Staring at old plastic drywall anchors sticking out of your wall can be highly annoying, especially when you want to take down an old shelf or rearrange your picture frames. All a renter or homeowner longs for is a smooth,…
I can put in a new light switch because my dad showed me how when I was twelve or so! We don’t do things by the book in Greek families; he was at it, I was on, and before I…
I started making hair bows for Maria and Marina out of necessity. Not because I couldn’t find bows to buy — you can find them everywhere. But anyone who has a daughter knows that the bow you find in the…
There is something about American patriotic quilts that I find genuinely moving and I say this as someone who grew up in Greece and did not encounter them until well into adulthood. In Greece we don’t have this tradition. We…
The summer house is supposed to be the quiet place. That’s the idea anyway. You leave the city, you leave the noise, you arrive somewhere slower and more peaceful and you decompress for a few weeks before going back. That’s…
I want to tell you about the afternoon Marina decided she was an artist. Not in the general way that eight-year-olds decide things. In the specific, committed, I-have-already-found-the-scissors way. She had seen something on my phone….One of those satisfying craft…
Sometimes you need a creative escape — but you don’t have an entire afternoon to dedicate. That’s where 1-hour crafts come in: short enough to fit into a busy schedule, long enough to feel satisfying and productive. These projects are…
Let me tell you about the ice cream craft. Marina was five. Maria was seven. It was August, it was hot, and I had approximately forty-five minutes of things I needed to do without anyone asking me anything. I set…
I need to tell you about the porch at the house in Volos. It’s a lovely porch, truly. There’s the bench, the lanterns, fall blankets, and Maria and Marina have their annual disagreement in October over the pumpkins. Tasos put…
