About a month or so ago my wee VW hit the milestone of 100,000 miles. I bought Baby Beluga when she already had about 37,000 miles in her little soul and have steadily added the other 60,000 toting my brood around to soccer games and fast food drive through lanes. But now that the old [...]

I know I have been complaining an awful lot lately about the teen boy child that now lurks in my home, but the truth of the matter is that it is fully warranted. Loren has been many things through the years: energetic, bubbly, chatty, but never before has he been such an emotional pain in [...]

This afternoon Loren called me from his cell phone to inform me he had experienced an epiphany. Wanting to believe in good things I told him to tell me all about it when he got home. But knowing a wee bit about the teenage creature I was secretly dreading the revelation because any sort of [...]

I like to think of myself as open-minded. And why not? I want the giant redwood trees to thrive, the thought of a White House free of Republicans makes me giddy as all get up and when it comes to parenting I am of the mind that if you put your heart into it every [...]

Being a single mom has kicked my butt lately. Sure, it’s pretty easy to land a foot in my large behind on any given day but having a teen is giving me an ulcer. My anxiety is back in full force and I just never know where things are going to lead from day to [...]

Sometimes I so deeply wish I had a normal family. You know the kind where I didn’t live with my mother but rather in my own home with a garage, granite counter tops and maybe even a man who had actually been excited enough about spending the rest of his life with me that he [...]

Having a teenager is similar to having a newborn all over again. I sort of knew what I was getting involved with, but not really. The vague outline was there but not all the minute to minute details about how much it was going to suck. With a newborn I didn’t grasp how much it [...]

One of the gifts my winter job brings with it is that there are times when at the end of the day I fancy myself to be an okay mom. Not anything that will win Mother of the Year or anything, but still a mom who might someday inspire something like this from my kids [...]

My brother is back at the Manor for a bit, or maybe for more because who the hell ever really knows. A few days can often stretch on to weeks or even a couple of months. He actually does get a monthly pay check just for being him so just about anything goes. I have [...]