My long distance boyfriend and I hit a bit of a rough patch. It can happen when you are dating someone you see often, but when you are dating someone you rarely get to actually date, it can spring out of nowhere and it can be brutal.
As I’ve mentioned before, talking to someone on the phone, you miss a lot of those cues. Texting is even worse and no matter how many times I say, “I don’t want to talk about serious things while texting,” we do just that – we talk about serious things while texting. We argue with …read more

My youngest recently turned 11. Up to this point, she has been the easiest of my kids. Easy-going, even-tempered, open-minded, up for anything. Up to this point.
These days she’s grumpy. Mean. Closed off to everything. Right now we are in the midst of a sleepover with my niece, the lovely Ashlee, and Sarah is pouting in her room.
I’m not sure what the problem is. It’s either…….no, really I have no idea. We went to the creek, we went to the pool, the girls decorated new notebooks, the fun just keeps on coming, but she’s more interested in a good pout.
As …read more

In the wake of the tragedy of this week, I have been thinking. We know that we need to equip our teens with tools and know how to make in the real world, but often those skills are things like balancing the check book, basic cooking skills or how to do their laundry. All of these things are important, but are we forgetting some key skills as parents and as a society? I think we are.
Here are thirteen things I think are just as important as knowing how to boil water:

You can’t always be first
You can’t always win
Not everything in …read more