When I was young, around nine, my mother and I moved back to New York to take care of my grandmother. She was diagnosed with breast cancer. I don’t really have many memories of her that are not in a house dress, or gansey as she called it. She had a mastectomy and back in…
Tradition. I like tradition, not in a weird conservative, never change even though something is based in ignorance or hurtful to others, but real tradition. Happenings, ceremonies or routines that bond friends, a family, a culture, even a country. I think that’s important. Tradition has recently put a bad taste in some people’s mouths because,…
Milestones are weird. The culmination of years, tiny steps and near misses, all come together in one day. A ceremony celebrating a right of passage or an achievement. Katlyn graduated from Xavier College Prep today. Four years of homework and tests, crazy schedules and days when she just didn’t want to get out of bed.…
I am possibly the most non-photogenic person on the planet. I’m the one that jacks up the group picture by closing my eyes or flashing the psycho smile. When we review photographs from vacations or the dreaded Christmas picture, it’s not uncommon to hear laughs and a few “Oooh, what happened there?” or “Mom, that…
One of the great challenges while raising children is helping them become adults without making mini versions of ourselves. I don’t want my children to be like me. I want them to learn from me and hopefully they’ve listened to some of my less than brief ramblings, but what I want most for them, aside…
You know those scenes in some movies where they speed everything up and the sun rises and sets and the cars race by and the people look like little ants? The ones where they’re showing the passage of time? Sometimes I feel like I’m in one of those scenes. I try to slow it down…
I had a spray tan for the first time yesterday. If you know me, I’ll pause and give you a moment to laugh your ass off. Okay, moving on. I’m Irish and German, probably the last two nationalities that come to mind when you think gorgeous cocoa butter skin. Not a lot of us in…
I’m a sucker for advertising. I’m also the woman on the car lot that walks up to the car I want, usually as the salesman is approaching, and proclaims “I love this car!”, but that’s a different story. Ads with great music, movie trailers, every damn thing in the Apple Store…all of it. I cave…