When our son started sixth grade this year, he signed up to play the viola in the school orchestra, which is like the little brother to the violin. After a few weeks of learning the basics, Adam started wincing every time he plucked a string. Somehow he’d developed the only “orchestra injury” I’ve ever heard of – a large, red, angry blister on his index finger. I put ice on it and gave him ibuprofen. A few weeks went by and the blister...

I’ve been all over town with my black bra showing – and it’s entirely my husband’s fault. Let me explain. It started a few weeks ago when Tom drove the kids to gymnastics lessons in my minivan. I stayed home to catch up on work. On the way home, he hit a deer – a big one. Thankfully, he and the kids weren’t hurt, and, shortly after impact, the deer got up and ran off into the woods. The minivan bumper, however, was not so lucky. I...

Dear Thanksgiving, No matter how many twinkle lights go up around town or how many holiday songs I hear on the radio, I haven’t forgotten you. November is yours. I have a turkey decoration on the center of my kitchen table, and that bird will stay in its place of prominence until the sun sets on November 28th. I promise. For years now, you’ve been getting the short end of the wishbone, thanks to a phenomenon they call “Christmas Creep.”...

It started about a week ago – a strange itching sensation on the palm of my hand. No redness, no bumps. Only a pesky itch with no apparent cause. I mentioned it one day to my dad, who said an itchy palm means you’re about to receive some unexpected money. What I got instead was a deluge of other symptoms, not just for me but for two of our three kids. One kid had a low-grade fever, which I chalked up to the common cold or 24-hour virus. The...

This morning I caught a glimpse of something white sticking out from under the sofa. Typically that “something” is a stray sock that one of our boys has taken off and slid under a cushion because walking it to the clothes hamper would be both inconvenient and wildly out of character. But this time it wasn’t the kids cluttering up my living room. It was the dogs. That white thing was a bone I’d given them a few days earlier – one of...

Like so many women (and a few men, too), I don’t like getting my picture made. It’s ironic, too, because I love photography and the way pictures tell a story or capture a mood. So I’ve been asking myself lately why I, along with so many other camera-shy people, sprint from the room anytime a lens gets pointed in my direction. I think I’ve figured it out. We all think we know how we look as we go about our daily lives. But we’re...

Dear Health Experts, I respect your expertise. I really do. But would you please give us a break? You’re sucking the joy out of food, and I’m officially fed up. Yesterday I saw the Dr. Oz show, and his guest was a neurologist who has written a book called “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs and Sugar – Your Brain’s Silent Killers,” written by Dr. David Perlmutter. I haven’t read the book yet, and I’m sure...

When my alarm went off this morning, I groaned, rolled over and reached under my pillow to give it a good shake to shut it up. My alarm clock is on my smartphone, you see, and when you shake the phone, the alarm is silenced into five more minutes of precious snooze time. After a couple more snoozes and shakes, I finally sat up on the side of the bed and fished the phone out from under the pillow so I could find out how well I’d slept. That’s...

“That’s it,” I said to no one. “I’m getting nowhere.” I shut the lid of my laptop in disgust and walked away. As I paced around the room, I glanced out the window and decided a walk might help jumpstart the words that wouldn’t come – not even for a deadline. I rummaged around in the garage until I found Charlie’s dog leash. As I bent to hook it to his collar, he looked up at me with those scaredy-dog eyes, suspicious of a trip...

All this talk of government shut-down has got me thinking. Can a mom declare a household shut-down? And if so, what would that look like? More importantly, can it be avoided? To be honest, I’m not sure there’s much hope of reaching a peaceful agreement around here. We’re hopelessly deadlocked on the issue of whether or not socks should be turned right-side out before they’re tossed carelessly into the laundry hamper. I’m firmly in the...