Category Archives: motherhood

Resisting the Blues—Like a Boss

  I stepped over to my manager’s cube and announced my depression. It occurred to me yesterday morning before heading into work, all slumped against my pillow with TODAY and a mug of coffee, that this persistent weight of sadness even Hoda can’t cheer away is simple, unmistakable, good ole fashioned “feeling depressed.” And searchingContinue reading “Resisting the Blues—Like a Boss”

Be Thanking

Living on pins, needles these past months since Surviving a second heart attack in eleven years I’m finally Beginning to relax, Feeling better, better than back to normal, lighter, back to Working at my Marketing job for a Publishing company, which isn’t all that creative but freed me to reserve my creative energies for Digging into deep thesis revisions, finallyContinue reading “Be Thanking”

Which Way to the Vomitorium?

As I’ve mentioned before, being a mom to this particular son* is a gas—and always educational. This morning I decided to visit him in his room before he fully woke up and remembered his mother irritates him to no end. He rewarded me by reading aloud, in Latin and then English, selections from “Which Way toContinue reading “Which Way to the Vomitorium?”

Healing The Heart with a Big Giant Kid and a Little Kiddie Lit

The second sweetest thing about cardiac recovery is the extravagance of time you find to loll on the screened porch playing the synopsis game with your 18 year-old son, who hasn’t yet read the books you’ve loved in college and half a lifetime, but who has read the books you loved and hated in high school but can’t recall.

Adventures in Parenting Jack: Translating Halldór Laxness (Say HUH?)

I was working on a meditative essay to post on this here writey blog, but the following Facebook status update by my dear son, pictured below (in what I think should be his online dating profile picture, should he ever online-date in his twenties), derailed me. You’ll understand why. Oh, and as any good anglophile, he punctuates the UK way. Also, why do I even try to write? OY, this kid:

It’s Not Flashy, It’s Not the Himalayas Or Vegas; BUT Giving Back (and not) Can Happen Here and Small

Brooke and Jeff are taking a year away from their real jobs as social worker and physical therapist to travel the world writing and photographing for a social justice travel magazine—first to Rwanda, then Cambodia, Nepal, Vegas and Cuba. Kind of kicks the shit out of the cans of creamed corn and kidney beans I plunked into a grocery bag and placed on my front porch for a local church to pick up for their food drive a few Sundays ago.

Why I’m Not Comfortable Using the Word Motherf*^#er (but please feel free, unless you’re my kid)

 Short answer: I have teenagers. “Like they don’t hear it at school,” you say. “Or say it themselves.” Yeah, I realize teenagers are fluent in profanity—I was in junior high and high school once. But that doesn’t mean I’m off the hook from preserving for my daughter, 13, and son, 16, one pocket in theirContinue reading “Why I’m Not Comfortable Using the Word Motherf*^#er (but please feel free, unless you’re my kid)”

Free to Report Bullying

In the handbook of the school system attended by my children and funded by my household, under the section about bullying (defined as overt, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal … communication … by a student with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate or harm the other student) there is a point that states: Parents should feel free to report suspected acts of bullying to an appropriate school official.

Hell Has Frozen Over…

…and I’m in it. After a gloomy weekend of rainy weather, it’s Monday, the kids have a Flex Day, and the sun is shining. The sun is shining bright like a blue sky day on the beach, it’s 75 degrees, and I’m in the Carmel Ice Skadium writing a Bosma internal newsletter on my laptop whileContinue reading “Hell Has Frozen Over…”

Jen Sherrick Shot My Babies and My Heart

(With her Canon.) This photographer sees the beauty I see in my children and captures it on film. More examples in a later post, but check this artist’s work on Jen’s website. And see the cutie brother and sister on her blog! Yep, on the July 14 post, them’s my babies! Here’s the headshot JackContinue reading “Jen Sherrick Shot My Babies and My Heart”

NOT A LAUGHING MATTER

My last post about poor Jack sending a distress signal from camp found a twist this evening when I discovered that the camp was negligent in dispensing his medication. It turns out they gave him half a dose of his meds, which led to intense and sudden drug withdrawal, leading to very real physical, mentalContinue reading “NOT A LAUGHING MATTER”