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I firmly believe that there is a direct correlation between my extreme hotel phobia and the amount of Dateline NBC episodes I have seen in my lifetime. But just hear me out.

(This one’s for you, Uncle Julius. Me with “Touchdown Jesus” at the heart of the Notre Dame campus in South Bend, Indiana.) Grief is not something every family does well. Some families grow apart. Some families curse God. Some curse each other. Some families wallow in self-pity. Some allow greed to overcome them. But this […]

Not that you should care AT ALL about the nonsense that comes out of my mouth on a daily basis, but…well, I guess you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t care at all. So, thanks for caring, first of all! But here are some things you’ll probably never hear me say. I say probably because […]

My Dear Family, Please accept this letter as my notice of resignation for the position of laundress (a.k.a. “Laundry Fairy”), effective immediately.

Dear 16-Year-Old Me, Wow, I can’t believe how young you look. I can’t believe I’m almost double your age already. It’s like I blinked and someone handed me a husband, two babies and a minivan. I KNOW! We swore we’d never own one. We were wrong. About lots of things. Imagine that.

It horrifies my mother that my family doesn’t have television. She can’t understand that kind of silence and how it could be healthy for a person. As if network television is the stuff that sanity is made of? My mom and I are different that way.

It was unfortunate timing, really. We hired a housekeeper several months ago anticipating my need for some help while my husband travels with the military. I know, I’m lazy. And also fabulously wealthy. “Can someone PLEASE turn up the TV and pass me the bonbons? And WHERE is the nanny? One of my children is […]

1)  Which is more effective, duct tape or zip ties? 2)  My 10-month-old thinks it’s cute to spit her food at me each time I give her a spoonful. Is she too young to flick really hard on the nose? 3)  Will it damage my kids’ ears if I turn up the music so loud […]

Back at the beginning of the summer – when the temperatures were well over 100 degrees for weeks at a time – I purchased three plastic tubs of Black-eyed Susans from our local nursery. That should be the first clue to our savvy horticulturists that I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing here. […]

I couldn’t help myself. I had to snap this photo on post yesterday. In case you don’t know what you’re looking at, let me help you out. This is a parent (I assume) driving this 8-year-old boy (I’m estimating) off post in a Jeep Scrambler (yeah, I’d never heard of it either). The child is […]