The Life Imagined

One of my current ongoing projects is planning a trip this summer for my two kids and me.  For the record, it’s not that we don’t want my husband to go with us, and he’d love to go. . . but he’s staying behind because (a) he won’t have accrued a week’s paid vacation until he has been working at Amazon for a full year, which won’t happen until September, and (b) part of the reason for the trip is to get Mariah out of the house so that he can do some work on the walls in her room.  So. . . I’ll take off with the kids, and her room can be a work in progress that no one is sleeping in for a week or so.  Right now, the plan is to go to Phoenix to see the Braves play during the last week in May. . . exactly what the travel looks like going out and coming back is still in the planning stages. Yes, I know that many people will think I’m insane for traveling by car to the other side of the country with a 12 year-old (well, he will be by then) and a non-neurotypical 10 year-old.  However, it wou

From what I have observed, many first-time parents have a hard time learning to say “no” to their children.   They fall victim to the pleading eyes and quivering lips – and next thing you know, that toy is in the shopping cart and headed to the register.   Some develop cute kid resistance more quickly than others do. . . some never develop it at all, which quite often directly correlates with the behavior we see out of their children when they’re adults. I didn’t have this problem.   My husband would be the first to admit that he struggled with the whole thing, and it took years for him to feel as though a trip to Wal-Mart wouldn’t be inherently more expensive if the kids were with him.   For me, however, it was pretty easy from the get-go. . . largely because I had two very important things going for me. First of all, I had a good role model: my own mother.   My mama had no trouble whatsoever saying “no” to me, and she also had no trouble whatsoever reminding me that “if I were th

The Peanuts comic strip and television specials have been a part  of American life since the strip began running in newspapers in 1950, and they’ve generated memorable images and moments that have stuck with basically everyone who grew up with an awareness of them. Odds are good that even if you’ve never watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, you still refer to a tiny, needle-challenged resident at a Christmas tree farm as a “Charlie Brown tree” because of its similarity to the one that Charlie Brown makes a part of the gang’s Christmas play. Another memorable moment – and one that’s repeated numerous times throughout both forms of Charlie Brown media – is Lucy offering to hold the football for Charlie Brown to kick it. Ever hopeful that Lucy will finally hold the ball still so that he can successfully kick it long, high, and far, Charlie Brown always allows her to suck him in when she promises not to yank the ball away. . . and every time, he finds himself kicking air and landing unceremo

Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the state of Georgia for the past week (and there’s a real possibility that this is true even if you have been), you’re well aware that the University of Georgia Bulldogs defeated the University of Alabama Crimson Tide in the 2022 College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday, January 10. Georgia fans had been waiting patiently (?) for 41 years – or whatever portion of 41 years that they could remember – for the Dawgs to repeat the feat that they had accomplished by going undefeated and being voted the number one team back in January, 1981, and their celebration has been loud and proud. And if you happen to be a die-hard Georgia fan AND a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan. . . well, let’s just say that a whole lot of frustration has given way to a whole lot of happiness over the past three months or so as both teams made it over hurdles that some thought they’d never clear. For the record, even for those who aren’t sports fans, there’s