Black Friday Shopping Fiasco

The boys wanted to go Black Friday Shopping. It was music to my ears. I had spent the last decade bribing them to shop with me (soft pretzels, Hot Wheels, you know the gig) but had never really made any headway with them. After growing up shopping with my mother, then losing her, I was […]

Pokemon Goes and Goes!

I heard Colleen Wares on WTCM Newstalk 580 talking about PokĂ©mon Go on the radio a week or so after it came out. She was looking for answers. I had answers. In the form of my 13-year-old son, named Kendall. I emailed her. I was going on the next day for GTWoman, but did she […]

Jigsaw puzzles – Let’s Jig!

Jigsaw puzzles. What’s not to love? A favorite at preschools and nursing homes. And one of the few ways to gather a family of four around a card table without any battles, scoring, tears, game-piece assaults or flat-out accusations. Usually. Every year I try to pass on my love for “jigging” to the children. It […]

Basketball skills in middle school

My son, Kendall, played his first basketball tournament last Saturday. It was thrilling, crushing, exciting and exhausting. And he’s only in 6th grade. And I’m talking about me. It’s my first year of school events where they actually keep score. And it was a tiny sweat-filled drama that stretched out the length of a Saturday. […]

Cliff jumping

We went to Lake Placid, N.Y., for our family vacation this summer. On the first day, we stopped into High Peaks Cyclery for the sidewalk sale but left with a plan to jump off a 20-foot cliff. “You’ll wanna hike from Copperas Pond trailhead,” the guy at the shop said. He was a lean, mean […]