• Amazing People,  Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Spreading the Bloggie Love

    Community Yesterday, Today, Always.

    I’ve been thinking about “community” a lot lately. Rather, I think about it all the time but lately I’ve thought about it more than usual, probably because it was conference season and my main job is to maintain and inform the BlogHer Conference attendee community on Facebook. I spent hours upon hours (as I have for the past four years since we started the group) reassuring “newbies”, what we affectionately call our first-time attendees, that they’re going to learn/make friends/have fun/come away inspired. In part due to my involvement and in part due to our conference veterans being the best, most helpful people ever and in part due to other…

  • Amazing People

    The Amazing Race is Amazing.

    A couple of weeks ago I was searching for something to watch on Hulu (we do Netflix for movies and originals and Hulu for beloved TV show replays over here) and was overjoyed to discover that alllll of the episodes in seasons one through twenty-seven of The Amazing Race are available to stream. We LOVE The Amazing Race in this house. Before the boys went to college it was how we four spent Sunday nights together. At the beginning of every season we pause the show after the teams are introduced and we each pick two that we think might win. Of course, after an episode or two some of…

  • Amazing People,  Family Fun,  Favorite Things,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz

    Okay, I Stand Corrected.

    Something good that has come out of this election is the seemingly unending stream of thoughtful political conversation I’ve been enjoying with my twenty-four-year-old. It’s really something special to be able to have intelligent discourse about world affairs with your own grown kid and as much as this election and the post-election developments have had me tied up in knots, it’s been a bright spot. That said, I have a much more entertaining conversation to share here. The scene: my kitchen. I’m lighting my Clean Cotton-scented Yankee Candle. Dylan: “It’s too bad they don’t make a candle that smells like lighting a match.” Me: “YES. That would be amazing.” Dylan:…

  • Amazing People

    Mostly Wordless Wednesday: Hillary

    I had to be out of my house for an hour so I’m sitting in a mostly-deserted McDonald’s crying my eyes out watching Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. It’s beautiful, uplifting, full of grace and continues the tradition of a peaceful leadership transition in our country. She really would have been a fantastic president. Thank you, Hillary.

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Favorite Things,  Fun in Chicago,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Superstitions Be Gone: Cubs Win the 2016 World Series!

    Chicago is a very happy city today. I am a very happy person today. I am nearly too exhausted to write about this but I’m going to give it a shot: bear with me. I was up until 2am and slept in a most terrible manner for the duration before my eyes sprung open again at 6:45am. I suspect it was because internally I sensed that “Good Morning America” was coming on and I didn’t want to miss the World Series recap, which I enjoyed immensely. Let me back up. Chicago Cubs. Cleveland Indians. What a World Series: a real nail biter. Game 7, though? I literally thought I was…

  • Amazing People,  How To,  Something That Could Change Your Life,  UGH.

    Safety Saves.

    The last 24 hours have been upsetting, terrifying, shocking, anger-inducing, and all kinds of other descriptors I’m too tired to list. Late yesterday afternoon, my husband Jim was riding his bike down a country road in west Knoxville, Tennessee when he was hit by some kind of vehicle. We’re not sure if it was a car or a truck because whomever hit him just kept on driving. They kept on driving. He or she drove off, leaving my husband on the side of the road. He was unresponsive when someone else happened to drive by and notice him lying there. That someone happened to be the pilot of one of…