Tag Archives: shopping center

Some Business Bloopers are Funny

I do not like making mistakes in my home business any more than the next person, but I have to admit that some of the things that come across my desk or happen when I am working can be quite funny. Being able to laugh at myself or at some of the kooky things other people do can make the day go by faster and help alleviate some of that every day stress… Yesterday, I sent off a very detailed email to someone who I have not actually met in person yet but with whom I will be working with … Continue reading →

Some Days I Wish I Was Invisible

Sometime ago a prospective adoptive parent wrote to the forums with a concern. She was considering keeping her child’s adoption secret from extended family. She mentioned that she didn’t want them to be always judging how she acted with the child, how she disciplined, whether she was doing the same thing with her adopted child as she had with her biological child. Most of the time I am out in public I react to my kids without thinking about adoption, which is as it should be. Occasionally I wonder afterward what people may be thinking. Today was one of those … Continue reading →

Can’t We Ever Have Anything Nice?

You know how there are things you say so often that they become part of the family lore? Your words become ensconced in the family vernacular and you hear them parroted back at you by your children—either in jest or just because it becomes the way the family speaks. My children like to tease me for one of my phrases that I have been saying so long it has become the pat response to messes and chaos… “Can’t we EVER have anything nice?!” I tend to keep a fairly neat house and I love to have things clean, fresh and … Continue reading →

Daily Dose of Laughter

Maybe I’m just old but I really don’t get half the programs on Cartoon Network. But apparently kids do. As I sit listening to the rain pound against my hotel window (we’re under a tornado watch!) Tyler is absorbed in that silly program about the Grim Reaper. Bill and Mandy or something like that. Anyway, he’s been watching TV all day since the weather is too bad to leave the hotel and he’s totally enjoying the silly jokes and shenanigans being displayed. Periodically I have glanced at the screen to see if I can get a handle on what’s going … Continue reading →

Laughing Through the Challenging Times

My little family received a compliment from one of my eldest daughter’s friends the other day. He said that he liked being around our family because we “always found a way to laugh and have a good time, even when things were chaotic and stressful.” While I think we tend to take our senses of humor for granted, and I sometimes even worry that we can turn to humor TOO often, it was nice to hear someone else’s “take” on one of our family strengths. If there is one thing parenting and family life has taught me, it is that … Continue reading →

Can I Use the Holiday Phone Message Again Yet?

For years, I would spend a month each Fall coming up with a clever and original answering machine message to put on our voice mail for the holiday season. It often had music or singing and when they were younger, my kids were eager and active participants in our clever messages. A few years ago, however, those messages became outlawed. My teenagers did an intervention with me and shared how embarrassed they were and how horrifying my rhyming and whimsical holiday phone messages were. For the good of the order, they had to go. Now that my teenagers are older … Continue reading →

A Sense of Humor

We talk about all sorts of techniques and coping mechanisms and suggestions for how to make single parenthood a more peaceful and pleasurable experience. But, hands down the most important thing to cultivate, I think, is a sense of humor. Just because we may be keeping a dozen balls in the air and coping with some of the stigma and exhaustion that comes with being a solo parent doesn’t mean we don’t need a sense of humor too. In fact, I think all this is all the more reason we NEED a sense of humor! My kids and I have … Continue reading →

Meditation and Family Life

Ah…meditation. We’ve heard all the advice about how important it is to meditate; we know that we will fell calm and peaceful if we only take the time to let go of life’s stresses and learn to focus, meditate, stretch, chant, blah, blah, blah. To be honest, the people I know who are regular meditators are NOT people with houses full of children. They are either individuals whose children have all grown up, or they are childless folks who can not only meditate, but have altars and little fountains of trickling water right in the middle of their living rooms—at … Continue reading →

Friday Fitness Funnies: Ready, Set, Laugh!

Good morning and welcome to Friday! Can it really be Friday already? Where did the week go? Why do my legs hurt? Is it good that I can feel them this morning? How was your week? Are you ready to exercise your funny bone? I hope so! It’s been quite a while since we hosted our Friday Fitness Funnies and I thought it was a good time to bring them back as I could use the laugh! Fair warning: the rest of this blog isn’t supposed to be taken seriously. Funny, Ha! Ha! Some of the best advice my daughter … Continue reading →

Dear Fish – Chris Gall

“Dear Fish” is a great children’s picture book written by Chris Gall and illustrated by the same, in a style that reminds me quite a bit of wood cuts. Peter Alan and his family have been at the seashore all day, and are having a wonderful time. Peter Alan is playing down by the water, wondering what kinds of creatures might live in the ocean. He has an idea, and writes a note to the fish, inviting them to come for a visit at his house, including the most tempting detail – his mom makes good pies. He puts the … Continue reading →