Recently I was generously offered a chance to drive* a 2011 Chevy Cruze LTZ around for an entire week. A week! It was a glorious offer, and timed well too: on the Friday before, my younger son got his driver’s license. By having access to an additional vehicle, our lives would be made very easy for the week, because he would be able to drive our family car to daily lacrosse practice while I could actually drive around and have some fun in the Cruze! (Thanks, Connie Burke! Whee!) The Cruze is a really attractive car. I’d say that it’s cute (because it’s a compact car, and it’s adorable), but…

To say that I’m a fan of the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake is a gross understatement. See? Here I am with one of the approximately 500 Shamrock Shakes I consumed last year. To me, Shamrock Shake season is even better than Girl Scout Cookie season. Ask my Facebook friends: they can vouch for my obsession. It’s because of my Shamrock Shake madness that I was extremely interested in the fact that McDonald’s was, in celebration of Chicago’s grand St. Patrick’s Day tradition, floating the World’s Largest Shamrock Shake down the Chicago River. Until I found out that I wouldn’t get to drink it. (Kidding. Can you IMAGINE??) From the press release…

When my boys, now eighteen and nearly sixteen (ouch, it always hurts to type that), were little, we always had talks around this time of year about how people celebrate different holidays from each other, and sometimes the same holidays as each other but in different ways. They loved checking books out of the library at school that they could bring home and read, learning about all kinds of celebrations. They grew up having a very firm grasp of Judaism but with a great attitude about embracing all of their friends and the way they experienced different aspects of life (including religion), too. In my weekend post promoting books written…