At the end of each year assorted dictionaries and language societies announce words or phrases that define that year, and I find it my pleasure (sometimes) and duty (always) to provide an annual brief report, focusing on the words that I find most intriguing …

This is the first holiday season when things have started feeling normal(ish) again. Getting caught up in the shopping, decorating, parties, going out to concerts and all the merriment we’ve missed these past two years. How nice it’s been to pretty much breathe freely again.

Sometimes there are random thoughts that don’t quite expand enough to make for a full Front Porch column, but they continue to rattle around in my brain nevertheless. And so today, I’m going to discharge a few in some short bursts.

The delightful and often heart-warming things about being able to write a column in which I can share experiences or opine about whatever is on my mind are the responses I receive from readers.

I’m writing these words just after the Oct. 25 nationally televised debate between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz, the candidates for the open seat in the race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

I have always loved the ocean.

So, here I am, wondering what I should have done differently in the situation I’m about to describe. It’s about pastry and public humiliation.

Once again, I find myself compelled to wade into a grammar matter, or rather, egregious word usage.

What an amazing world of gadgets we live in.

My husband and I have been talking with our sons in recent years about how our parent-child relationships are shifting, something about which we are all aware. They are middle-age men, which means we’re getting old(ish). Things change.

This is a big anniversary month for us. Fifty-five years ago Bruce and I said “I do” in a non-air-conditioned church on a blistering hot July day in Miami, Florida.

I made a rhubarb crisp earlier this month.

You know on those HGTV remodeling shows on TV, how the first thing that happens is smashing the bejesus out of perfectly good-though-perhaps-outdated cabinets, the mandatory removing of at least one wall and never leaving a carpet in place where wood or manufactured flooring couldn’t be placed instead?

Father’s Day accolades sometimes overlook the smaller things that go into being a good father. These things can just be moments along the journey or things a parent chooses not to do, but they matter. They just don’t usually become the kind of thank yous that appear on a Father’s Day mug.

Some of Spokane’s early pioneers have streets or schools named for them, or even books written about their lives. Lorenzo Wesley “L.W.” Rima isn’t one of those pioneers.

For a while there, it looked as if Keely Haynes was going to have a bumpy ride through high school and perhaps through life itself. Not any more.

Kathrina Collins, 19, has been on her own for some time. Coming from difficult circumstances and raised by her grandmother, she struggled academically, left school for a while and has been working full time and supporting herself for a couple of years.

Kiley Heizer was a student in a traditional classroom at East Valley High School until the COVID-19 outbreak moved everyone to online learning – and it was there that she found her place to thrive.

Eric Gray knows a fair amount about working a ball on the ground and a plane in the air.

Being a person who likes to help and take care of people can mean different things in different cultures and situations.

If anyone would like to meet a student who always has a smile on his face and knows how to bring joy, it’s Colin Kelley of Lakeland High School in Rathdrum.

This is not a traditional pre-Father’s Day remembrance, but it is what I think of lately when I think of my father. It’s about the Ku Klux Klan.

I really intended to find a nice happy topic to write about today. What with the general gloom swirling about these days, it seemed time to feature something to smile about.

This is National Teacher Appreciation Week, and I would like to participate by paying tribute to a very special teacher I knew – Golden Jane (Paddock) Pettit, my mother-in-law.

This is an update on Dodger, the special-needs Dalmatian. He is my granddoggie.

I’m trying to have conversations on thorny subjects with acquaintances of a mindset different than mine. It’s not going all that well.

It’s springtime, and we’re on the cusp of being able to dig into the garden and plant, plant, plant.

Note: I am writing these words almost a week before they’re appearing in print, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is just a week old, and the nation has not fallen. I hope Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag is still flying over government buildings in Kyiv.)

My husband was at physical therapy a few weeks ago when a … well … interesting thing happened.

My friend Isabelle is putting the finishing touches on a most wonderful legacy for her family. I can’t imagine a better gift.

We had dinner recently with friends of long standing, and it’s as if my whole adult life passed in front of my eyes.

Just a few days from now, on Monday, the lovely and much-loved actress-comedian (and oh so much more) Betty White would have turned 100.

Oh happy day, it’s that geek-heaven time of year for word nerds.

In recent weeks I’ve been reading more and more commentary from people whose voices and opinions I respect, that if ever we’re going to reconcile ourselves as one nation undivided, we’ve got to stop hating one another.

I’ve been reading the obituaries in the newspaper since I was in my late teens and working as an intern at the Miami News

On a cool rainy Friday afternoon earlier this month, there was a knock on the front door. When my husband opened the door, expecting to find a package delivery at the entryway, he stood there a bit dumbstruck for a few seconds.

When I am feeling nostalgic or missing the company of my sons, it helps me to picture them where they are.

We’re well into fall now, and I have once again begun observing my annual truce with the deer who spend the growing season endeavoring to decimate my flowers and other growing things.

This is about inertia and technology, and how overcoming the former in service to the latter can sometimes be worth it.To explain – we finally got a bigger television.

September is National Prostate Health Month, so I’m taking this moment to talk about the prostate and urinary incontinence. If that makes you squeamish or uncomfortable, stop reading now. It’s only going to get worse from here.

September 11, 2001.

I realize that my husband and I are very fortunate in that we really like our adult sons and the kind of men they grew into. And, if I read the signs right, I’m pretty sure they like us, too. That’s not always a given.

As I write these words, I am a few days away from leaving for Seattle and the San Juan Islands for a short vacation.

I am loosening, ever so slightly, my iron-fisted grip over control of my kitchen.

The deer wars continue.

This year the deer are winning.

I have been tasked with explaining memes.

Sometimes it’s a little thing that can upend you. Sometimes a thing as small as a word.

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I ate at a restaurant … indoors.