My husband, while not nearly as good at Words With Friends or Bejeweled Blitz as I am, is almost always emotionally wiser than I am.
This morning over coffee and Marlboros, he dropped this little bit of wisdom on me:
“It drives me crazy when I hear people say ‘this is just like high school’.  Um, no, [...]

From the oh so wise Poppy:
“Soooooo, here’s the challenge: Fill up someone else’s self worth tank. Let’s say nice things about how awesome each other is so that we feel like our existence on this planet is not a waste of space, time, and energy. If you’re strong enough to say nice [...]

This is my baby brother.
And by baby brother I mean 21 year old college junior who can totally take care of himself and vote and hold a job and probably (but maybe not! probably not even!  we’re going with highly unlikely!) have sex baby brother.
I’m 9 years older than him, which has made me more [...]

We call ourselves The Orlando Mafia.
And every time we do, one of us invariably rolls rolls our eyes and laughs, “man we are douches.”  And then another one of us laughs too and agrees, “I know!  I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to hang out with us!”  And then we all laugh some [...]

My brother Jay never claimed he was innocent.
He has, from what I’ve been told, been extremely forthcoming since the night of his arrest about the crimes he committed.  He told us, at the time, that it was a relief to finally have everything out in the open.  The first time  I heard that, I wept [...]

Dear Adam,
According to Flickr, this picture was taken on April 17, 2007.  It’s the very first picture we took of the two of us the weekend I flew down to Florida to see if I really could convince some strange guy from the Internet to give me a job so that I could move out [...]

I don’t remember what day it was when my mother called. A week ago, I think. I don’t remember what I was doing at the time. Something in my kitchen, and I was smiling. It didn’t occur to me that it might be inappropriate to be laughing when I answered the [...]

I don’t know where to start.
I should start at the beginning, but I have no idea where that is.
What I know, is that in the paper, there is this:
“IOWA CITY — An Iowa City man arrested Thursday night following a robbery has confessed to a series of other robberies stretching across Eastern Iowa, according [...]

I am absolutely over the moon that today is Christmas Eve.
Jared and I both have to work today, but tonight we’ll go to church with the kids and Hilly.  After church, we’ll come home to have chilli and appetizers, just like we do every year on Christmas Eve.  Of course, this is the first time [...]

I never remember to call her on her birthday.
Ever.
We’ve been friends for 17 years, and I always call the day before or the day after, but never on the actual day.  I’m pretty good at remembering dates, I’m just rarely aware of what the date is today.
I think we’ve been friends for as long as [...]

Do you know why there are so many mommy blogs?
Because it’s easy.
If you have kids, you can throw up pictures from pretty much any day of your life and be like “LOOK!  I POSTED!  SPECIAL MOMENTS WITH MY KIDS!”  and someone, somewhere, will be all “awwww, you have babies and they eat turkey.  So cute.”

And [...]

My family is having Thanksgiving dinner without me today.
My mom and my brothers, along with the rest of their families, will gather around a table and turkey, 1400 miles to the north of me in a small ranch house in Iowa.  They’ll laugh and they’ll eat and they’ll make fun of one another.  They’ll take [...]

We met for the first time in the hallway of a Philadelphia hotel room.  I had just convinced all of her friends to ditch her at the airport and make her get a cab to the hotel.  I was sure she’d  understand why we’d rather do tequila shots than greet her personally.
It’s a miracle she [...]

I actually missed the anniversary date.
That in itself is a sign of progress, I think.
August 10th, two days ago, marked two years since we moved to Florida.
Last year, I marked this date with a resignation and acceptance of homesickness.
This year, I spent the day working from home, my boss and best friend sitting on my [...]

Dear Baby Boy,
I already know the name that your parents are going to call you.  I’m saying it in my head now as I think of you.  I’m hearing the way your mother says it, and wondering if I will ever be able to make it sound half as beautiful as she does when I [...]