I’ve noticed that I’ve been wearing the same work clothes over and over again, and with the economy the way it is, I feel timid about trying to break out of my fashion rut. Yesterday, I slipped my feet into my favorite brown heels and noticed how worn-out the shoes were; they made everything else I was wearing look worn-out as well.

As my children ransacked my closet, thrilled by what they thought was a last minute game of “Let’s Try On All of Mama’s Shoes,” I spied a small tin on my husband’s bedside table. And with that, another “Do more with less” idea was born. Here are five fast ways to spruce up your look while spending little or no money: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just come back from a too-quick trip to my parents’ house, where we celebrated a slew of birthdays — my youngest niece turned 1, my daughter turned 4, and my son is about to turn 2. There was plenty of cake, though all of the kids mostly feasted on icing and then worked the resulting sugar high off by going ballistic in the bounce house, and the grownups cast their diets to the wind and indulged.

We were also indulging in something else, something that only people with far-flung families can truly understand: A chance to reconnect with the people closest to us. Read the rest of this entry »

This has nothing to do with working, and everything to do with being a parent.

The little kids and I had an excellent weekend. We went to karate class, ran errands, and picked apples. We went on a hay ride and chose pumpkins right from the pumpkin patch and ran ourselves ragged at a really cool playground. We played Chutes and Ladders five times, folded laundry, re-folded laundry after it was used as a landing platform for a bed-jumping contest, and drank warm apple cider with cinnamon sticks for straws.

And now, just a few hours later, my nearly 4-year-old is in the hospital with an IV full of antibiotics, and I don’t know what’s wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t have the spare income to invest right now, aside from the automatic payments made via payroll withdrawal into my 401(k) — a thing I am, frankly, not willing to look at too closely these days (I’ve heard that the market is basically where it was in 1998, meaning that anything you’ve put in since then is there, but anything you’ve gained is gone). But I do pay plenty in taxes. So, in spite of my lack of investments, I feel very invested in the government’s proposed bailout of Wall Street. Read the rest of this entry »

I was going to write about 9/11, but your feed readers are probably full of posts on the subject. So, instead, I’ll mark today’s date with this 2001 quote from Jon Stewart:

“The view from my apartment was the World Trade Center, and now it’s gone, and they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. … you can’t beat that.”

Never forget. But live life looking forward.

* * *

Last night, I fell asleep while putting the little ones to bed. When I woke up (in my preschooler’s room) nearly three hours later, I was totally useless. I stumbled downstairs, thinking that at the very least I needed to wash the dishes so they don’t linger overnight, but my husband had already done them and that threw me for a loop. (I meant to do dishes? And they’re done? And I didn’t do them? What else did I do unconsciously while I was thinking I needed to do it? Anything? Wait, what?) After wandering around aimlessly and sitting in front of my computer for a full three minutes before noticing it was off, I called it quits and went to bed for real.

Who knew that getting a little extra sleep could have the same effect on your body as sleep deprivation?

What I did know, even as I tripped going back up the stairs, was that my to-do list was going to double the next day. Because my current search for work-life balance involves some very carefully choreographed scheduling, and my impromptu nap had thrown that out of whack. Read the rest of this entry »

Like most people, I’ve been glued to the Olympics for days now. And while watching world records fall and medal counts rise, I’m thinking… what if parenting was an Olympic event?

Look at it this way: It’s more of an endurance challenge than running a marathon, as your kids get older it becomes more nerve-wracking than any routine on a 4-inch-wide balance beam, if you have a partner then you have to work on synchronizing your routine perfectly, and if you don’t then you’re swimming the 4×400 relay solo every single day. Read the rest of this entry »

You’d think that after a summer of packing five lunches every weekday, I’d have this what-do-you-want-to-take-for lunch thing down pat, right?

Wrong.

“What do you want in your lunchbox, Sweetie?” I asked my preschooler the other day. And, without even looking up from the picture she was coloring, she answered, “Something not boring.” Read the rest of this entry »