• Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    My Favorite Things: The New Jersey Edition (Yo!)

    November 16, 2013

    Yesterday was my last day in New Jersey and, because she’s real smart like that, Liz thought we should go out to breakfast and do a little more local sightseeing in the area rather than sit around at her house, crying because we had to say goodbye in the afternoon, which totally would have happened. During a lovely walk in Thompson Park—which is NOT named after Liz or her husband Garth (Not His Real Name); I checked!!–we talked about our week and I told her that I didn’t even have a favorite part; the entire visit was my favorite. That was only a little true. I have some favorites, but…

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  • Blessings

    Six Years Of Scrawl!

    October 28, 2013

    Today, Suburban Scrawl is six years old. Six years!!! While I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for six years, I also can’t remember what it was like to live life without social media. Though I have several friends who have blogged for a decade or more (wow!), I still feel like an OG blogger: six years is almost like a whole lifetime in internet years. I belong to a fantastic generation of bloggers–I refer to us as the Jan Bradys of blogging; don’t ask unless you are in the same room or on the phone with me and have about ten minutes–and I see no end in sight, thank goodness.…

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  • Blessings

    This Is The Part Of The Roller Coaster Where I Go, “Wheeee!”

    October 20, 2013

    I have a habit of comparing all different measures of time to a roller coaster. “Oh my gosh, those two hours were like a roller coaster!” “I had a roller-coaster kind of day.” “Last week was really up and down, like a roller coaster.” The fact is, life is like a roller coaster. I’m glad about that, too: if there were no ups and downs, things would be pretty boring. (Naturally I prefer the ups, but you can’t have them without downs!) The stress of sending J to college six weeks ago was quite enormous, and as much as I knew that things were going according to plan it was…

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  • Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Fun in Chicago,  Proud Moments

    My NBC Nightly News Debut…Sort Of

    May 11, 2013

    So we weren’t actually ON Friday evening’s NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams as scheduled because our segment got bumped due to breaking news. (“Sigh…but that happens in the news biz, you know”, I type knowingly, because I have LOTS more personal experience with the “news biz” than I did a week ago.) Tracey and I were in the Valparaiso, Indiana Buffalo Wild Wings during the broadcast*, and we had just talked our server into changing the channel on the huge tv that hung on the wall above our table (from NBC Sports to NBC local) when Ann Imig (National Director/Founder of LTYM) sent me a text letting me know…

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