-
Meal Planning Blues
Posted Wednesday, February 17, 2016, at 9:35 PM1I'll admit it. I'm addicted to Pinterest. I currently have over 1400 pins. Of those, nearly 400 are recipes or food related. Given that all of these fabulous recipes are right at my fingertips, you'd think meal planning would be a piece of cake, right? (Hang on a minute--let me find which board I pinned that recipe for Texas Sheet Cake). Well, frankly, meal planning gives me the exact sort of mental fatigue I thought I would only experience in college calculus... -
A Baby Step for Your Health
Posted Wednesday, January 6, 2016, at 3:29 PMLast week, I wrote about finding solutions in 2016 rather than resolutions. Have you found an area of stress in your life than needs a solution? Maybe you can't think of any one particular thing, so I'm going to tell you a problem you didn't even know you had. (Gee, thanks, Lori!) You need to drink more water. Okay, maybe it's just me. I need to drink more water... -
Solutions Instead of Resolutions
Posted Thursday, December 31, 2015, at 3:53 PMWhy do we wait until January first to make changes in our lives? And why do these changes almost always include losing weight? Sure, we all overindulge a little over the holidays with sweets and drinks at holiday parties and family feasts. Maybe we packed on a few pounds worth of extra padding in the winter and our clothes are feeling a bit snugger. ... -
Winter Crack-Ups
Posted Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at 10:47 AMWinter Crack-Ups We need the moisture. At least we're not having as tough a winter as the people on the east coast. At least it's not as windy today. At least the sun is shining. Yes, I've shared all of these Pollyanna remarks about winter over the last couple of weeks, but allow me a moment of weakness. Winter is starting to drive me a little crazy. Mainly, I think it's because the more moody winter makes me, the louder and crazier my kids seem to act... -
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Posted Wednesday, June 12, 2013, at 9:49 PMI've gotten a lot of requests for this recipe at the office lately, so I figured I may as well post it here. I've never done a food blog before. I have a few friends who do food blogs and take amazing pictures of the ingredients, the cooking/baking process, and the end result. ... -
Pictures
Posted Thursday, May 16, 2013, at 12:38 PMI've been thinking a lot about pictures lately. A picture is worth a thousand words, so if I utilized more pictures, I might be more inspired to post a blog more often with just a few words and a picture. The problem is, I'm not very good at taking pictures. ... -
One Morning
Posted Thursday, November 29, 2012, at 2:07 PM1Our family had a rare, chaos-free morning at the breakfast table today. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but with three boys at home, I count it as a miracle. Most of the time, at least two of them are squabbling about something. There was one touch and go moment when my youngest spoke to my middle child: "Could you please chew with your mouth closed?" The fact that he said "please" was the first miracle. ... -
Unexpected Beauty
Posted Wednesday, October 17, 2012, at 8:53 PMThis last summer, my boys and I finally broke our streak of neglected gardens from years past. Sadly, I can't say the same about our lawn, but our garden was really rockin' this year. I picked a few tomato plants and an abundance of basil, sage, rosemary, oregano, cilantro, and mint. ... -
Twitter War Worth Fighting
Posted Tuesday, February 21, 2012, at 10:41 PMEvery cause has its own awareness month, so each calendar month gets a little crowded. February is AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month, American Heart Month, Black History Month, and National Children's Dental Health Month. February is also Teen Dating Violence Awareness month. ... -
Back to the Books
Posted Wednesday, November 16, 2011, at 8:41 PM3Life is full of distractions. That's not always a bad thing. Our personal relationships can distract us from the stress of work. Work can offer a distraction from hardships in our personal lives. Books have consistently been my favorite distraction from all of the news and technology overload... -
Escape, by Carolyn Jessop (with Laura Palmer)
Posted Monday, June 27, 2011, at 3:31 PM3Carolyn Jessop grew up in an FLDS Polygamist community. Though her mother suffered from depression and was prone to violence, Carolyn did not associate this with her religion. From her grandmother, she learned to take pride in her religion. She was raised to believe that they were God's chosen people and that husbands would be fair to their wives in plural marriages. ... -
Blood Memory, by Greg Iles
Posted Wednesday, June 8, 2011, at 9:02 AM3Normally, when I choose an audio book, I make sure it's unabridged. If you get an abridged book, you never know what gets lost from the author's original vision. In my desperation to find an author that begins with the letter "I" and avoiding the chic lit selection at the library, the abridged version of "Blood Memory" found its way into my hands... -
Two Letters, One Blog
Posted Wednesday, June 1, 2011, at 3:14 PM5A few blogs ago, I wrote about my goal to read an alphabetical list of authors. It may seem like I'm slacking off on that goal, since I haven't done a book review since F for Frankl in mid-April. The project was temporarily de-railed by an unfortunate hairball incident followed by a new obsession to follow the Nook vs. ... -
To E-Read or Not To E-Read
Posted Tuesday, May 3, 2011, at 4:39 PM14It's getting harder and harder to carve out time for reading and writing lately. My newest excuse is not exactly "My cat ate my homework," but it's close. Let's just say it involves a book, my 17 year-old house-cat, and a hairball. In the aftermath of that unfortunate event, I decided I just wasn't that interested in that book and decided to make a trip to the library for another one... -
Man's Search for Meaning
Posted Tuesday, April 19, 2011, at 9:38 AMSome messages are so great that a paraphrase, quote, or summary just can't do them justice. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, for example, is the greatest story of God's love for us, but when we try to explain it to others, it's hard to summarize how much Jesus loved us, as well. ... -
Love and Respect
Posted Thursday, March 31, 2011, at 2:20 PM3Here's where my alphabetical project has become a drag. I was eager to read, "The Bingo Palace," by Lisa Erdrich, which I had long ago picked up in a bargain bin. When the time came to read my E book, I couldn't find it anywhere. It's absolutely baffling. ... -
Dickens and Dahl
Posted Thursday, March 17, 2011, at 12:25 PM3My children get on a kick with certain favorite authors. Lucky for me, the authors they can't get enough of lately are Roald Dahl and Charles Dickens. D was the next letter to knock off my alphabetical author goal this year, so it's just really convenient that our nightly reading coincides with that goal. It's so convenient; I can't even claim to be multi-tasking. It feels like cheating... -
How Do I Get That Job?
Posted Tuesday, March 8, 2011, at 10:02 AM4I once heard a comedian say that adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas. I often tease my husband that in case he ever comes to his senses and fires me, I better start making a back-up plan. ... -
B is for Bock
Posted Wednesday, March 2, 2011, at 8:54 AM1To recap from a few blogs ago, I set a challenge for myself to read a book by an author from every letter of the alphabet this year. The B one took... a very long time, but it was absolutely worth every minute spent reading. "Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma, and Allergies," by Kenneth Bock, M.D. ... -
Confessions of an English Major
Posted Saturday, February 19, 2011, at 1:09 PM8At my last writers meeting, one of our members brought in a newspaper insert from American Profile that had a list of "20 of America's most celebrated and influential writers," compiled by Stuart Englert. We had a lot of fun going through the list. Each of us recalled which works we had read and which ones we liked or disliked. Having majored in English at UNL, I'm always embarrassed whenever someone mentions a great classic that I have not yet read...
View all blog posts (47)