My husband and I grew up with dogs, but decided to wait to get one until our youngest rugrat was out of diapers. We did the research, asked our family and friends, and finally attempted to adopt a beautiful basset hound through animal rescue, which turned out to be a disappointing experience that left our kids heart-broken. Not that we're bitter (MUCH!) but, we decided to try our hand at finding our family's first pet through our local animal shelter. Though believing that investing in "a breed" would be best and having family and friends owning a lhasa-schnoodle-doodle-poo-something-or-another, our economic... Read more →

Yep, it's Monday and yet another child is sick, again - I can hear them typing another letter, as we speak - stupid school! So, my friend Stacy sent me this cute email and I'm thinking...hey!...this is a good time as any, to share. WAIT! I mean a laugh, of course! Why God made Moms - BRILLIANT answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions: Why did God make Mothers? 1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is. 2. Mostly to clean the house. 3. To help us out of there when we... Read more →

[Photo essay: by Thing One, age 13 Song credit: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol] ...I don't quite know How to say How I feel ...Those three words Are said too much they're not enough ...If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world? ...Forget what we're told Before we get too old Show me a garden that's bursting into life . ...All that I am All that I ever was Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see . . ...I don't know where Confused about how... Read more →

One of the few things I look forward to about Mondays - okay, about the ONLY thing - is settling in with a chilled glass of my favorite white wine and lusting over his majesty and master chef, Jacques Pepin.The man has the most gorgeous set - filled with very lovely kitchen appliances, knives, pots and pans - I have EVER seen! Seriously. The man can cook the heck out of anything, especially on a weekday evening. He's fast, entertaining and cooks in a way - with that French accent of his - that can even make the simplest pizza... Read more →

Mini-me pretty much dresses herself, these days, and - being raised a hybrid in a house filled with women with distinctively different tastes - like her sisters, she spends a painfully long time getting ready in the morning. Not today. Because the one thing they all agree upon (including my son) is that there is no other fashion tip more important than knowing how to wear your winter...um...innerwear? All the cool kids are wearing their pajamas inside out and backwards. Especially the ones living in my house and in the event of a winter storm warning! Perhaps you haven’t heard... Read more →

My mother-in-law called, the other night (I think it was Thursday) to catch up on how the children and I have been feeling, lately - since our latest battle with bubblegum fatigue and phlegm - and, balancing the phone receiver with my left shoulder, I continued to time my son (while he completed 100 math facts in less than five minutes) reached for the safety scissors and began clipping the dead leaves off the geraniums on the window sill, and chatted away: "Uh-huh...yes...they're all better...nuh-uh...no...I'm not busy." I wasn't being, you know, sarcastic (really!) and besides, I owed her a... Read more →

Two of my mommy friends asked me to stop by and help them out with a craft project and after spending a rather loooong evening putting together nine cute little tropical girlie-type costumes - yes, liquor was involved - I woke up with a bad case of crazy eyes. Although this used to happen to me while I worked full-time and tended bar at night - when I was at least two sizes smaller, survived on absolutely no sleep and loooong before I had kids - I don't think it was the mommy playdate, alone, or the lovely chardonnay from... Read more →