WASHINGTON — The COVID-19 lockdown has served its purpose. The time has come to end it. The objective of the lockdown was never to stop every American from getting COVID-19, which is impossible; it was to buy time to learn about the virus and prevent our health care system from being ...

WASHINGTON — It is rarely a good idea to make campaign promises that put you in a box or could go very wrong, as nearly every president can attest. Joe Biden must have skipped that chapter in the campaign how-to handbook. He’s now stuck with vows to appoint women and minorities to key ...

When I was growing up in Erie, my bedroom was also a family “trophy room” of sorts. Looming over the head of my bed on the wall was the large mounted head of a 12-point buck white-tailed deer which one of my older half-brothers had shot. On the wall right over my bed was the snarling ...

Some of my friends and I were recently sharing stories of our grandparents’ and parents’ gardening experiences. My dad’s family had a fruit and vegetable farm in what is now the suburbs of Pittsburgh. It was the main source of income as they would take the fresh produce into ...

There is both skill and art involved in taking natural materials and fashioning them into a useful object. Humans have done this in the past, harvesting plants and turning them in shelters, clothes, furniture and tools. I can’t help but wonder how they figured it out, and if they watched the ...

Do you have a certain type of person that rattles your cage? Do you have certain people in your life that have similar traits with whom you struggle to be around and can only do so in short spurts? Can you pinpoint what those annoying traits are? There are definitely people that can get ...

People keep telling me I have my whole life ahead of me. Why don’t I feel that way then? I think incorporating the concept of creative living is now more important than ever. Creative living is the idea of making room for the things in your life that are important to you. As the days ...

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We’re finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio. ——— Gotta get down to it Soldiers are cutting us down Should have been done long ago. What if you knew her And found her dead on the ground How can you run ...

Yesterday was the start of Mental Health Month. May is designated to addressing our mental health and encouraging people to focus as much on their mental health as they do their physical health. There continues to be a stigma associated with getting help for mental health. Not addressing your ...

As a creative professional, the times are truly uninspiring. Going into this new year, I was so excited to have a fresh start. Things started off without a hitch, but then everything came to a halt, as we are all well aware. I didn’t really start feeling the effects of everything until ...

I have always loved sweet peas, a flowering annual of many colors and sweet fragrance. As a little girl I helped my grandmother plant her presoaked sweet pea seeds against the lattice wall of the summer house. This garden tradition always took place on Good Friday so that the spring moon would ...

Irony. Something we might enjoy in a novel or movie. You know, an unexpected twist in a story. An almost-amusing turn of events. An online dictionary offers this example: “It was ironic that I was seated next to my ex at the dinner.” Depending upon one’s relationship with an ex such an ...

We read that former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has reacted to the coronavirus pandemic to the extent of recommending that the Navy bring all its ships into port and quarantine crew members for two weeks until they were rid of any taint of the virus. After the crews were returned to their ships, ...

I was listening to a podcast last week that a photographer I follow hosted. She talked about how to survive and navigate these shutdowns, and how to continue making money without breaking any laws or social distancing rules. A lot of photographers believe that they are not allowed to ...

2020 marks the beginning of a new way forward in more ways than one. It’s the beginning of a new decade, one of which that is already filled with many uncertainties. The year is defined by Wikipedia as follows: “The 2020s (pronounced “twenty-twenties”) is the current decade in the ...

The recent month has brought a lot of uncertainty to our lives. There have been dates given and then those dates pass and we are left with nothing. I think the hardest part is the uncertainty of it all. If we had dates that everything would be opening and life would start to feel ...

To refund, or not to refund. That is the question. With the COVID-19 crisis, more and more weddings are being cancelled or put on hold. People are being forced to delay their nuptials due to this virus. And both couples and wedding professionals are devastated. Months and sometimes ...

Around seven months ago when I started my senior year, I never would have imagined an ending quite like the one I have been given. Growing up and watching the classes before me, I have always looked forward to everything that senior year has to offer, including senior prom, the class trip, ...

There is power in creativity in the face of change. It’s no lie that social distancing is forcing a change of habit in all our lives. The expectation that everything will go back to normal after this is rather naive, and I personally look forward to what the new normal will be when the ...

As the coronavirus descends upon our nation, even striking close to home, and as the national death toll mounts and I advance in years and acquire a few health problems of my own, death somehow seems closer at hand rather than just out there in the infinite. The recent death of Jim Lehrer, ...