When my sister and I were kids, she was always quicker on the draw that I was verbally.  I used to think of the perfect comebacks to whatever she said to me in a fight--three days after it was over. I'm still a bit slow.  So humor me in taking the… Read full post »

I've heard a lot lately about traditional values being under attack. Some people say that biblical values that our churches, countries, and families were founded on are being attacked, that the media/establishment/government/whatever have a non-Christian bias.

 You know what?  I agree.&nbs… Read full post »

We bought our Halloween pumpkins today. The next time I agree to do this, someone shoot me:

Those really cool looking templates in the carving kits make this look so much easier than it is.  Especially when you have a pumpkin with flesh that's two full inches thick.  And… Read full post »

Without being prompted by her sitter, little Anna Kate would probably not have offered the spare balloon.  She'd seen both the green one and the orange one tied to a little flyer inside the parks and recreation building after dance class, and the kind receptionist had offered them to her. … Read full post »

I learned several things over the past five days.  Here are a few of them.  I will torture you with some more at another time, but for now, happy reading:

1. Nice Siamese cats, as nice as they get anyway, are limited in their outside-the-litterbox expressions of displeasure when you… Read full post »

I opened up the vacuum cleaner this morning and a book fell out.

It's called  Bug Tales, it's from one of the kids' toys, and it's about the size of a sugar cube, though lacking in the depth of the same.  I was preparing to go upstairs and vacuum… Read full post »

Superheroes don't have capes
in 2008
and Icarus has fallen from the sun

Gods and goddesses squabble
like the dust-men they push around
their ambrosia made from shaved coconut
and canned mandarin oranges

And don't forget the pineapple,
though at least that's fresh
on special for $2.99 at Ed's Corner Market
that… Read full post »

Dear Edward,

Hi! Hope all is well with you and Lily.  I just wanted to write and thank you profusely for all your assistance lately on the second chapter of my book. It certainly gives me, and our prospective readers, some needed insight into family history and starts to explain the… Read full post »

My four year-old knows all the verses to "When the Saints Go Marching In."  And I do mean all.  A couple of days ago, she was singing at the top of her lungs in the car:

"Oh when the stars have disappeared

Oh when the stars have disappeared

Oh Lord I… Read full post »

I am NOT getting a cold.  Weak people get colds.  I don't have TIME for a cold.  It's got to be allergies.  Never mind that there's not much blooming in Georgia in August.  I'm allergic to...um...dust mites.  My son is allergic to dust mites, and that has to be where he… Read full post »

The first time we met Barty, he tried to sell us insurance. We didn't need it.  We were a young healthy couple, just married, who had spent our last dime and borrowed not a few more to buy our first house in this strange new land called a Subdivision. Barty was one… Read full post »

OK, I'm a little late to the game with this one, but it sounded like so much fun.  Better late than never.  And thanks to all my other OS friends for participating--I've had fun finding out more about you!  :-)

First Prom date: A good friend who liked me more… Read full post »

He just got those teeth.  Really.  I remember them, and I remember him: about six months old, finally beginning to get over his horrendous early skin problems, the ability to roll and then crawl having vastly improved his disposition, which in his earliest months earned him names like Mandi… Read full post »

No, it's not an airport in Maryland.  It's what I'm doing right now, or what I will be doing after I finish my Red Brick Blonde ale.  Blogging While Intoxicated.  And yes, I can get intoxicated on one beer.  

See, I started out the day in a Godawful Rotten Mood,… Read full post »

I've never heard of the Homestead Tomato.  It's supposed to be an heirloom.  I mean, I thought I knew my heirlooms, at least the ones we've grown or the ones that have shown up at Whole Foods for $6 a pound: Black Krim, Kellogg's Breakfast, Brandywine, etc.  I always wanted to… Read full post »

I'm sitting in his hospital room, watching him sleep, cocooned by the kind of silence that makes you notice sound: the hum of one machine and the tick of another, keys dropped onto a counter at the nurse's station, the dull thunks of ice falling into a styrofoam cup from the… Read full post »

There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Four which I do not understand:
The way of an eagle in the sky,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the middle of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid.

Proverbs 30:18-19… Read full post »

1. Begin mixing dough--flour, water, curry, salt, shortening.

2. Stop to mediate spitting fight and insult contest between a preschooler and kindergartener.

3. Return to dough, put on Patient Mommy hat, and in falsely cheerful voice offer small people a chance to take turns pulsing dough in food proc… Read full post »

Any day that starts with the head of a freshly decapitated chipmunk in your driveway is not going to be a good one.  Great, I thought, I've been targeted by the Suburban Cat Mafia. 

It's got to be that enormous fluffy orange fucker who was acting all sweet towards me… Read full post »

"Sweet." 

     "Unbelieveable."

"Nearly perfect." 

     "Did it, in four hours."

"Amazing."

     "You were!"

"Need a cigarette?" 

     "Eats, perhaps."

"We cheated a little."

     "… Read full post »

(This is the first in what will be an occasional series about the local food pantry at which I volunteer.)

Every Monday morning, I volunteer at a local food pantry for four hours; at least, I go every Monday when the chaos of my life doesn't interfere with me spending a… Read full post »

My OB/GYN made my day yesterday.  That's not something I find myself saying very often, as now that I'm done with pregnancy and nursing, I don't see him much. Even when I do see him, it's not exactly something that makes my day. I avoid him like the plague, actually, and… Read full post »

The scene: the breakfast table on an ordinary day. It is a slow cup of coffee kind of morning, my reward after an 18 hour hyperefficient day yesterday.  Husband is taking his sweet time waking up too; while reading the news online, he's demonstrating comfort in his masculinity and serious father… Read full post »