Rosh Hashanah began last night at sundown, so I want to wish my Jewish readers (Rockdrool, Lilacspecs, Movie Maven, and all of the rest of you out there!) L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevu: may you be inscribed for a sweet year. I wrote about Rosh Hashanah and what it is last year; you can find that post here. We’re headed to services at the temple this morning; I’m looking forward to it. To be honest, we have not gone to temple very much at all in the past few months. Today (as well as on Yom Kippur, a week from Monday) there will be a jam-packed sanctuary; the High Holidays are much…
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How To Help Your Kid Buy A Used Car in 35 Easy Steps
Just in case you didn’t get enough of my lessons on buying new cars in my recent series, I’ve got another lesson for you. Let’s say that you have a 17-year-old who is in the market for a car and you want to navigate the treacherous waters of car buying with a teenager. Do you have a plan? I’ll tell you how it went in this house; we just finished the entire process last night. Step 1: Decide WHO is paying for the car long before the kid gets his permit. In our house? No free rides. The kids have to buy their own cars. The older boy has been…
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He Didn’t Mean “We” In The Royal Sense, But At The End, I Did.
I am thrilled to report that, without any sort of prodding from me, the younger boy–who is a high school freshman this year–asked on Monday if it would be okay for him to stay after school on Wednesday for a German Club meeting. “Absolutely!” I said, excited because he was interested in an extra-curricular activity on his own as well as, well, it’s German Club…and you know how I feel about that. (No? Click here.) Yesterday morning before he left for school, I told him I’d pick him up at 3:30, an hour after school was finished, unless he let me know that German Club was going to take longer…
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I Finally Hit Bottom.
I never thought this would happen, in a million years. In fact, I thought I took measures to make sure this would never happen. Back in the day, I couldn’t even count them all. My supply? Overflowing. I was definitely a hoarder. They were so pretty when you put them all together; they made a rainbow of possibilities, to be used in whatever order I deemed necessary. They relaxed me, or invigorated me, or reminded me of my favorite moments. They could wash away a bad day in record time. And now? With no ceremony, they are gone. All gone. *wringing hands* And I don’t know what my next steps…
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An Attitude of Gratitude
I’ve wanted to write about a friend of mine for a while and couldn’t really figure out the right time to slip a post about her into the mix. I think, considering yesterday’s news about Patrick Swayze, today is the day. I’m not going to give a lot of details about the circumstances of our meeting or where we most often cross paths, because I don’t want her to worry in the least about her privacy. So. I have this friend. She is beautiful. She is a young (early 30s) mom. When I met her, I liked her immediately. She oozed friendliness, and was always full of smiles (she still…
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He’s Like The Wind
Though I knew it was coming, I feel a little like I’ve been punched in the stomach tonight. I just found out that Patrick Swayze lost his battle with cancer at the age of 57. I suppose everyone has their own special memories of any actor they are fond of (and I mean “fond of” not in a stalker-ish way but in an admiring-from-afar kind of way). In my mind, though he played many awesome characters in many different kinds of projects, to me he will always be Orry Main and Johnny Castle. I took a breath after hearing the news of his death and then my thoughts went immediately…
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Does An Apology Make It Okay?
Each and every year, viewers tune in to the MTV Video Music Awards because there are always a few moments that the whole world is talking about the next day. Last night’s show was no different in that it had stand-out moments, but one of them was despicable, uncomfortable, and unbelievable. Taylor Swift, the 19-year-old country music dynamo (who has managed to cross over into pop as well, something pretty rare for a true country artist), won her first “Moon Man”, for Best Female Video of the year. As she was excitedly accepting her award, Kanye West turned what was one of the best moments of her life into quite…
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Flashdance
Deep down, I’m a dancer. I have had no training other than my years of ballet and tap classes as a kid (okay and those couple ballroom lessons that Jim and I took last year), but I know I’m a dancer. I used to LOVE taking aerobics classes, the more challenging the choreography, the better. My foot taps along with a good beat with no prompting from my brain. I adore going to receptions where a dance floor has been set up, and don’t even try to keep me from doing the Cha-Cha Slide, the Cupid Shuffle, or the Electric Slide (or even the Chicken Dance). Your efforts will be…
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Meet Our New Arrival!
If you read my friend Weaselmomma’s blog, World of Weasels, you know that this week she completely lost her mind and added a mastiff puppy to her brood of five children, a couple of cats, a non-human rodent or two (I lose track: we recently lost Gimpy and Tenderfoot…), a couple of frogs, and lord knows how many other animals that are there in that house that I haven’t even seen yet in the many times I’ve been over there. But I get it. I’m a total dog person and I adore puppies (can’t wait to meet that little peeing-in-the-kitchen-half-the-time-but-getting-much-better darlin’), so going gaga over one is not a foreign…
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Creative Parenting 101: Take A Picture. It’ll Last Longer!
I often say that photographs are my favorite souvenirs. In addition to the wonderful memory* that you can preserve with just one picture, a picture–or thirty–takes up much less space than, say, that jumbo Disney World snowglobe that costs you the same amount as a brand-new Geo Metro and will be in next year’s garage sale. My pictures-take-up-less-space philosophy came in handy when the older boy was younger. We discovered early-on that he had packrat-like tendencies. He came by it honestly; his mother’s** side of the family has the packrat gene in a big way. With intensive therapy***, I finally learned how to get rid of stuff. Halleluyah! When our…