The Empty Nest Chronicles

two friends. two coasts. two cozy homes.

[Re] Feathering the Nest

 150 150 Kristin
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Dear Frances, One of the things that I didn’t spend much time thinking about before the kids moved out was how we were going to use those empty rooms. To be sure, there have been lots of suggestions—sewing room, home office, and exercise room, to name a few. And I went all in on the…

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[Old] Puppy love

 150 150 Frances
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Dear Kristin, I’m writing this on the couch in the front room, Travis snuggled by my side, his hind feet resting against my leg. This has been our habit for nearly sixteen years, me writing, Travis napping, the two of us always attached. Travis is an old guy now and it shows. He’s still eager…

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Libraries

 150 150 Kristin
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Dear Frances, I went to the library this week to pick up a couple of books I had put on hold (one of them, Weekday Vegetarians, which you recommended last week). Because I read mostly e-books these days, I don’t get to the library as often as I used to. The library is one of…

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September

 150 150 Frances
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Dear Kristin, I’ve never been a foodie, but sometimes I taste something that makes me so happy I want to change my life. Take the Caesar dressing I just made. It was the simplest recipe in the world, from The Weekday Vegetarians by Jenny Rosenstrach, made with mayo instead of eggs, and perfectly balanced in…

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What Are You Working On?

 150 150 Kristin
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Dear Frances, Sometimes I feel like I don’t use my time as well as I should–especially in the evening. My mornings are pretty set: coffee, workout, tidy up, and work. But I’ve got about three hours after dinner before I go to bed and sometimes I just…waste it. I’ve been aware lately of how easy…

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5 Things We’re Loving Right Now: Summer Edition 

 150 150 Frances
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Dear Kristin, It’s time for a list of our favorite things–or at least five of them! I looked back at my Five Favorite Things list from late March and saw that my number one thing was central heating. Here we are in mid-August, and my Number One Favorite Thing is electricity, having just spent the…

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The Re-Emptied Nest

 150 150 Kristin
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Dear Frances, It seems like as soon as I get used to Ben being home from college for the summer, he’s back to school and I’m left with all kinds of conflicting emotions and a bunch of fruit rotting on the counter. Even though we call ourselves empty nesters, the reality is that you and…

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Yarnstorm!

 150 150 Frances
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Dear Kristin,I was overjoyed last week when you shared the good news that Jane Brocket of Yarnstorm fame is back! These days she’s on Substack, but I first met her in the heyday of the domestic blog, circa 2005. In the early days of the early aughts, Jane’s focus was knitting (hence the blog’s name), but…

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Summer Break!

 150 150 Frances
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Hi, everyone! We’re taking a break from blogging this week. You’ll be happy to hear that Kristin is much, much better, and is currently helping her kids move from here to there and there to here. Meanwhile, I’ve spent this week leading a creative writing workshop for a delightful group of third graders. It’s been…

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Under the Weather

 150 150 Kristin
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Dear Frances, Do you remember when you sent your firstborn off to pre-school and all of a sudden they brought home a never-ending stream of colds and flu? And then when you added more kids to the mix, every time one of them brought a bug home, it proceeded to make its way through the…

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