Though I wouldn’t say my boys are total opposites because they share lots of the same fundamental characteristics, they do have many differences. Take, for example, the way they both reacted as college freshmen to receiving packages from me. D, who is now a senior (finishing up this December, one semester early…HOLLA!), did not like packages from home. If you can believe it, he actually found it embarrassing. I have never heard of such a thing. Here I was, sending all kinds of goodies–in quantities that he could share with his friends, too–and after being at school for less than a semester he asked me to stop sending packages. After…
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Want To Go On An Amazing Blog Tour?
I was tremendously honored to participate in a live-streaming event on Tuesday evening for LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER and The Partnership at Drugfree.org (LTYM’s National Video Sponsor) to try and bring about some awareness and help #EndMedicineAbuse. During the live-stream, I joined ten other writers in reading our essays on personal connections to addiction, substance use, and what we want our children to know about the medicine abuse epidemic. It was a very, very powerful hour. I’ve got the videos for you as well as a link to the Blog Tour over on my ad-free page. Check it out here!
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LTYM & The Partnership at Drugfree.org Blog Tour
I was tremendously honored to participate in a live-streaming event on Tuesday evening for LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER and The Partnership at Drugfree.org (LTYM’s National Video Sponsor) to try and bring about some awareness and help #EndMedicineAbuse. During the live-stream, I joined ten other writers in reading our essays on personal connections to addiction, substance use, and what we want our children to know about the medicine abuse epidemic. It was a very, very powerful hour. If you missed it, don’t worry. We’re doing a blog tour, making our essays available to everybody. We also recorded the live-stream (there are three parts), so ready? Here we go. I recommend watching…
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Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, Life Goes On…
We’re just about ten days into our new Empty Nester status and I can report that things are going very well. Life goes on, you know? Just as I thought, the transition itself and the actual act of dropping J off at college were the toughest parts. The adjusting to his daily absence in the house has been easier. I mean, I have done only four loads of laundry in ten days, and I probably could’ve gotten away with doing only three loads if Jim and I weren’t exercisers, needing our workout clothes laundered so we could throw them back in the rotation. Also, a couple of days ago I…
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(21 and) Counting.
We just returned from a family vacation—a five-day cruise with stops in Jamaica and Grand Cayman—to celebrate J’s graduation from high school*. We’ve been planning the trip for almost a year now. It was phenomenal, but I’ll have more on that in a separate post as soon as I achieve some sense of re-entry into reality. Anyway… I posted a picture on Facebook as we were setting sail, and one of my friends** commented something along the lines of how I deserved to go because I work so hard. Though I fully appreciate the sentiment behind her words and I am happy to have a reputation for being a hard…
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Moving On.
Lest you think that the only transition we’re dealing with around here is J’s high school graduation and impending departure for college this fall, turning Jim and me into Empty Nesters, I figured I’d tell you about how D just moved into an off-campus house with three roommates–he isn’t coming home this summer because he has an internship–and will graduate this December, one semester early. I can say today that everything on both fronts is going very well, but we’ve had some rocky patches over the past couple of months which prompted me to send an email to D: “I just wanted to email you and apologize for being a…
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Pre-Prom Scare
Yesterday J and I were getting ready to go to our local formalwear shop so he could pick a tux he wanted to rent for prom. He had a coupon that he received from a fellow student and was reading the fine print. “Discount only good on a full rental: tuxedo jacket and pants, shirt, vest, tie, and shoes.” He looked up and asked, “So I have to get a shirt from this place too? I mean, I have white dress shirts.” I answered, “Well, yes. Tuxedo shirts are different from regular dress shirts.” I paused for a moment and continued. “You know, they have a bunch of ruffles down…
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Disney Magical Moments
I went to see “Disney On Ice” with my sister over the weekend. The advantage of attending a show like that without bringing children along–besides the lack of pressure to buy overpriced souvenirs and being among the first people out of the parking lot when it’s over because you don’t have to worry about getting anybody into a carseat–is that it’s the perfect environment for people-watching and taking in the magical moments of total strangers. We saw countless little girls dressed as Disney princesses, all sparkly from head to toe and brimming with excitement over, well, everything. Two sisters, about four and six years old, were leaning on the guardrail…
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It’s Not About The Bike. (Well, Maybe A Little.)
Cycling is on everyone’s minds this week and though I don’t feel the need or desire to use any of my real estate here on Suburban Scrawl to share my opinion about he-who-shall-not-be-named, I have been thinking about bikes and thought I’d tell you about one very special bicycle. When D was about six, we decided it was time to purchase a bike for him. Jim’s main hobby has been cycling for, well, forever, and even though we weren’t about to spend the money to get a top-of-the-line bike for our kid who would outgrow it before the payment was even a memory, we certainly spent some time in the…
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The Olympic Gymnast
My favorite sport in the Summer Olympics is, by far, gymnastics. I was watching in 1984 when Mary Lou Retton got her perfect 10 on the vault. That same year, the dreamy men’s team won gold (I had such a crush on Peter Vidmar!). I watched what is still one of my favorite Olympic moments of all time when it happened live: when Kerri Strug vaulted on an injured foot (when she probably shouldn’t have) and clinched the gold medal for her team, and then Coach Bela Karolyi (love him) carried her to the podium for the medal ceremony. It still makes me cry like a baby. This year, I’m…