Every writer has their pet peeve and mine is how to use the verbs lie and lay correctly. The quick trick is to say "to lay is to place" and to lie is "to recline." So it should be "I want to lie down to take a nap" and "I want to lay this napkin on the table." But here's a link to the latest "Writers Digest" discussion.
It should clear everything up. And ANYWAY there is no such word as "anyways."  Ok that's it. Here's the link.

So we live in New England which means pretty soon, throngs of those longing for the Norman Rockwell image of an idyllic autumn will pour onto our roadways heading for the White Mountains and Mount Monandnock. But what about us - the bona fide residents of the region? What about those of us who pay our dues slogging through the long frigid months of endless gray winters? Trying to come up with a failprooth method of cleaning mud off floors without making more mud in the spring? And enjoying summer for precisely one hour before mosquitoes and black flies swarm or porches and backyards in the summer? We are the Norman Rockwell painting and we don't even get to see the blinkin' leaves change without having to fight every out-of-towner crawling up Route 101 at 10 mph with pumpkin spice Dunkin Donuts coffee in their cup holder and their Instagram apps working over time.

But we all have a secret. There's that one tree, somewhere that we look to in order to mark the autumnal equinox. In my case it's  a skinny but pretty magnificent maple that grows in our backyard and visible from almost every window in our house. When our son was a baby, he'd lie in bed with us and stare up at the tree through the sklylight watching the light spackle through it's dance-party colored leaves. Now when he practices his bass or tries his hand at the piano, it serves as an illuninated backdrop and a reminder just how tall and magnificent he's grown.

So here's the question. As certified New Englanders, what is the tree or bush which you look to in your own backyard or town square every year to mark the fall? It could be the yellowing oak in Greeley Park or the shocking pink sumac along Route 3A. The American Dream Girl wants to know. And if you can send a photo - even cooler.