Category Archives: Year of Bliss

Dog Days

What is it about August? Is it the heat, the humidity, that just saps away motivation and ambition? Newport is incredibly full of end-of-summer vacationers trying frantically to relax before the kids are back in school. I can see it in their faces: an urgent need to maintain the schedule of fun, to Fit It

Last Will and Testament

My latest Milspouse blog post is up. I’ve known for a long time that I needed to have a will drawn up, but, as usual, I put it off. Beyond needing a lawyer, I had no idea what was involved, and, hey, lawyers are expensive, aren’t they? After Sean was born, though, I couldn’t keep

Book Row: New York Diary, Part 3

Deciding which of New York’s bookstores to visit should not have been difficult. There are a lot of choices—Barnes & Noble, Borders, Housing Works, St. Mark’s, Gotham Book Mart—but the one to see is the one we (kind of) stumbled on: Strand Books. We arrived in the city with a long mental list of potential

Gotham: New York Diary, Part 2

The most concise explanation I have read this morning of why New York is sometimes called Gotham is from a letter to the editor of the Times from 1989, shortly after Michael Keaton first put the badass into Batman (honestly, Adam West’s Batman seems like a total wuss by comparison). Basically, Gotham is a reference

Island of Many Hills: New York Diary, Part 1

Much has been written about Manhattan, and New York City in general, but after visiting the city last week for the first time, I feel compelled to offer some thoughts. I’ve always been intimidated by New York. It holds no romance for me, only fear. It is the Big City of all big cities. The

…And We’re Back

Just got back from a 3 day trip to New York. I want to write more about the visit, but the 90° heat cooked my brain.

No End in Sight

We just got home from Sean’s 6-month check-up. I’m happy to report he’s as healthy as can be. To sort of copy a post John put up a couple months ago, here’s a look at how Sean has changed in the past 6 months as we retire his car seat: He’s also in the 90th

Sean’s Next Conquest

The Litchfords are planning a trip to New York, NY. I wrote about it in my post Big Apple Baby at Milspouse.com. The first complication was the summer heat. I can’t imagine carrying Sean all over New York City in 85° heat in the Baby Bjorn carrier. So then we thought we’d just bring our

Further Proof That Marrying Danielle Was the Best Decision I’ve Ever Made

Angel food cake is one of my favorite things. It’s so simple and good and sweet. I have never contemplated baking it at home. Danielle on the other hand, has made 2 sponge cakes (a lemon sponge cake and the angel food cake) in as many weeks. There’s a story here. First: we’ve had a

Strawberry Swing

In keeping with the mandates of the Litchford Year of Bliss (which encompasses Sean’s first year of life, Danielle’s year of educational leave from the Navy, and my year of writing-unfettered-by-a-horrible-desk-job), the Litchfords went strawberry picking yesterday. The weather forecast threatened storms that never came. It was a beautiful day. Danielle did most of the