Archive for the ‘Home Sweet Home’ Category

At least my house wasn’t on fire. My neighbor’s house wasn’t on fire, either, but that didn’t stop the fire department from bringing out the big trucks for what turned out to be an overworked motor on the house vacuuming system. As they pulled up in front of my house around three yesterday afternoon, I thought what every busy mother would think: Please don’t block my driveway. (more…)

Elmo never sang in my car. Not even once. No Barney, no Wiggles, no Dora, the Explorer “Dance Fiesta.” After 400 consecutive sleepless nights, courtesy of my kids, I just couldn’t overwhelm my senses more than they already had been. And there’s just not enough coffee to get you through 20 miles of “Elmo’s Lowdown Hoedown.” (more…)

It’s mid-way through December, and yet, we’ve received only six holiday cards by snail mail. At first, I thought people struck us off their list because I quit sending cards. I thought maybe we had cooties. But when I commented on it on Twitter and Facebook, I found out that other people are receiving the same dearth of holiday cards, too. Either we all have cooties, or, more likely, Twitter killed our Christmas cards.

I wrote this one last year, but it still holds true. Add another year of the recession and social media’s increasing popularity, and perhaps we all feel like this. Do you? (more…)

You know you’re transitioning from one season to the next when you can’t find matching shoes. We have one red boot still missing from the summer, as are the matches for two right-footed sneakers that belong to my children. No matter. They don’t fit anyone here anyhow. (more…)

I was making a Staples run to pick up the tickets for my upcoming Kiss Cancer Goodbye event when they made their request. My boys wanted a stapler, some Wite-Out and some modeling clay. I didn’t ask questions. I figured that my sons had some sort of school project. Besides, I was in a hurry, so I dashed out the door with my list and bought what they’d asked for. (more…)

The Maytag’s dead, and yet I feel nothing. Other people, it seems, are very excited for me to get a new washer, but I don’t get excited over new appliances. New computers, yes, and the Tivo makes my heart go all aflutter. But I really didn’t want to shell out $900 for a new washer and dryer. (It was knocking on death’s door, too.) If I’m putting out that kind of cash, it better involve a flight to somewhere good, like a Caribbean island or Park City, Utah in February.

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Here are 5 Summer Break Rules, according to Mom:

1. Do not treat the garage floor like a Sports Authority store during a 70% off sale.
2. Open your bedroom shades. This is not the Bat Cave or Lyndsay Lohan’s hotel room after a bender.
3. Regular showers are required — and, no, your five-yard Super Soaker fight doesn’t count.
4. Wet swimsuits do not go into the hamper. Or the carpet. Or the wood floor. Or the garage floor with the Super Soakers, three hockey sticks, a baseball helmet and Mom’s brand new tennis balls, which are likely covered in wet mulch.
5. All of your exposed skin requires sunscreen, not just your nose and your knees and whatever else you can reach quickly while running out the door.

There are 26 chairs in my living room. Well, 26 seats. Some people are going to have to sit on the couch or the love seat. Others will get one of the folding chairs, my neighbor’s plastic white deck chairs or one of two rocking chairs. I’ll be happy if I get to sit down.

We (okay, I) agreed to host a piano recital at our house today even though other people have nicer houses, or at least, landscaping and window treatments.

I had forgotten that we never replaced the window treatments in the living room after our housewide construction, largely because I had forgotten about the living room. We’d spent so much time in there two summers ago, hiding from contractors and their hammering and their loud power tools that I ditched that room as fast as I could when it was all over.

So when I was setting up the 26 chairs yesterday afternoon, I noticed the big ugly gray metal rods sticking out from atop each of the windows and thought, Gee, it sure would be nice if those were covered in some sort of fabric, preferably to match the couch. And then I peered out the front window at the sparse grass and the hastily placed limestone slabs that make up our walkway and I thought, I wish I hadn’t peered out the window.

Except for this: I know that, years from now, I’m not going to remember any of that or care about any of that when I look at the pictures and the videos of the piano recital we held in our living room in 2009. I’m going to remember when the kids lived at home, their grandparents were still with us and we all looked so much younger.

Also, how I found four Pokemon cards, a broken pencil and a gum wrapper behind the piano before the chairs all filled up.