Category: Family

  • Clearly, Patience Is Not One of My Virtues

    One of the demons I wrestled with on my driving trip out west in January–and one of the biggest reasons for my pissy attitude at the time–was the overwhelming feeling I’d had for the previous six to eight months that it was way beyond time for me to stop being a burden on society and…

  • 15 Days, 4,072.7 Miles, and One Amazing Little Travel Companion

    After 15 days and 4, 072.7 miles, the Tedster and I finally pulled into our driveway last night, spent but happy for our efforts. We were ready to be home even if home was covered in snow and the car thermometer barely topped 20 degrees F. Tom made sure the cold crap-ola outside was negated…

  • Today was a Gas…

    …literally. Teddy tooted all the way across New Mexico and half of Texas, which not only made for a rather unpleasant journey, but also a lot of–as it turns out–unnecessary stops at rest areas and truck plazas where we’d pile out of the car and I’d lead him around pleading, “Go potty, Teddy!” in as sweet a voice as…

  • Pissy Attitude Successfully Adjusted

    Okay, so the temperatures here in Tucson since my arrival last week have been cooler than normal, and the sunshine has been intermittent at best. Maybe not what I was counting on, but still, I’ve had hours-long stretches of sunshine to bask in on several occasions—which is way more than I was getting at home—and…

  • Random Ramblings from the Road

    Although I’ve had nearly two days to recuperate and gather my wits after three days on the road, I’m still not feeling particularly coherent. Moreover, I’m not feeling at all motivated to be coherent, so I’m just going to bullet-point a few random thoughts and observations about our adventures thus far: T. Boone Pickens–or someone…

  • Adjusting a Pissy Attitude

    Maybe it’s my hormones. Maybe it’s these goofy braces that cause me to make highly embarrassing, cow-stuck-in-the-mud sucking noises unwittingly in public. (Ever had a toot or a belch sneak out on you? Yeah, it’s like that.) Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve had less than a total of six hours of sunshine here in…

  • Merry Christmas!

    The UPS man delivered the last box of gifts an hour or so ago. Whew! All the presents are now wrapped and under the tree. Dinner is in the oven. Dessert is cooling on the counter top, and–as the weather wonks predicted–the sleet and ice have begun to fall. We woke up to temperatures in…

  • Don’t Grow Up…Yet

    I suspect that, like me, most moms spend half their time worrying that their children will never grow up and the other half wringing their hands that their babies are, in fact, doing just that. Well, at this point in life, I find myself with two grown-up, responsible adult children along with an equally grown-up,…

  • My Own Fence Post Moment

    In the most recent post on her website, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, the current Poet Laureate of Kansas, writes: In Kansas where I live, particularly in the western part of the state, the land is curved and lined with beautiful stone fence posts, each one holding the wire fencing from one place to another. We have such…

  • Happy to Be Home

    Hard to believe, but I’m actually happy to be home from Paradise. Oh, we had a fantastic time for sure, but after twelve days on the road…getting in and out of the minivan dozens of times every day…schelpping luggage and tote bags around…and sleeping in strange beds every night, I was most happy to come home and…