As of this morning, I’m the fattest I’ve been at any time of my life other than when pregnant. What’s sadder is that several of my friends have heard me make that same statement about 6 times in the past month as the scale kept inching higher in .2 increments. What’s even sadder is that the culprit was one wonderful weekend alone with my husband and a slowing metabolism that needs about one lettuce leaf a day to survive. And... Read more

“It’s so unfair, how come the Advent chocolate calendar doesn’t start on the first day of Advent?” one of my kids whined.  “And how come you’re too cheap to buy the Whole Foods calendar instead of the Trader Joes one?” What I wish our Advent wreath looked like Advent, the season of waiting for the coming of God, officially began this past Sunday on November 27th.  I’m thrilled because this year’s the longest Advent season possible with Christmas on a... Read more

This Thanksgiving we tried a new tradition.  Our friends Jeff and Tara created a practice where everyone goes around the table and shares their past year’s worst thing.  Each sharing is followed by everyone raising their glass and saying, “Praise God!”  (to read Tara’s fuller explanation, read here) I wanted to try their ritual because I feel like I’m raising 3 entitled brats, kids who think there’s no God who loves them or justice in the world because they don’t... Read more

“I think Ren’s losing his pants,” whispered Scott as we watched Annie Get Your Gun for the 2nd time in one weekend. I looked over to my boy dancing on stage and sure enough he was grasping his pants with one hand while trying to wave his other in unison with everyone else while singing “I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night.” In horror, we watched as he’d let go, raise his arms, and then... Read more

This past weekend was momentous–Kai and Ren in 4 shows of Annie Get Your Gun and Ren’s black belt test.  Tonight I’m going to write about the latter. Tae kwon do has been, to put it mildly, a battle. If I’ve been a Tiger Mom in any sphere, tae kwon do is probably it.   I’ve pressured him.  I’ve forced him to do it.  I’ve made my son cry.  My mother, who doesn’t believe in bribing kids for anything, has bribed... Read more

It’s Thursday, so this post is published on Patheos.  Click here to read it! 29 years ago Mama burst into tears at our dinner table. “This is our last Thanksgiving together as a family.” I rolled my eyes as only mature 17 year old seniors can, “Oh Mom. . .” But she was right. I haven’t spent Thanksgiving with my parents since then. . . until now.  My parents flew in from Honolulu this morning. So much has changed. Growing... Read more

Well frankly, all you ladies know exactly why, and most of you gents as well. Last night I checked my yahoo account where I do all consumer transactions so I don’t get junk in my work/personal email account.  And I saw that Shutterfly’s 40% off sale on Christmas cards ends TODAY.  Now that’s extremely annoying because I’d been watching for Shutterfly to announce its sale so I could know when to make our Christmas cards.  But either I missed it,... Read more

Kai-Kai has a family album project due tomorrow and just showed it to me. Here’s what she wrote about me (without the accent marks because I don’t know how to put them in the text) Voila ma mere. Elle s’appelle Kathy.   Elle a 46 ans.  Elle est la femme de Scott.  Elle est petite.  Elle n’est pas grosse.  Elle est brune foncee.  Elle a les yeux bruns.  Elle est penible, mais elle est intelligente.  Elle adore fair les magasins... Read more

On Monday, I led our church’s Mom-to-Mom group through a Bible study on the helicopter mom of the Bible.  Guess who? No, not Rebekah, the mother of Esau and Jacob—she sure helicoptered, but she also was so dysfunctional with her strong preference for one son and scheming against the other that I didn’t think she was very helpful. IMHO, the helicopter mom of the Bible is (drum roll please. . .) Salome, the mother of the disciples James and John,... Read more

Last night Scott and I made a point of attending the swim team banquet with Ling-Ling .  We both missed her Foreign Language Award ceremony last spring because we of work commitments.  Ling had said it was OK, that she wasn’t getting any special awards so it wasn’t a big deal, but then came home saying, “Um, I think you guys should have come, I was the only kid who had no parents there.” (Let me just pause to stab... Read more