Tomorrow my husband starts getting paychecks again. (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus now!) We’ve managed to scrape by, pay all of our bills and put very little on the credit card. And amazingly enough, we still have money in the bank. An itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, yellow-polka-dotted amount of money, but still, it’s there, and it is actual money….
Cancer. It’s an ugly word, and an even uglier reality. Nobody likes to think about it, but for some people, like Amy Boesky, it is never far from their thoughts. Amy, her two sisters, her mother, her aunt, her grandmother—all of the female members of her family lived in fear of cancer, and with good…
We have been neck-deep in home improvement projects for the last month or so. After the opera was over, I was bound and determined to finish my dining room. And then once that was done, the momentum pushed me forward to do my youngest’s room. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to have…
On closing night, I found myself staring at a stack of thank you cards waiting to be written to all of the wonderful people I got to work with while doing La Traviata last month. The director, the maestro, the resident opera artists, the stage managers, the costumers and so on and so forth. I…
This summer, part of my mindset about motherhood has fundamentally changed. I couldn’t tell you really why, or how it happened. It just did. It was kind of like something in me just snapped and I realized that these children that have been placed in my care will not be here with me long and…
I got home last night from Mackinac Island, very exhausted from traipsing around with my daughter and her Girl Scout troop. We had so much fun! I have always wanted to go to Mackinac, so I jumped at the chance when the troop announced this activity I was wishing I hadn’t paid for it once…
I have a somewhat reliable system for rating books over on Goodreads. If I really hated it, I give it one star. If it was okay, I give it two stars. If I really liked the book, it probably got three stars. If I loved it, stayed up all night reading it and couldn’t put…
The other day, just after learning that we would not be receiving any paychecks for the entire summer, my husband and I ran a couple errands before the girls came home from school. One of those errands was to go to Sears and check out lawn mowers. I know that might sound a little hypocritical,…
Around here, that’s what PMS stands for. Once a month, I am relentless about getting things done. And I slave-drive my poor family. They must be used to it, because if I raise my voice during normal days, the girls get their feelings so hurt that I never hear the end of it. But during…
Today my preschooler and I made spelt banana bread. I thought I’d try using the spelt in my favorite banana bread recipe, since the last time I tried doing spelt (yeast) bread it was a spectacular failure. I basically ended up with a giant bread bowl, it fell so much. It tasted good, though. I…
I was thinking the other day about how when I was 16 years old, my mother was 37. Which is only 2 years older than I am now. And I kind of had a light bulb moment, because I barely feel equipped to mother a 9-year old, and if I had a teenager right now…
When I was a kid, my mom always made the same green Jell-O salad for Thanksgiving dinner and other special occasions. It was the same Jell-O salad that her mother had made before her. Oh, how I loved it! Besides pumpkin pie, it was my favorite part of the Thanksgiving feast, and I looked forward…