My Blog

Have you ever walked across a room at home and felt your foot sink into something that is definitely not flooring of any kind? How about innocently stepping onto a stair and finding a foreign object lodged between your tender toes? Or perhaps removing your shoes and noticing a trail of smears, of the most unpleasant sort, on the doormat you just walked across? Living with boys and dogs (and chickens) is the ideal recipe for frequently landing your feet in something painful, n

All things come to an end, this is an indisputable fact. Whether that end is the last breathes of a life, the completion of a task, the final leg of a journey, or the scraping of a fork on an empty plate, there will be an ending. Some endings are easy to cope with and others take an achingly long amount of time to get over, but eventually acceptance comes and, if we’re lucky, a measure of peace. I find these things to be true, and yet each week I enter a realm of denial and r

Mothers have superpowers. There is no other way to explain the multitude of things that we are able to accomplish within a given day, nor in an entire week. The extraordinary abilities that come with the onset of motherhood are truly astonishing and worthy of recognition, because this often thankless job is harder than any career imaginable. From the moment I rouse the household at six-thirty in the morning to the time when I can finally rest my head on the pillow at ten at n

I’ve loved writing since middle school, or at least fully recognized my affinity for the written word beginning in those angst-filled years. For me, it began with English assignments that elicited a creativity I hadn’t explored prior to seventh grade. In stereotypical fashion, this developed into the teenage cliche of bad poetry. I wrote over a hundred poems throughout my teens, and at least 95% of them are awful. The other 5% aren’t good, but have some redeeming elements tha

Have you ever been to one of those movies that involve all of your senses by immersing you into the film to such a degree that you feel the rain in the movie as water is spritzed onto your face or smell a blast of the hot chocolate lit up on the screen? That is what it's like living with boys, only it's not hot chocolate that I'm smelling. If you were to spend time in my home, you would quickly realize that there are many experiences for the senses. Not only are there noises

Have you ever been put on the spot, whether from a deadline that came too quickly or an unexpected spotlight pointed straight at you, and concocted such a cleverly crafted response that those who heard it were enthralled? I call this the Bullsh*t Effect. I currently have a MS in Bullsh*t and am working on my doctorate. It’s an underrated skill, but one that has merit! I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m a Bullsh*t savant, but I’ve been known to wax prosaic when in reality

I’m what you would call a closet procrastinator. The saying, ‘Why do something today when I can put it off until tomorrow?’, defines me up to a point because I procrastinate, selectively. Like many of you, I find that there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything, under every hat I wear, completed. Or if I do manage to get the majority of tasks done, I’ve now squandered any time for myself, and let’s be honest, time for me is important. This creates what I call a ‘me

There is a big debate over homework in this country and, for many reasons, I stand firmly on the side advocating for its abolishment. Of course, the amount of research that clearly states little, if any, positive impact on academic success is one rationale, but my primary motivation for supporting an end to homework stems from the angst it causes in my house. A sure way of prompting an utter meltdown in my two youngest boys is assigning copious amounts of homework. These epis

Whether it is a boy, bird, or dog, something is bound to insert itself into my personal space for sundry reasons and utterly derail my thinking and ability to complete a task in its entirety without interruptions. Take today as an example, while working, or rather trying to work, I am bombarded by noises of the canine variety. This begins with Gus whining for me to toss a toy, then toss it again and again, quickly followed by locating said toy under whatever piece of furnitur

Those of you who have boys will understand (unless my sons are some sort of aberration and this post is far from your reality). A window into my world, will undoubtedly show you many things but it’s the things you hear that are the focal point today. You see, if you were to spend a day with me, you would be treated to a symphony of noise reminiscent of the greatest of whoopee cushions. Not to brag, but my sons truly have a talent of the ‘flatulent variety’. I’m so proud (ins