I’m perfectly happy with a very low key celebration of Mother’s Day. I would rather have my family show their appreciation for me by emptying the dishwasher once a week rather than feel obligated to take me out for an expensive brunch once a year. And while I’m on the topic of what I would like for Mother’s Day, I would love to open the cabinet under the sink and discover that the once full trash can is now empty.… Read More »
The end of the 2012 school year has a special significance for me because it means saying goodbye to the Petaluma school community. Our youngest daughter, Jennifer Lynn has decided to transfer from Petaluma High School to Montgomery High in Santa Rosa for her junior and senior years. Changing schools – especially midway through high school – was something that I never anticipated doing. All of our three children stayed at the same elementary school even when the school went… Read More »
Saturday was one of those days cause anxiety in moms. You know, the kind of day where you look at the calendar and realize that several events are happening on the same day and you’re not really sure how if it can all be worked out. In the bigger picture of life, it’s pretty small stuff – I’m not talking about surgeries or the births of babies but it’s stressful nonetheless. So when it all works out, I certainly breathe… Read More »
If you had been eves-dropping on the conversations in our house a couple of years ago, every third word would have been “college” or “application.” For about six months, Valerie’s college application process was the all-consuming topic. We got sucked into the angst of it to such an extent that once Valerie was tucked into her dorm room at Chapman University in Orange County, our younger daughter Jennifer Lynn, who was just starting high school at the time, forbade us… Read More »
I was fortunate last week to have the assignment from the Argus to write the follow up story on the winner of the 2012 Small Business of the Year, Drew Hittenberger. Drew is an orthotist and prosthetist, which must be such an unusual profession that Spellcheck doesn’t even recognize those as legitimate words. While orthotist and prosthetist don’t exactly roll off my tongue, I’m quite familiar with the terms because our middle daughter, Valerie who is now 19, was born… Read More »
I had an experience On Easter that reminded me how spoiled we are in to be able to get almost anything, almost any time we want it. It was probably mid-week last week on the drive home from picking her up at school when Jennifer Lynn asked me if we could make a trip to Michael’s to buy face paint for a video project for her Spanish class. I was probably barely paying attention; I’m sure I was much more… Read More »
It may not look like it sitting on the curb onKentucky Streetand watching Princess the cow saunter by, but putting on the Butter & Egg Days Parade requires a small army of volunteers – about 200 on parade day. Once again, I am the volunteer recruiter for the parade. I am very grateful because we have some amazing people who return year after year to volunteer. But we also have lots of volunteer jobs to fill. So I am asking… Read More »
Darn, the dryer still isn’t drying. It’s been two months since our drama with the dryer began. It started with a service call to Sears, followed by a service call by a vent cleaning company, which led to water dripping through the ceiling because the serviceman who was supposedly cleaning the vent didn’t properly reattach the washing machine’s drainage hose. Then, we had visits by two contractors to assess the water damage and hopefully get the dryer working again but… Read More »
Snip, snip and it’s off. And it feels so good. You see, for the past three years, I’ve been growing out my hair. When it was still short, my daughters told me that it looked stiff and old-lady-ish. That was motivation enough to have me cancel my next haircut and start trying to get some length to my hair. Then, I started looking at other women my age to see what my hairstyle options were. There was a beautiful woman… Read More »
Since graduating from San Francisco State last May with a degree in Cinema, our son has been able to cover most of his expenses with part-time work. His most recent gig was with a very small video production company – it was him and one other guy – in Oakland. The owner didn’t like doing business development, so Ethan was tasked with making cold calls to nonprofits with the goal of generating enough work to keep the business afloat. He… Read More »
