As of late, I find myself getting a little more down in the dumps each day. And, I know exactly why. Fall.  No, of course fall in and of itself isn't depressing. It's actually quite the opposite. It's my most favorite season of all, but I'm missing it. A LOT. While all of my Texas friends (and I used to be one of them, mind you) are complaining and "meme-ing" things like "Winter said, 'Yeah, fall and I just about to pull in,'" I'm down here in sunny, hot (always freaking sunny and sweaty/melty/humid hot) South Florida. This is where people joke about how you know when it's fall bec ..read more

Exactly one nanosecond after I clinked the white Corelle plates down on the counter in front of my two teenage boys I heard... "Miles!!!!!" My younger son had taken one look at his own plate and one glance at his older brother's before he'd quickly determined that life (or rather, Mom) had dealt him a cruel hand. Why? Because he had only received ONE sausage patty, and his brother had received TWO. Oh, the agony. Never mind the fact that the sausage patty packaging states that the serving size is ONE or that Mom was only having ONE or that his brother is an entire foot taller and exercises ..read more

I walk into our bedroom, bent on convincing my husband that we need an L-shaped sofa like the neighbors so that we can maximize our living room space.  After my brief lament-schpiel, he looks at me with a funny grin and says, "You know what I'm thinking?"  Me: [perturbed that my schpiel had been punted] "What?" Him: "I'm thinking girls just want to have fun." Me: [silently pondering how much I have to do and how I'm too old and too tired for noonday antics] "What the heck does that mean?!" Him: "Can't you hear it?" [He points to the wall adjacent to our neighbor's house.] I listen cl ..read more

Backing out of our driveway yesterday morning, Teengirl (who never speaks in the AM because apparently it's against Teen Law), said something about her test and her friends. Honestly, it was a little "blurry" because, well, everything is blurry before 10 a.m. for a non-morning person.  So... when I finally tuned in, she was violating the aforementioned imaginary law by talking about how her teacher had asked a "dumb" question about how the students felt at the end of their test and how most of the students had stated, "tired." (Ahhh... now, we're getting somewhere. I think I had mentione ..read more

Compression socks. I don't know about you, but for me those two words conjure up images of Vicki Lawrence and her knee-high stockings on the set of Mama's Family. And, yet, my cardiologist seemed to think those two words would be appropriate to say to a fortysomething-year-old, who isn't quite ready to sit down and knit in her rocker just yet. Apparently, this is all my children's fault.  He said that pregnancies put pressure on "the main artery" (wherever that is) so that the leg veins (whose job it is to defy gravity by pushing blood up toward the heart) become enlarged. Then ..read more

  Life is peachy! Is there anything sweeter than a fresh-off-the-tree peach during the summer? For a long time, this Texas girl was not aware that there could be anything sweeter than my tea! Enter The Peach Truck Straight outta Georgia, this company has its own peach tour, and they just happened to be passing through our neck of the woods this summer. The process was SO super easy! After I located their nearest tour stop on their website, I made a reservation, wrote the date on my calendar, waited as impatiently as a child on Christmas Eve, drove to the designated pickup loca ..read more

I Feel Like Such A Doppio   Photo Credit: ©JollyPotayto   So, what makes getting a simple cup of coffee so difficult? Besides the fact that kids demand your time, attention and energy, and you either make it and forget it, make it and proceed to lose it, OR you get so distracted that you forget to even make yourself a cup? Well, that pretty much sums it up, but let’s look at some specific scenarios.   Take breakfast for example. You’re running around the kitchen, scrambling eggs, feeding little faces, doling out sippy cups, working around dirty dishes, toasting bread ..read more

Texas girls living in a Florida world.  Though the temperature outside is about 1000 degrees F, we still imagine that the leaves on the sidewalk are a byproduct of an imminent chill headed our way to relieve us from the day in/day out Sweaty Betty makeup-melting heat. In honor of these fallen leaves that bring just the slightest hint of a change in the weather in this eternal jungle called Florida, I present my daughter's amazing illustration and wish you all a Happy Fall! Now, go get yourself a pumpkin spiced something and enjoy the cool-ish weather.  ..read more

Sometimes when you have nothing else to write about because.... COVID, you find the excitement in the mundane. Every day this squirrel hops on our pool enclosure here in S. Florida and drives our mini weiner dog MAD.  Bark bark bark bark bark. I spray the squirrel with a stream of water from a spray bottle. The squirrel does a cirque-de-soleil worthy jump onto the neighboring palm leaves.  End of barking. Before I squirt the squirrel, I take a quick pic.  She's cute. ADORBS. Part of me wants to hug and squeeze her. The other part of me... GET DOWN, you're going to rip a hole in ..read more

   Mondays.  Am I right?  Though cliché and somewhat repetitive, there’s always a personal twist to the universally cringe-worthy phrase, “You know it’s a Monday morning when…”  So, without further ado, here’s my uncaffeinated version:   You know it’s a Monday morning when…  You make breakfast for two kids in one pan because you’re running terribly late after having enjoyed non-farmer’s hours during the weekend. Breakfast consists of two scrambled eggs on one side of the pan and one semi-scrambled, burnt omelet on the other. Your coffee… well, there’s n ..read more