Trish Hermanson's Blog: Croutons - Seasoned Bits of Life

     Sometimes wisdom slips out of the mouths of babes and falls as gently as autumn leaves.
     Wisdom like this landed on me during a recent visit to our daughter Ashley and her family at their Alaska home. One day Ashley and I stood in the kitchen pondering how we could turn an assortment of leftovers into a meal. We were stuck. Ashley’s three-year-old daughter Eve listened nearby. Suddenly her tiny voice piped up, “Work what ya got.”
     She’d heard the phrase “work with what you’ve g...

     Recently I was tied up in knots before I gave a presentation to a group of people. “How would I do? What would they think?"
     Do you ever feel that way, perhaps when going into a new social setting? Or even an old one? I do.
     To calm myself in my recent situation, I recalled a simple statement I wrote decades ago, a declaration of truth to help me chill out. Here it is.
     In this situation, I have:
     Nothing to gain.
     Nothing to lose.
     Nothing to hide.
     Nothing to s...

     I won’t try to explain the numbskull way I created this scar on our car. I’m thankful the only injuries besides this were to my ego and my pocketbook.
     When I do dumb things like this, I realize I’m no longer getting old; I’ve gotten there. Besides that, I’ve noticed the warranty’s off on all my body parts. I’m constantly working to realign this part or that. Whichever one rattles the most gets attention at the gym or the chiropractor or the physical therapist.
     I could crash i...

     Brrrrr! As our country is emerging from its deep freeze, I thought of this watercolor my friend Christine Jackson created that she titled “Waiting for the Thaw.” The painting portrays a frozen, barren landscape waiting for spring. It reminds me of other thaws we may be waiting for as we enter this New Year. Like a thaw in a relationship that’s chilled - I have several of those. Or a thaw in a career that’s frozen. Or health that’s on ice. Or the defrosting in national and internation...

     It was not a silent night with all calm and bright when Jesus was born. It was a war zone! Picture a woman crying in pain as she is about to give birth, and an enormous red dragon standing there waiting to devour her child. That’s what Jesus’ friend John recorded from a frightening vision that some interpret as the behind-the-scenes nativity story.
     Back to the woman and the dragon: God snatched up the newborn to protect him. Then all hell broke loose in heaven.  An army of angels...

     ​We didn’t plan to deck the halls with boughs of “folly” this year, but that’s what happened.
     Our oldest grandchildren who usually helped us trim the artificial tree weren’t available. So we tapped three younger, untrained grandkids.
     I turned on Christmas carols, and with more enthusiasm than understanding the kids assembled branches on the tree - but upside down. I hadn’t thought to tell them about that. Then they didn’t quite hear my instructions about color-coded branches,...

     ​That’s my grandson Oak and me outside his home in South Carolina that his parents are renting while his dad completes research at a local university. When I told Oak his house is cool, he said, “But it’s old.” I answered, “Old can be cool; just look at me.” He said nothing, and from the next room, my daughter and husband burst out laughing.
     What defines coolness anyway? Take, for example, their Neo-Georgian house. It shows wear and tear from seven decades of living, but its stat...

     I usually dodged trucks on the asphalt road leading to the trail along the creek nearby. Uninspiring! So I decided to bushwhack a new path through an unexplored open space next to the road. With hiking boots and a cudgel I set out to carve a new course. What would I find?
     After slashing through a thicket of thistles, I entered a grove. Surprise - three deer stared at me, then pranced off. High above, a bird serenaded me. Crickets added a rhythmic chorus. Delightful!     I crawle...

     I thought I’d heard everything when I learned that a city near me has declared that dog owners should be called dog “guardians” so that their pets aren’t offended by the idea of being someone’s property. Then I read that a newly planted tree in Pittsburg may achieve the legal status of personhood.
     Whaaat?
     Through a complicated legal arrangement, a black gum tree may own the land on which it is planted, may become legally autonomous, and may become its own owner. Then it could...

     ​I loved this tree until I hated it.
     This Russian olive sprang up from a seed that blew in, and as it grew, I basked in the scent of its yellow flowers in the springtime and sheltered in the shade of its silvery leaves in the summer. Then it morphed into a monster - branches scraping our roof, seeds littering our driveway, thorns bloodying my arms when I tried to trim it. An invasive species!
     We needed drastic means to stop it. A chainsaw collapsed the giant onto our driveway...