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Still doing it alone after decades of marriage

Dear Annie: I have been married for 45 years, and the silence in my marriage feels deafening. It did not happen overnight. It built slowly over the years, like a snowball rolling downhill, growing larger and heavier until it now seems to fill every corner of our home. I always believed I was ...

Signs of spring

“Come on Pearl, come on Kitty, if you feel inclined, down around the bend in the water, bring your fishin' line,” – Gordon Lightfoot In the evenings now, if I travel along the county road, the deer are gathering in any place where there’s bare ground. The surrounding landscape ...

Keep mice away with lavender

Dear Heloise: Using a sealed bin helps to keep mice out, but it doesn’t always work. The smell of birdseed can get through plastic, and mice are persistent. What finally did the trick for me was putting a lavender room freshener inside the bin, tucked in a corner away from the seed bag. ...

The day an irregular compass changed everything

The following story has been compiled from Marquette Regional History Center articles. Following the Revolutionary War, the U.S. General Land Office was formed in 1812 to survey public lands. The newly created U.S. government, which needed funds, wanted to distribute the land to war veterans ...

Retired husband is rewriting house rules

Dear Annie: My husband retired eight months ago, and ever since then, our home has felt less like a place to relax and more like a company he has decided to manage. After years of leaving early, coming home late and barely noticing whether the bath towels matched, he is suddenly very ...

Trying out fruits at the grocery store

Dear Heloise: I read your column in the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Jim R., in Houston, wrote about people who are eating produce that they haven’t purchased. But there is another view on this issue. Purchas- ing grapes, for example, without tast- ing them, often leads to sour ...