• Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?,  Spreading the Bloggie Love

    Double Dog Dare…Done.

    I am very comfortable behind a camera. Though I still (Yes, STILL. Sigh.) use an old point and shoot camera whose left side is held together by hot pink duct tape, I take lots and lots of pictures. When I tell people that I went away for three days and took five hundred pictures, they are shocked, but that’s how it is: I’ve always tried to capture just about everything when I have my camera with me. Though I do hand the camera over to someone else so I can appear with my family in front of it (wouldn’t want the kids to think their mom was never around!), I’m…

  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  My Mom Has Mad Skillz

    Two Cars For One Sixteen-Year-Old

    Yesterday was a pretty exciting day around here: J turned sixteen. As you know, sixteen is a huge milestone for a teenager, with the ability to get a driver’s license and all. J will be taking his driver’s test at the end of the month, because he still has about 7 permit hours to go, and the nine-month permit period isn’t over yet. At ANY rate, I thought–especially since we are not the type of parents who would buy our kids a car at sixteen, even if we could afford it–that I would make his traditional rainbow cake in the shape of a car. Taking the idea even further, I…

  • My Kid Has Mad Skillz

    This Is What Sixteen Years Looks Like.

    Okay, technically this (above) is what fifteen and a half looks like, since I took the picture in Munich over the summer. But you get the idea. Today is J’s sixteenth birthday. I am once again in total disbelief that this growing up thing is happening. I mean, we’ll be starting his college search in the fall! Hold me. J: I hope you enjoy the rainbow cake I’m attempting to make for you right now. (If it all works out, it will have four wheels and would go “vroom vroom” if I put some kind of sound mechanism in it!) Happy, happy birthday, Dude! I love you! ©2011 Suburban Scrawl

  • Family Fun,  Fun in Chicago

    The Blizzard of 2011 Was An Overachiever, Just Like Someone Else I Know (And NO, I’m Not Talking About ME.).

    In fact, though my friends in the northeast have referred to their overabundance of snow this winter as “Snowmageddon” and other such intimidating names, many of us in Chicago have referred to our blizzard as Snowprah. Snowprah Wintry, to some. I love it. I mean seriously, Oprah has had a 25th Farewell Season that yielded way more than even she ever expected, like the half-sister she never knew about, and–OF COURSE–having my own sister and me as a part of her audience. Having an actual blizzard named after her? Oh my, I’m sure she never imagined that would ever happen. So, Snowprah. The media coverage of this storm (and the…