My husband’s grandmother is dying.  This isn’t news to us.  She’s been dying for a few years now.  It just seems to be speeding up and possibly nearing the end at last. I’m happy for her.  She’s ready to go.  “I just miss my Ruben,” she says, when she talks about it (which isn’t often.)  It has been over 15 years since her husband died.  That’s a long time to be alone. Her children are not ready for life without... Read more

or at least be allowed to hang out with them.  You think they’d let a Catholic sing in their band? Read more

There’s a young couple at church that we like hanging out with.   They’re in their twenties and just starting out, but so smart and fun that they just are miles and years ahead of where we were at that age.  They don’t treat us like the old fogeys we are, who wouldn’t like that? Last weekend after Mass, she remarked to me that I gave her hope that moms of big families could be stylish and wear something other than... Read more

We had a young single woman we know over for dinner on Friday night.  She was talking about marriage and how the people she knows don’t really know if that “piece of paper” is really all that important.  I was beginning in on a long winded explanation of why marriage is a good thing, when my husband said in his calm and quiet voice, “It’s good for your soul.  I don’t just mean in the go-to-Heaven way.  Marriage brings you... Read more

CSN online stores contacted me again wanting to throw money in my direction (or a gift certificate).  This time, the money is for me!  There’s only one catch……you get to tell me how to spend it.   I’m biting my nails here and hoping that you pay attention…..*cough* shoes *cough* I’ll give you 2 days to shop for a coffee table for staging my living room, mile high heels,  something to help me with my new workout routine, a cool and... Read more

I sat down yesterday to make a list of all the little things (and not so little) in our house which need to be fixed and done before we can put it on the market in February.  Many of them are all the things I had planned to slowly change and do to make this house truly ours.  It’s funny that they will be done to make it ours-no-longer.  It’s kind of sad to think that we will not be... Read more

People keep asking me how the school situation is going with #3.  It’s such a difficult question.  I’m never really sure how to answer it honestly.  He likes it, but comes home from the school day completely exhausted.  He’s ready to head back in the mornings, but complains about the length of the school day.  I agree with him.  It’s too long. He now spends more waking hours with strangers than he does with his own family.  We miss him,... Read more

The owner of the Olde Salty Restaurant in Carolina Beach, NC recently posted a sign on her front door which read   “Screaming Children Will NOT Be Tolerated!”  The internets are all up in arms about how the whole world is becoming intolerant of children.  I disagree.  I think we are becoming intolerant of negligent parenting. Too many times, the Computer Guy and I have gone out to dinner or a movie (with or without our children) only to be treated... Read more

Marketing the new “6 in a Box” The camera cord that won’t stay out of the way? Not so much. Read more

This afternoon, we were in a car accident.  I was taking #2 and #4 (ages 10 and 6) downtown on an errand.  It was raining, but not too hard.  We were going about 70 on the highway when the truck in front of us ran over a piece of metal and kicked it up in our direction. I had a split second of watching a 3 foot long piece of pipe come flying towards my SUV with no where to... Read more