• Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Family Fun

    Holiday Gifts

    I have written many times about my distaste for so many aspects of various holidays, from the decorating to the stress to the retail store overload, to, well, all kinds of things. In fact, the last post I wrote on the topic was less than two weeks ago. That said, when both of my sons, my sister, and my husband all chipped in tonight to help wrap holiday gifts for the friends and family members we’ll be seeing later this week for Thanksgiving, my ice-cold holiday heart melted just a little bit. I’m not sure if it was when we were giving the boys a hard time about leaving about…

  • Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?,  Family Fun,  Fun in Chicago,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  Working On My Fitness

    Lazy (River) Is Relative.

    My family just returned from a night away at Keylime Cove, a fantastic water park resort in Gurnee, Illinois. Like all good water parks, Keylime Cove has a lazy river. For those of you who don’t know what a lazy river is, you’re totally missing out. A lazy river is basically a shallow pool (only about three feet deep) that winds through a water park much like the river it’s named for. There are underwater jets that are pointed strategically so that the water flows in one direction. The lazy part comes in when you sit in an inner tube and…well, you just get carried away on your inner tube…

  • Confessions,  How To,  Random Thoughts,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    On Kindness

    Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s a really good time to start thinking about making good manners and consideration for others a habit so that when the holidays are over, we will be fostering a better environment in the world around us without thinking much about it. Wait…do you think you don’t have any issues with kindness? It’s possible that you don’t, of course, but sometimes–because most of us are so busy all the time–we become very emotionally impulsive and less thoughtful without even realizing it. I performed a little experiment last night and I challenge you to do something similar. I had to stop at the grocery…

  • Music,  Random Thoughts

    Grown-Up Groupie

    When I was in high school, I was crazy—CRAZY—about the band Berlin. Though their biggest hit was “Take My Breath Away” from the “Top Gun” soundtrack, that came later on and the song really doesn’t represent the kind of band they were. I loved their earliest stuff, which was heavy with synthesizers, starting with the albums “Information” and “Pleasure Victim”. I listened to that music all the time, and naturally knew every song by heart. My friends and I watched MTV for hours a day, and whenever the video for “The Metro” came on, I was glued. Soon “No More Words” got heavy rotation on the radio, and in turn…

  • Confessions,  UGH.,  Writing

    Let The To Do List-ing Begin!

    After yesterday’s announcement, I was pretty keyed up and had the absolute worst night of sleep in recent memory. It took me two hours to fall asleep in bed because I was thinkingthinkingthinking, and I was wide awake again after about two hours because I was thinkingthinkingthinking. I came downstairs at about 3:30 a.m., turned on the television and opened the ole’ laptop. I worked on a post, checked emails, and scrolled Facebook–but not for long because my friends were all sleeping at the time and there were few updates posted since I had gone to bed earlier. I finally went back to sleep on the couch and got about…

  • Review

    The Brits Are Coming! Very.com Hits The U.S.

    If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times: I have a foreign fetish, especially when it comes to two countries in particular. England is one of them. My fascination started with the royals back in the Charles and Di days but gradually spread to other areas as well, like Duran Duran and the others who were a part of the ’80s British Invasion. As an adult, I finally got to England for my first time in 2006 and would love to go back NOW. British fashion? Never thought much about it. HOWEVER, that was before I had heard of Very.com. Very.com, a British company now accessible to…

  • Proud Moments,  Shameless Promotion,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Listen To Me: I Have An Announcement! (Then, Listen To Your Mother!)

    I am beyond excited to FINALLY be able to talk about this online, after six days of knowing about it. Six days that seem like six years, that is! I, along with my friend Tracey of Just Another Mommy Blog, will be bringing the “Listen To Your Mother” show to Chicago in 2012! What IS the “Listen To Your Mother” show, you ask? It’s a showcase of local writers who read, for a live audience, one “performance” only, their words about motherhood. The first show, in Madison, Wisconsin on Mother’s Day in 2010 was conceived (get it?) and produced by Ann Imig, who is now the National Director. This year,…

  • Chicken in the Car,  Random Thoughts,  Writing

    It’s Never Too Late.

    Last week I had the opportunity to speak about my book to a group of senior citizens at a local church. It was my first “real” speaking engagement. I have never liked speaking in front of groups generally… …although I have no problem wearing spandex-y workout clothes and a microphone headset while I sweatily teach cycling to large groups of people, go figure… …oh, and I did earn a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education, something that involves speaking in front of large groups, and taught second graders every Sunday for fourteen years, whatever… …but I really don’t like being in front of lots of people. Anyway, I was pretty excited…

  • Amazing People

    A Gift Called Wanda

    Having worked in a salon for seven years, I’ve had the opportunity to become friendly with many people whom I never would have otherwise met. It’s always a pleasure to see a regular client arrive for her weekly (or bi-weekly) appointment, and over the years I learn so much about their private lives: their family, friends, what makes them happy, what ticks them off…all kinds of things. These clients become a part of the salon’s fabric. Each of us has our own favorite clients. There are a few clients, however, who are on everyone’s list. Margy was one of them. I wrote about Margy when she passed away three years…

  • Friends,  Music,  Too Funny To Ignore

    Reestablishing Chicago As The House Music Capital of the World

    I had a conversation on Facebook yesterday that made me positively giddy. I was in a back-and-forth with my friend who you might remember: Jane the Phoole from the Bristol Renaissance (Ren-AY-sance) Faire. One of the things I adore about “Jane” is that she may spend her summer days dressed up in 16th century chic, but she spends her nights listening to House music, which is SO NOT 16th century. The juxtaposition of Jane’s (whose real name is Ann) Facebook statuses cracks me up on a regular basis, because how funny is it to see that one day during Ren Faire season she’s posting something like this: “Join Jane the…