Search Results for: blog for those who never knew

Time To Clean The Roof- Who Knew?

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As you make your Spring cleaning list, don’t forget your roof. That’s right, the roof. I never even thought about that, I figured with all the rain it gets as clean as it going to get throughout the year. I guess that’s not true. If parts of your roof are in constant shade algae can grow. There is no definite answer about whether or not algae affects the life of your roof but many people just don’t like the look of it so maybe you should clean it off. At the very least, before you sell your home get the … Continue reading →

Five Cheap Art Materials You Never Expected To Use With Your Preschooler

My daughter is our resident craft expert. She is currently focused on creating conceptual sculptures. At the moment, her sculptures seem to revolve around the use of drinking straws and painter’s tape. I am not entirely sure what these sculptures mean, but I’m sure that it’s something far beyond my adult understanding. Now, it’s not like she doesn’t have a whole box of art supplies to choose from. In fact, she has several large boxes of art supplies. Preschoolers love to use unorthodox materials for their art, and it’s always interesting to see what my daughter chooses to create and … Continue reading →

Never Say Never!

Easter 2009 was one for the record books (or at least the family scrapbook). Not because our family celebrated a birth, mourned a death or scored the winning lottery ticket during a late night gas run (darn Powerball). Rather, this Easter will live in infamy thanks to a series of events that taught me an important lesson in parenting: Never say never! “NEVER. EVER. EVER. AGAIN!” Those were the exact words I used in a blog I posted a few days ago addressing my distaste for public Easter egg hunts. After a nightmarish experience two years ago where my then … Continue reading →

Single Parents: If Only They Knew

Do you know that out of place feeling you get when the traditional families are all together and you are left standing there with your kids with no significant other? Maybe some of you do not feel this way especially if you went through a horrible marriage. Just the same I am sure that there are others that do feel this way. I have seen some wonderful mates that are not appreciated. There are two sides to every story, I realize, but then again nobody is perfect. If you have a fairly decent mate in your life, acknowledge and appreciate … Continue reading →

Wagging My Tail Goodbye to the Pets Blog

I’m sitting in my office looking out the window watching the snow melt from the rooftops and bushes as I’m writing this. Last night we got measureable snow, a bit of an oddity in December for us here in Nashville. Whenever we get snow like this now I think about the first winter I was writing for Families.com. We got snow one February and I took Murph outside to play in it, then wrote about it as my blog for the day later. How much inspiration I’ve drawn from my pets over the past two years since I first began … Continue reading →

Starry Nights, Spooky Blog Tours, and Dachshunds: An Interview with Author Christine Verstraete

This next interviewee’s name may look familiar to you since I’ve interviewed Christine Verstraete before. Last time it was about her miniature doll hobby and the dogs she often includes in her displays. This time around I asked if she’d be interested in talking about Petey, the dachshund who stars in her new book, Searching For A Starry Night, A Miniature Art Mystery. She again graciously agreed, and added something fun just in time for Halloween: details on her spooky blog tour and how you can enter to win a set of Halloween minis or a copy of her e-book, … Continue reading →

How to Help Those Grieving

Each of us will encounter loss at some point in our lives. So will other family members and friends, so how can we help those who are grieving. 1. Remember what it felt like to be in that position but don’t expect the other person to react exactly the same way you did in grief. 2. Don’t avoid the grieving person because you don’t know what to say or you’re frightened of getting upset and upsetting them more. When I was younger I admit to doing that at a funeral. I kept my distance from the woman grieving her daughter’s … Continue reading →

Why We Never Leave Home Without Murph’s Choke Chain

Murph’s leash and choke chain Spring fever is most definitely in the air. Since we’ve had some spells of excellent walking-in-the-park or on longer-walks-through-the-neighborhood weather recently, Murph and I have been getting out more. So has everyone else. Inevitably we stop to chit chat. Sometimes with strangers, sometimes with people we already know. Some of these encounters are pleasant, some are not. Lately I’ve had two people on separate occasions comment about Murph’s choke chain. Mainly they’ve expressed unfavorable opinions about the use of them. “I think that is so cruel. Those things are so painful,” one lady said to … Continue reading →

Friends: You Just Never Know Who You Have in Common

Last night a very weird thing happened: Wayne and I realized a friend of mine was married to a friend of his. Maybe not so unusual in and of itself, but we’ve known both of them separately for years and they’ve been married a while. Except it wasn’t until last night that we made the connection. Here’s what happened. I got a belated Christmas letter from Peggy, a friend I’ve known since I was a little girl. We knew each other through our dads. Growing up my dad had a good friend, Ralph, he sometimes hung out with on weekends. … Continue reading →

Things I Never Thought I’d Think About

I just wrote a blog about my disbelief at the atrocities experienced by African-American students at Little Rock Central High School. This is so far out of my own experience that I tend to forget it can happen today. In fact, I took my Korean daughter to Little Rock and thought nothing of it, even when I was standing in front of Central High. Actually, we noticed a fair number of Asians in Little Rock. But there are unexpected times when it rears its ugly head. I think it’s happening a bit more often now in conjunction with an anti-immigrant … Continue reading →