Author: Amy O'Neill Houck

When I lived in Maryland, going to Value Village was one of my favorite pastimes. Of course, I preferred to go on SALE days, I mean even thrift store shoppers like me love the extra bargain. I never worried about

Last weekend, I took a road trip with my dear friend Charlotte, and to thank her for doing all the driving, I knit her a little headband, reverse-engineering from a photo she found on the Interwebs with some gorgeous, hefty,

First published in The Cordova Times, 9/28/2012   We have a tough job here in the North during summer. It’s like we have to play both sides of Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ant: we must play while

There’s a small but growing boy in my house who needs a new hat. Last week, he put on the hat I made him a couple of summers ago and said, “my hat shrunk!” I think it’s more likely that

First published in The Cordova Times, 9/14/2012 Nine in the morning came a bit early last Thursday. It was chilly and overcast on my walk down Lake Avenue, but when I arrived at The Little Chapel kitchen I was greeted

“Like a blanket to wear around your neck,” we agreed. I’d been chatting with Melissa, who owns Seaside Yarns–the lovely little yarn shop here in Juneau. We are both crocheters from childhood and we have strong associations with granny squares

First published in The Cordova Times, 8/31/2012 A couple of weeks ago, I took the kids on our our first pilgrimage “down south” since 2010 to my family’s tiny cottage in Northern Wisconsin. People from my dad’s side of the

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might have noticed that for the most part, my recipes are vegetarian, and often vegan. I stopped eating meat in 1996, and I was vegan for several years. I worked

I’m spending twelve days in Anchorage for my MFA residency. All the folks in the UAA low-residency masters in creative writing program gather once a year in July. We spend the day attending talks about the craft of writing and

Yum! Somehow over the course of a couple of days, we got from this: To this: Well… I blame Rebecca, who said this: See… On Sunday, my birthday, the kids presented me with a homemade marshmallow “shooter.” They made some