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How Erma Helped Me to Reclaim My Focus and Boot Dolores
On the decorative cork board hanging beside my desk you’ll find this quote from Erma Bombeck: Writer’s block is just another name for putting it off. You can train yourself to shut out the world and write. – Erma Bombeck Never mind the fact that I was procrastinating when I wrote the quote for my board. I frequently defend my procrastinating by arguing with my Erma muse that she never had to avoid Facebook, which is the Devil’s agent when it comes to procrastination. On top of that, I have been having serious issues with maintaining focus of late, which I try to blame on peri-menopause but really, I’m just…
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Port Stop: Maya Key, Roatan
I’m an avid watcher of HGTV, and two of my favorite shows are “House Hunters: International” and “Beachfront Bargain Hunt”, because I’m really meant to be living on the ocean but I likely won’t for a very long time so I must live vicariously through others. Roatan, Honduras has appeared frequently on HH:Intl and has been a bucket list destination from the first episode it was featured. Needless to say, finding Roatan on the Carnival Freedom itinerary was a key factor in booking that particular cruise. I don’t know much about the different beaches there (aside from what I’ve gleaned from House Hunters) so we did a little research on…
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Revisiting Carnival Cruises – 15 years later.
Oh, the stories I could tell about the cruises I took with friends throughout our twenties and early thirties! Starting around 1995 right up until 2001, I cruised on Carnival nearly every year with friends, and did we have a good time! (Such a good time, in fact, that when we showed up on a cruise one year, we found that much of the crew had moved there from the ship we sailed on the year before – including the piano bar musician and our favorite deck waiter – who remembered us from the year before. By name. Let’s just say we had a really great time on all those Carnival cruises. Perhaps because of…
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(I’ll Be) Live from the DFW Auto Show!
I love cars, and since I’m deep in the hunt for a replacement for the swagger wagon, I couldn’t be more excited to be attending the DFW Auto Show this week! I’ll be at the auto show tomorrow for a media event at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center, and you can follow along as I share all the fun on Twitter, Instagram, and Periscope (@mommy_grrl)! We’ll all be sharing using the hashtag #DFWAuto, so be sure to look for us! If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I fell in love with my pretty red Toyota Prius hybrid when I lived in Wales – its fuel…
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Soup’s on – Slow Cooker Minestrone
A bowl of soup and a grilled sandwich is probably my all-time favorite comfort food, whether I’m feeling under the weather or burrowing in on a cold day. Recently my hubby came down with a terrible cold and just looked miserable, and I thought that a warm bowl of minestrone soup was just what he needed. I’ve been experimenting with various recipes over the years, and this is the result of my tinkering. I love cooking soup, especially when I can put it together in the morning and let it simmer all day. Other than a quick saute of fresh veggies, this is all cut and dump, if you will. My…
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Why I’m OK with the Title of World’s Okayest Mom
I bought a fun shirt last week. My husband hates it. Here, let me show it to you: Yes, I’m proclaiming that I’m the “World’s Okayest Mom.” Fun, right? It’s comfortable, it’s funny, and it makes me smile. When my son saw it, he grinned and gave me two thumbs up. (He gets me.) My 9-year-old said “Maaaahhhm”. My husband, on the other hand, shook his head and said “Nice. That’s not much of a growth mindset, now is it?” If anything, it is irony, because if you’ve been a reader of mine for a while, you’ve picked up on this: I’m a perfectionist, and my own worst critic. It’s…
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Ten Things of Thankful #2 – In Light Of Frustrations and Meltdowns
The week has flown by as waves of stress and anxiety swept over the house. I had to check to see if there was a full moon this week – I’m not a believer in all that woo woo, but given the emotional rollercoaster the kids were riding, it wouldn’t have surprised me. Instead, I’ve been dosing myself with calming essential oils, given that I’m still on this infernal diet and I can’t have a Tito’s and tonic after dinner. At least I smell lovely! It’s been a week of looking for things for which to be thankful. First and foremost, as many friends spent the week trapped at home with snow and…
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The Real Challenge is that I Love Food.
Given that my daughter will be turning ten in March, I’ve accepted that I must quit referring to my muffin top as baby weight. It’s a food baby, plain and simple. Since wishing it away hasn’t had any effect on my waistline, and attempts at regular exercise have been so-so, and I don’t have the energy to go find out what this year’s iteration of the Weight Watchers plan is (since it seems to change every year – make up your mind, people), as I mentioned earlier this week, I opted for the Advocare 24-day challenge – mostly on a whim. I’m now nearing the end of the 24-day challenge,…
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The Feathered Bone – What I’m Reading Wednesday
It’s Wednesday, and it’s BAAAAACCCKKK! Yes – it’s What I’m Reading Wednesday, and BOY do I have a doozy for you to kick off the year. (Never mind that January is almost over. There’s been too much reading and not enough writing, y’all). This week I want to tell you about Julie Cantrell’s latest book (just released yesterday), titled The Feathered Bone. This one had me glued to my comfy chair until the wee hours of the morning, and she done near ripped my heart out with this tale. Read in one marathon sitting, my first response was: damn, y’all. This was hard. HARD. And beautiful. Cantrell manages to wind the themes…
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Ten Things of Thankful: Numero Uno
My one word for this year is cultivate, and one of the things I’m hoping to cultivate is a deeper sense of gratitude, to be thankful in the little as such as the big. I’m hoping I have better luck with gratitude than I do with green plants. What I do with green plants is the opposite of that. RIP, every dieffenbachia I’ve ever owned. Although, honestly, the only reason my kids are also still alive and kicking is because they make enough noise… But I digress. I may do that a lot here, because I have not been able to corral my thoughts particularly well over the past few weeks. I’ve…
