This is my original blog. I haven’t updated for years. I keep it as a reminder of the journey.
Please see Broke Teacher for education and Poser Homestead for chickens, recipes, and dead zucchini.
Things Mr. Brown Said
Mr. Brown was about twenty feet tall. He had to be. He was the wrestling coach. Those were the days when a teacher could lift a kid up, turn him upside down, and shake the excuses out of him and not have anyone bat an eye--the days of the Breakfast Club and Ferris...
Bad Mom Series: Do the Right Thing & Be Defeated Like a Zombie
I'm in the sneaker aisle. I'm a bad mom. I let the boy play in puddles and now he has no shoes for school. "You really should get him a second pair of shoes." I know. I hate shopping. I go into the store, I get stressed about the choices, how much I hate fashion, and...
Uncle Sam Celebrates My Birthday By Making Me Look Bad (Ode to my favorite photographers)
I was in line at AAA getting my new license. I didn't want to drive with an expired one. Once I forgot to register my car for two years. "Do you know you skipped an entire registration cycle?" the registry person said. I was pretty pregnant. Everyone tries to help...
Risk and Resurrection: Stories of Spring
I told Declan the story of the Passover the other night. Too many people separate Judaism and Christianity. I imagine being a Jew in the time of Jesus--Romans, poverty, political turmoil. Being a Jew in the time of Jesus was sort of like being a colonist during the...
Why I Love Letters though I’ve Had the Email Beaten Out of Me
"Sign up here to receive a handwritten letter..." I signed up right away. I'm an adult. I can no longer imagine getting an envelope in the mail that doesn't demand money. What a delightful project by Australian artist Gert Geyer--she's sending out one handwritten...
Why We Wrote about Dinos instead of Education for April Fool’s
Our first book is live. It's about a little dinosaur who annoys his mom. I wrote the words, and the brilliant Sarah Steenland drew all the pictures. I'm late in releasing the education book I've been working on forever. That's because the education book was a lot...
Bargains with God: How Solving the Rubik’s Cube in Just 30 Years Made Me Invincible
Declan gets pennies in a reward jar for not annoying me. He earned enough to get something. He asked for a Rubik's Cube. I was the last of my friends to get the Rubik's Cube in the 80's. I never did learn to solve it. "Here, Mom, solve it." Declan tossed it over. "I...
A 7 Year Old’s Guide to Facebook
"Hey, Mom!" said Declan. "I can post to Facebook and I don't even have one." I wasn't listening. There are two categories of things that come out of kid's mouths--things to ignore, and things we should notice. This was from the second category. The radar was...
Good Karma, or the Wrath of God?
New England has been buried under twenty feet of snow for a few weeks now. Maybe that's just my plow pile, or God's way of saying "Stop speaking in those silly accents. I can't understand you." He's frozen us in blocks of ice while he waits for our grammar to improve....
Happy Valentine’s Day! Thank the French for Your Candy
Happy Valentine's Day! It's one of the biggest marketing holidays out there, co-sponsored by the American Diabetes Association and the Roses-Don't-Grow-in-February people. Still, it breaks up the winter doldrums, even if you don't have someone in your life to buy...
How I Get Out of Traffic Tickets and You Don’t
I was first generation that never sat at a counter at Woolworth’s. I never burned a bra. I didn’t need a bra but that’s beside the point. I wore mine dutifully with the other flat-chested girls who wouldn’t burn bras because we’d been liberated by our mothers. Girls...
Mysteries of the Universe
"Why do fancy ladies hate farms?" Declan asked. He woke up with this earth-shattering question on his mind. "I don't know," I said. "Seriously, Mom. Maybe they hate farms because they dress so nice and farms are dirty?" He insinuates I'm not a fancy lady. "Probably....