• Childhood Memories

    Five Random Things About Me: The Childhood Edition

    About a week ago, Deb Rox tagged me to do the “Five Random Things About Me” meme that’s making its way around the blogosphere. Sort of. Okay, I think she tagged everybody. ANYWAY… I’m putting my own spin on it by sticking to stuff from my childhood. I imagine these five things probably wouldn’t make very interesting posts separately and in fact now that I think about it, clustering them might not be very interesting either. Oh well, it’s NaBloPoMo Day 2 and I’m going for it. 1. One of my biggest, proudest accomplishments in third grade was the time I became a Lemon Twist Champion by doing one thousand…

  • Food,  I've Got Mad Skillz

    Liveblogging the Latke-palooza

    Wow, November 30th already?? I can’t believe NaBloPoMo is over today: I’ve blogged every single stinkin’ day (sometimes twice!) for the entire month of November. This has been the best NaBloPoMo/NaBloPoMoFo for me personally and I’m not sure why. I’m ending the month with almost all of my “just in case” drafts still snug in the draft folder, and I never once felt like I was struggling with finding something to write about. (Most of the time, LACK OF TIME was the problem!) Of course, it helped that I did a little traveling this month: it’s always easier to write about things when you’re not living the normal routine. Anyway,…

  • Food,  I've Got Mad Skillz

    Easiest Muffin Recipe Ever (You’re Welcome!)

    In my never-ending quest to confuse my readers about my niche as a “Life Blogger” by tossing in a Food Blogger-ish recipe every now and then, today I present you with another family favorite around here: the muffin recipe I use ALL THE TIME. My Mom calls them “Sweeter Muffins” but the title I copied into my recipe book is “Twin Mountain Muffins” and I don’t know if that has a double meaning or not (Get your mind out of the gutter, OMG! And take mine with you!) so I’m just calling this recipe “The Easiest Muffin Recipe Ever” because I’m at a loss and that title describes it very…

  • Amazing People,  Confessions,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  My Kid Has Mad Skillz,  Reflections on Parenting

    Something Wonderful

    Something wonderful is happening around here. (Indulge me while I brag for a moment. Thank you.) Although it seems like yesterday that we were in the midst of his college search, D is finishing his coursework a semester early. He’ll be done with classes in less than a month! It’s a pretty spectacular accomplishment: he achieved it via a combination of some AP testing for college credit, testing into (and then passing) an advanced German course which earned him the credit for that class plus the year he skipped, and mostly due to his staying the course with his major and getting awesome grades (Dean’s List all the way!). Did…

  • Roxie

    Roxie’s Rug

    We have lived in our current house for thirteen years in December. Though this was not the first house we ever bought–that honor goes to a house in Kenosha, Wisconsin–we did buy this one after renting for three years, so it was very exciting to make plans for a few pieces of new furniture and paint colors other than “Landlord’s Choice White”. When we first starting hunting for new home items, Jim picked out a Prairie-style recliner for the family room. We both adore the chair–if we could afford it, our entire home would look like Frank Lloyd Wright provided the furnishings himself–but I was more excited about a rug…

  • Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?

    When A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words About Another Picture

    It’s the time of year when I start to plan what I’m going to do for holiday cards. I’m one of the dinosaurs that still sends them, you see. I used to make them myself: papercrafting, when I had time to do it, was a blast. I loved expressing my creativity on my holiday card project every year, and if the card didn’t have a picture element attached to it, I included one in the envelope so our friends and relatives who don’t see us very often can check out how much the boys have grown during the year. For the last few years, I’ve ordered cards online, and that’s…

  • Friends,  I've Got Mad Skillz

    Somebody’s Gotta Do It.

    It’s probably not news to you, but I’m very extroverted. I can talk to just about anyone, I’m very comfortable in group situations, and I do tend to, as my sister calls it, “always choose the Fun Pass”. (My sister ORIGINATED the Fun Pass, by the way. We’re good at Fun.) A dear friend I’ve known since high school is not extroverted. (Nothing wrong with that!) In fact, we’ve had countless conversations over the years about how anti-social and introverted she is, in direct comparison to my place on the other end of the spectrum. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard her say, “I’m just not…

  • Childhood Memories

    Member Of The Rotary Club

    I will never, EVER get used to seeing Adam Ant and Duran Duran vinyl albums in antique shops. It nauseates me to see my youth tossed into plastic milk crates right next to the milk glass, art deco costume jewelry, and old, dusty pillbox hats. That said, coming across a “vintage” rotary dial phone–also from my youth–next to all of that same stuff last month didn’t really bother me. Go figure. Maybe it’s because I didn’t hang posters of rotary dial phones on my bedroom walls, and I certainly didn’t spend every waking moment swooning as I watched rotary dial phone videos on MTV. It occurred to me when I…

  • UGH.

    Beeeeeeep!

    Thanks for calling. Melisa is not here at the moment; she’s busy dealing with the remnants of a day that started out wonderfully with a Dailey Method workout and a LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER webinar and slowly disintegrated into a seemingly endless grocery shopping trip during which she spent a king’s ransom to restock her pantry and refrigerator with food for the coming week plus Thanksgiving. Her eventual release from the checkout, after feeling judged by her fellow shoppers for how much she had in her cart, resulted in a longer-than-usual drive home due to construction and then an eventful transfer of groceries from the car to the kitchen, during…