It’s tough trying to blog while on vacation. But bloggers need to post regularly or they risk losing visitors as
their blog goes “stale” (in my first year, I learned the hard way after being sick and waiting more than a week to post—the numbers drop was dramatic and took months to regain) and so it’s good to
write some posts in advance that are “waiting in the wings” as finished drafts, so if you are “out of pocket”, all you have to do is hit “publish” when you need content and go on with your
vacation (or illness, or whatever). Only for me, it was hard to stock up during busy May (remember, next to December, May is the busiest month of the year for parents of school-age kids with
all the “end of year” activities happening all at once). So I found myself at Grandma’s house last week with no stockpile of posts, trying to write …
Past Posts
Random Acts of Art: Why Yarn Bombing, Flash Mobs, and Other Unconventional Creations are Good for Kids…and Communities
An article in the newspaper recently caught my eye, about the “Surfing Madonna”, a mosaic that has been causing a commotion in
California after it was installed clandestinely this spring on Good Friday/Earth Day, in the beach town of Encinitas. The 10 ft. x 10 ft.rock and glass piece, depicting the Virgin of
Guadalupe hanging ten and the words “Save Our Ocean” along one side, was created elsewhere and then brought to the site by people disguised as construction workers, and installed
with powerful epoxy glue. Though much of the public loves it, city administrators got in a huff and hired an art conservation agency to study how the mosaic could be safely
removed and displayed elsewhere, since “grafitti” is against the law. After receiving thousands of dollars from the city, the agency told them the best plan for the artwork
is to leave it where it was, protected from the wind …
Respect the Rumble: Teaching Kids About Storm Safety
With the start of summer 2011, storms are definitely on my brain these days, from the tornadoes that ravaged Joplin and other cities across the
U.S., to the severe storms that set off the emergency sirens in the Dallas area last week, to Hurricane Katrina—though it’s been almost six years since that tragedy, I was thinking about it
this past weekend as our family took a vacation to New Orleans. It was interesting to hear about the stories of people who had the means to evacuate but chose not to.
My friend who lives there told me that many people had weathered many hurricanes before, and felt like they could do the same again, and didn’t expect things to be as bad as
they were. But isn’t Mother Nature often full of surprises? A resident of Joplin was interviewed after their …
Where Everybody Knows Your Name
The TV show Cheers was a hit with audiences not only because of its great writing and acting, but we were also
attracted to the basic premise of the setting– a hang-out “where everybody knows your name”—and for a lot of us who don’t frequent a neighborhood bar, we secretly wished we could find that
kind of camaraderie and familiarity someplace. Or, at least live in a town where all the clerks know your name—like the town of Mayberry (from “The Andy Griffith Show”), another TV
setting we Baby Boomers loved. At least, I did. Even though I was from a town of only 28,000, I always envied kids I knew from much smaller towns, and loved to visit them for a weekend. You’d
think that when I moved to friendly Texas, it wouldn’t be hard to experience a small town feeling no matter where I lived—but it really hasn’t happened for me. Well, …
Ode to the Crock Pot
One of the best wedding gifts my husband and I received 19 years ago this month was our Crock Pot. Still going strong (even though it’s stained
a bit on the outside and the plastic knob broke off of the switch several years ago), I wanted to give a shout out for this amazing appliance in the hopes that busy, stressed-out people might
start using a slow cooker (if they don’t already) and realize how great it is, too. Finding good recipes to prepare in it has been a challenge over the years (with one
cookbook I tried, every recipe seemed to turn out like mush) but I’ve had a ton of success with Homemade Gourmet recipes and products (there are currently 206 slow cooker recipes at http://recipes.homemadegourmet.com/ ) and once in awhile I’ll also find a winner in a …
From Setbacks to Comebacks: Helping Teens Deal With Disappointment
All over town this past couple of weeks, you could almost hear the cries, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes
staggered. Cries of joy and cries of pain, as teens from area high schools looked at posted “results” and found out if they made it into next year’s school teams/groups/leadership
positions—cheerleading squads, “elite” bands, the co-ed western dance team… drum majors, drill team officers, club presidents…and the cries weren’t just from the kids. Parents cried, too. “When we
found out she didn’t make it, we both boo-hooed together,” said one mom. “I’d put so much effort into driving her to extra practices, and doing whatever else she needed me to do to help, that I
felt like I’d lost, too.” I could relate. When I found out Allison wasn’t on a particular list (while using the browser on my phone in the grocery store check-out line) I almost dropped my
bag of green …
A Bang-Up Time at Westminster Abbey
What an experience it was. As I sat in my seat at Westminster Abbey, I almost pinched myself. I can’t believe I’m sitting here. I knew I’d
probably be sitting there for awhile, so I tried to drink it all in and memorize every detail…the soaring architecture, the sculptures, the paintings. Was that Sarah
Ferguson, Duchess of York, sitting next to me? No, turns out it was a young advertising exec from north of London that looked very much like her—but she was friendly, and we struck up a
conversation. I wondered where my husband was sitting and wondered if we would be able to find each other when this was all over…we’d gotten separated when I took too long staring at
Elizabeth…
No, I didn’t get to attend the latest Royal Wedding, but watching the news and …
Risky Business: Is Writing Killing Me?
Who’d have thought I work in a dangerous job? Well, I do, according to the news that’s resurfaced lately, that people who sit for prolonged
periods of time each day are at a greater risk for heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer, arthritis—okay, basically, an earlier death than those who don’t. Apparently I missed all the stories
about it last year, but caught one a few days ago when it
flashed across my homepage (and new research about children and sitting followed a few days later). Yeah, we all know that being a couch potato (or desk potato) equals fat, and we’ve also been told that getting more
exercise can make that fat go away, so what will this “news” tell us that we don’t already know? Shouldn’t I have …
The Two-And-A-Half Month Bucket List
While not yet officially in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the term “bucket list” is something most people now know and use thanks to the 2008
movie of the same name, meaning “a list of things you want to do before you ‘kick the bucket’, i.e. die”. Entrepreneurs have happily taken that term and capitalized upon it– amazon.com
currently offers 16 different “bucket list books” including everything from the Sex Bucket List to the Christian Bucket List to the Baseball Fan’s Bucket List; the website
reaperlist.com gives people a place to store their lists, check them off and “discover others who
will see your list and hold you accountable to it”. There are even Android and iPhone bucket list apps…People now also use the term to simply mean things they want
to do before a certain deadline, i.e. they may have a “college bucket list” …
Double Feature Creature Show
My family may live in a suburban neighborhood, with brick houses that look eerily alike, a superhighway nearby and a
Starbucks at every major intersection, but it’s often more like Wild Kingdom around here, especially at night. Medium-sized turtles and small frogs sitting motionless on
the sidewalk, probably pondering how to find their way back to the nearby creek…possums ambling across the alley, trying to get out of the glare of headlights…coyotes preying on neighborhood
cats and howling right outside my home office window (can you say, Makes the Hair Stand Up On the Back Of Your Neck Like Nothing Ever Did Before?) Sometimes we even get
thrills and chills during the day, like the time a gorgeous red-winged hawk walked around my neighbor’s front yard for 20 minutes, or the time Luke cornered a black garden snake in the living
…