There’s an ongoing conversation in our house about what we’re going to be when we grow up. Our three kids regularly revisit and revise their career plans – wondering aloud what the best or the coolest job might be. We’ve told them many times that there’s no need to figure it out yet since they’re only in 6th, 4th and 1st grades. But I understand why they think about it as much as they do. They’re at the age when their life possibilities are as vast as their imaginations. The boy’s collective career plans include things like historian, professor, investment banker, novelist, computer programmer, video game inventor and drummer. And our youngest, 6-year-old Kate, feels certain she can be a […]

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A friend recently passed along an online article by author Meagan Francis, who wrote a great book called “The Happiest Mom.” I love how this writer lets us peek behind the curtain of her real life. We moms tend to compare ourselves to each other, and some women use those comparisons to beat themselves up and drive themselves nuts in a futile quest to be a “super mom” (as if such a thing even existed.) Meagan’s article is titled “11 (Totally Not) Shameful Ways to Slack Off Around the House,” so I will happily join the movement with seven of my own not-so-deadly household sins. 1. I only sweep up what the dogs won’t eat. Yes, I have a broom […]

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Last weekend I only had one little chore on my “to do” list. It said, “Clean a cabinet.” I’ve been systematically working my way through each room of the house doing a general “purge” – out with the old, outgrown or broken stuff and in with the new – and the home office was the only room left to tackle. The home office has a wall of built-in cabinets that are wonderful for storage, except when they’re so full of stuff that you can’t store anything in them. So I decided to clean out one cabinet every couple of days so that the whole room would be organized in a week or so. Easy peasy, right? But then I opened […]

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Dear Miley Cyrus, Oh, honey. I’m not even sure what to say. Like the millions of people who’ve seen the video of your performance at the Music Video Awards show, I’m still a little stunned. At first, I chalked it up to another celebrity behaving badly. Happens all the time, right? But then I saw a news interview with a so-called “media and image expert,” and he said something that made this mama’s blood boil. When asked about your nearly naked, pelvic-grinding, tongue-thrusting, foam finger-riding performance, he said that, while you may not have won an actual Music Video Award, the huge reaction to your exhibition means that you “won the night.” Why? Because we’re all talking about it. I’m […]

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