow myself to notice the end, recognize how much closer it is than the start.

Like so many others, I stumbled into the new year without formal resolutions, but with something more akin to simple resolve. A determination without the formality of publicly proclaimed parameters.

Many years back, I belonged to an online group of women who were all having trouble conceiving or carrying to term. A smallish group of us took our friendship off the public forum into an email chain between only us so we could discuss our problems (and victories) in a more private setting.

“I’ll never make it to 30,” said the young man, who was 19 at the time.

I started the day hearing a friend talk about her mother, who doesn’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional way.

Jeez. The one time I managed to be all forceful and bossy. I’m not sure I’ll ever live it down.

I’ll go ahead and admit it. When I felt that first suggestion of a sniffle, I didn’t grieve it the way I normally would.

They’ve become part of the holiday landscape. As common as jingle bells and ugly sweaters. Tinsel and Santa hats. Hallmark movies and candy canes.

If you happen to have found this column clipped from the paper and left on your desk or slipped into your coat pocket — then ... um. We need to talk.

There’s something about the life of a shopping cart that must cause it to long for escape.