• Confessions,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Or I Could Just Keep Buying Bread Like I’ve Done My Entire Life.

    We own what I consider to be an average amount of small kitchen appliances. Wait. Better make that a slightly-above-average amount of small kitchen appliances, partly due to the following: 1. We were given one of those Cocomotion hot chocolate makers/mixers a few years ago (we don’t use it anymore but it’s cool so I keep it, you know, just in case). 2. When I purchased a large slow cooker a couple of years ago, I refused to get rid of the small one we already had (Great for entertaining!). 3. We have an electric fondue pot, which (I think) is probably uncommon in the average household, but very common…

  • Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?

    Perhaps I Should’ve Bought Fewer Treats And More Tricks

    Though I wouldn’t say my boys are total opposites because they share lots of the same fundamental characteristics, they do have many differences. Take, for example, the way they both reacted as college freshmen to receiving packages from me. D, who is now a senior (finishing up this December, one semester early…HOLLA!), did not like packages from home. If you can believe it, he actually found it embarrassing. I have never heard of such a thing. Here I was, sending all kinds of goodies–in quantities that he could share with his friends, too–and after being at school for less than a semester he asked me to stop sending packages. After…

  • Fun in Chicago,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Stalking In Starved Rock State Park

    A little more than a week ago, Jim and I were sitting around trying to make a variety of plans for the weekends ahead. It’s what you do when you’re an Empty Nester, you know. Suddenly you have all of this time on the weekends because you don’t have kids coming and going at various times: if you don’t make plans to do things, you’re basically just living from meal to meal and that’s no fun at all. Jim and I are all for fun, so we spend lots of time on our calendar of activities. After a few minutes of silent and individual thinking he said, “You know, if…

  • Reflections on Parenting,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life Goes On…

    We’re just about ten days into our new Empty Nester status and I can report that things are going very well. Life goes on, you know? Just as I thought, the transition itself and the actual act of dropping J off at college were the toughest parts. The adjusting to his daily absence in the house has been easier. I mean, I have done only four loads of laundry in ten days, and I probably could’ve gotten away with doing only three loads if Jim and I weren’t exercisers, needing our workout clothes laundered so we could throw them back in the rotation. Also, a couple of days ago I…