Author Archives: J Reilly

What 3 Things Do You Value Most?

As a teenager, valuing truth sounded like something biblical; be honest and don’t lie to your parents. For older me, truth represents reality. It’s a lifelong learning process to perceive facts without bias. The chaotic din of social media and pundits makes us more prone to falsehoods and propaganda and less able to distinguish factual reality. I didn’t realize how much I valued truth and integrity until I saw so little of them displayed in public.

Boozy Beginnings

In the beginning, there was beer. As a rebellious, newly legal-age drinker, I refused to drink the brand of beer my father drank. In my young mind, it carried the stigma of dad beer; budget-friendly, old-fashioned swill drunk by pot-bellied, blue-collar, middle-aged men. Instead I headed out to the local store to buy my own six-pack.

How I Spent My Summer

Labor Day weekend reminds me of going back to school and the inevitable assignment of writing an essay about how I spent my summer. If I were writing about our first two summers in South Jersey, I’d be telling you about lots of great beaches and beach towns with different vibes, from the Victorian charmContinueContinue reading “How I Spent My Summer”

Recommending Wines

A lady walks into a liquor store and asks for a bottle of wine with a dog on the label. No, this isn’t the beginning of a “girl walks into a bar” joke. A customer asked us to find this bottle amidst the 1200 wines in the store. After a bit of sleuthing (white or red helped narrow the field) and realizing that the dog was actually a fox, we identified her Foxhorn Merlot.