I’ve been trying to pinpoint why I have been in such a bad mood all week. Granted, there’s the matter of the Womanly Shadow that has been cast, and the fact that Drew has been sick, and the fact that one of my best friends is going through something terrible, and life has just…gotten under…   read more

On Saturday I had the privilege of seeing life from the confines of a 4 x 7 foot cell. Not as a result of petty theft or even because of solidarity with my imprisoned Christian brethren, but because I closed the door to the bathroom. And it was broken. And I’m an idiot. You have…   read more

Well, folks, it looks like I have a potty-trained child. Aren’t you thrilled? If you read this blog regularly, you are, because this means you will now get to enjoy a vast array of new topics related to world affairs, recipe mishaps, and celebrity speculation, instead of all things poop and poopy pants and pedestrian…   read more

Drew is now four. We had a “Cars 2” birthday party for him on Saturday in our backyard, and the best part is still up for debate: the guacamole, bounce house, or the hilarious way Drew said YIGHTNING MCQUEEN. HEY MOMMY, YOOK! says Drew. IT’S YIGHTING! YIGHTNING MCQUEEN! We tried to get Drew to dress…   read more

On Thursday Drew begins preschool. It is a lovely preschool and he has a lovely teacher who has lovely dimples. The (lovely) doorknobs on his classroom doors are brass with an actual keyhole, like keyholes in movies where mice are always peeking through to spot blocks of cheese. I might have chosen this preschool for…   read more

(Preview: Chatter letter from the Editor, September 2011.) Right now there is a man with a bad attitude in my house. I don’t know why he is so testy, but I am grateful for the opportunity to use the word “testy.” Well, maybe I do have a small idea. He is, at this very moment,…   read more

Last week was our first-ever bona fide family vacation. We went to Destin, FL with my in-laws, my sister-in-law and her hubby, and their 6-month-old baby girl. Gordon and I had been excited for months, but of course Things One and Two didn’t know what to expect, or what hit them when we finally arrived….   read more

OK, confession time: There MIGHT have been ONE or TWO times this week when I smelled that Drew had defaced his underwear and then pretended not to notice. Gordon was home and I was waiting for him to detect it “first.” I would find other pressing matters – the tiny weed sprouts emerging from the…   read more

Sometimes medical professionals have a hard time diagnosing me. It’s not that I’m made of steel or that I am from the planet Tatween; it’s that I’m somewhat of a hypochondriac plus there was that time I drank the tiger blood. My heart arrhythmia from college was first thought to be caffeine-related, then due to…   read more

In his book The Talent Code, author Daniel Coyle reiterates an idea I’ve heard before in discussions of skill development: that any expert in a particular field has repeated their skill, “practiced,” at least 10,000 times. 10,000. It’s the magic number, provided you are practicing well. My voice teacher introduced me to this concept. He…   read more