Five years ago, I wrote a post about chocolate-covered strawberries that was not really about chocolate-covered strawberries—it was all about not saving life’s pleasures or little special things for some “better” day in the future that never seems to come. It’s a lesson that was hard-won: six and a half years ago, I lost my …
Five Day Breaks Call For the Red Pants & Tackling Nagging Tasks
Only three days in, and my five-day weekend has already been pretty amazing: Not only have I managed to squeeze in some fun (fall photo walk, pumpkin carving, and a trip to an antiques store followed up with lunch at Herm’s Inn), but I’ve also managed to cross quite a few items off my “Nagging …
The Top 5 (Women’s) Magazines on Newsstands Today
It’s no secret that I’m totally obsessed with magazines and that I have been since I was literally 11. For several years, that meant an obsession with your basic fluff—magazines that only touted strategies for getting guys, looking hot, and staying in shape (with the occasional landscape gardening magazine thrown in to feed my brain …
Me & Perfectionism (aka Perfectionism & I)
This year, I’m teaching my students out of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. Basically, every Thursday (usually), my kids will read a small section out of the book and then talk about it as a class. Last week, we were reading the part about “life-centers,” which basically means the things or people that …
Tuesday Tell-All
*Guys, it feels SOOOO good to be back blogging again. Even though I desperately needed the break, it was kind of a love/hate thing because almost all I could think about the whole time was how much I missed the therapy of getting all the details of my days out onscreen so they weren’t all rattling inside …
Attack of the Mutant Carrots
For a few weeks now, Matt and I haven’t been able to stand even the thought of looking into our vegetable garden. We were so blessed with an overabundance of every kind of produce and so bogged down with the task of how to possibly USE it all that we swore we could never look a tomato …
Taking Charge + A Blog Announcement
It’s been a hard last week or so—slowly but surely, I have been feeling the all-too-familiar crushing weight of my job combining with the all-too-familiar crushing squeeze of my other daily and weekly responsibilities. I knew, from years of experience, that the only thing keeping me from a major meltdown was the fact that I was still managing …
Staying Up On Friendship
In high school, it seemed like I was almost always the one instigating all the parties—various collections of friends would text me every weekend to see what was going on, and somehow we’d all end up at my mom’s house, playing Risk or watching scary movies or just chatting on the couches in the living room. …