This can’t end well, right?
So my parents decided that 19 was the maximum number of years they would store my wedding dress in their house. A home project prompted my mom to clean out my girlhood bedroom closet. She then brought me a large, sealed box containing my Angelair dress and veil. After the wedding, my mom kindly had the outfit professionally cleaned and boxed for storage. The dress had not seen the light of day since the summer of 1994. Continue Reading…
“Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it’s always something. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another.”
-Roseanne Roseannadanna
Just when you’ve put out a fire on one parenting crisis, another seems to rise up from the dying embers. It’s always like that, isn’t it? Just last week my husband and I were dealing with a behavioral situation at school with one of our sons. This week the focus has switched to concerns with another son’s lack of focus and control at school, which was detailed in an email from his teacher. Continue Reading…
For many years, I had the strange notion that I couldn’t learn that much from fiction – certainly not nearly as much as I could gain from non-fiction. I remember reading a blog post from sales guru Jeffrey Gitomer that encouraged readers to limit the number of fiction books to a couple per year. The rest of the year should be packed with non-fiction, he wrote. (Of course, Gitomer writes only non-fiction!)
Research, however, shows that reading detailed narratives stimulate the brain and even change how we behave in life. Our brains treat the interactions between fictional characters like real-life social encounters. (Blow me down!) Continue Reading…
At the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Dick Van Dyke was honored for his lifetime achievement. I was reminded how much of a comic genius he is. Simply brilliant.
I dare you not to smile when you look at these photos.
Just when it feels like you’ll always be at odds with your preteens and teens, they pleasantly surprise you.
This morning was a day off from school for my children. Unfortunately, it was a regular Friday work day for me. With coffee in hand and ready to walk out the door, I realized my nearly 13-year-old son Sam was still sleeping. I didn’t want to wake him up, but I knew he would be disappointed if I just up and left. So I decided to tape a “good morning” note to his door.
My niece and me
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age. French Proverb
Today I am 40. Happy birthday to me!
As I wrote in a previous post, I have been dreading anticipating this day for so many months that, on this very day, it doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore. Just another candle in the cake. C’est la vie.
One of the keys to both happiness and dealing with stress is laughter… and big doses of it. To ease into this irrevocable birthday, I’ve been scouring the web to find thoughtful and humorous quotes about birthdays and getting old. I’ve enjoyed some of them so much that I will share them with you. Whichever side of the hill you are on, thanks for reading and for being a part of my big 4-0. Continue Reading…
In a couple of weeks I will celebrate my 40th birthday. I’ve been dreading it. Funny: one of life’s many ironies is that in adulthood we want to rewind to our youth, whereas in youth we want to fast-forward to adulthood.
A month ago, understanding my fear of the Big 4-0, my husband emailed me a short story his 8th grade Language Arts students were studying. The text grabbed me:
Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay.
This is between you and me. I can trust that you won’t divulge this information to the Mother-of-the-Year’s neighborhood watch committee, right? (I knew I could count on you.)
What sort of person doesn’t take her children to see Santa?
I can explain.
Check out last night’s conversation with my youngest son, 8-year-old Mickey:
At the dinner table tonight, I read aloud the following Japanese folktale to my kids and husband. I came across it earlier on another blog and was moved by the message, so I thought I’d share it with them as a conversation starter about “getting what you give.”
Long ago in a small, far away village, there was place known as the “House of 1000 Mirrors.”
