Blog
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Oh, The People You’ll Meet
The last year has been trying to say the least. If you know me personally, I’m sure you have a general idea of what’s been going on in my life. I’ll bet a few of you even think you know the whole story. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Either way, it’s not a story I’m about to tell – at least not in this blog post. No, airing my laundry isn’t the point. The point is to discuss the various types of people I’ve had the good fortune to come to know this last year. Life takes all kinds and hard times bring most of them to the forefront.…
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The Leaning Tower of Penis
If you’ve ever read any of my posts, you know I have three really cool kids – most of the time. I mean, I always have three kids. They just aren’t always cool. However, for the purposes of this post, my girls are safe. As you can tell by the title, I want to talk about life with boys. Technically, only one boy lives in my house, my fifteen-year-old son, Nick. However, because I have a slew of nephews, there is always extra testosterone floating around. The result is usually a messy house and an empty refrigerator. Let’s start with the most obvious joy of having boys in the house…
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Adventures In Online Dating
Divorce sucks. I don’t care what the circumstances are, it sucks. Whether you initiate the process or are an unwilling participant, it sucks. Big time. I’m not going to go into the specifics that caused me to be thrust into the realm of dating again, but here I am. I find myself on a rollercoaster of emotion. One minute, I’m enthusiastic and positive about my future. The next minute, I’m crying – convinced I’ll never meet anyone and will probably die old and alone, surrounded by fifty hungry cats who may or may not eat my face off when I’m dead. A ridiculous thought because I don’t even like cats.…
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Merry Christmas!
Ah, Christmas, my favorite holiday. There is no part of Christmas I don’t love. I love the shopping and the wrapping, the baking and the lights, the giving of the gifts and the trimming of the tree. I love holiday movies, even the sappy ones. I love Christmas music – except for Feliz Navidad. That song is super annoying. My favorite of all the traditions, though, is the big day itself. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you already know I have a large, loud family. I am one of five children, but the fun doesn’t stop there. Oh, no. There are thirteen grandchildren, seven great…
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Hunting Season
It’s that time of year again, when the crisp bite of fall air turns many a mind to apple picking, harvest festivals and Jack O’ Lanterns. For the legions of sportsmen and women, however, the rustle of fallen leaves and the chill of a late September morning evokes thoughts of a much baser and more primal calling – The Rut. Before I continue, I beg you. If you’re the crunchy vegan type who hates all things carnivorous, please move along to one of my less lethal posts. And, so help me, if you send me hate mail about the brutality of hunting, I will respond with an accounting of all…
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Family Celebrations
This past weekend, my sister married a wonderful man. The blessed nuptials took place at my home. While we were honored and delighted to provide the venue for this happy event, the celebration, as most of our family galas do, quickly devolved into the redneck version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. My family doesn’t do fancy. Even at weddings. As a matter of fact, the fanciest piece of wedding paraphernalia was the plastic champagne cups we assembled for the toast. That being said, it wasn’t a surprise when the minor setbacks began. To be fair, the first mishap was my father being admitted to the hospital for cardiac issues.…
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Conversations With Dogs
Sometimes, it occurs to me that if anyone could hear me speaking to my dogs, they would think I’m insane. For the record, I’m fully aware of how crazy I sound while I’m doing it, but I do it anyway. I have two dogs, both golden retrievers, Molly and Buttercup. Molly is a super happy, adorable puppy. She’s less than two years old, full of energy and always ready for adventure. Tonight, we discussed how I was not going to play fetch. I was busy reading my book and did not want to play. I said all of this, then declared she was unreasonably cute and therefore deserved to play…
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Graduation Avoidance
At the risk of making myself sound like a heartless human being, I’m going to let you in on a little secret – I don’t like graduation ceremonies. Let me explain why, then we’ll get to the point of this writing. Keep reading, I promise I’m less jerky at the end. *On a side note, if I went to your graduation ceremony, don’t get offended. This isn’t about your ceremony. It’s about someone else’s. I loved yours. * We’ll start with my high school graduation twenty something years ago. I suffered under the blazing sun, in oppressive heat and humidity, wearing a heat trapping polyester tent-like monstrosity. It was brutal.…
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Radioactive Catfish?
Not too long ago, I wrote a post about which superpowers I’d like. I still haven’t figured out how to procure said powers, but I haven’t given up. This week’s post also involves superpowers, only I’m going to talk about which ones I don’t want. Bear with me for a few minutes before you lose interest, I promise it gets better. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were out fishing for stripers. For those of you who don’t know, every April and May striped bass swim up the Hudson River, sometimes as far as Albany, to spawn and to snack on the delicious herring. Normally, people around…
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Why I’m Crazy
My children think I’m crazy. This is not new information. They’ve been harboring these feelings for years, probably since before they could speak, and they don’t even try to hide it. They roll their eyes at my unreasonable demands to perform insane tasks such as ‘Put your clean laundry away’ or ‘Take out the garbage before the Leaning Tower of Rubbish falls over and kills the dog’ or, my favorite, ‘Don’t stuff your dirty socks in the couch cushions’. Unfortunately, they’re right. I am crazy – but, it’s their fault. Before I had children, I lived a predictable, orderly life. I knew if I cleaned the house before I went…
