And heat! The house is now a toasty 67 degrees, just an hour after the PSEG guy came and spent ten seconds on top of a pole in our backyard. Five long days later, a quick and anticlimactic fix.

I’m starting to feel like a human being again. We just need to replenish our food supply and it’ll be like the last five days never happened.

After this experience a whole house generator doesn’t seem like such a crazy waste of money anymore. What is crazy is that we are in the 21st century in the United States of America, and our infrastructure sucks.

Definitely not a Halloween to remember, unless you think a longlasting, storm-induced power outage causing most residents to abandon Halloween in favor of lights and heat, constitutes memorable.

Continue reading A Dark and Dreary Halloween →

During an unheard-of pre-Halloween snowstorm that was remarkable less for the snow than for the thunderous breaking of tree limbs that devastated our neighborhood (and thankfully not our house this time ’round), we lost power. We still have no power and we don’t know when we’ll get it back.

Continue reading Snow, No Power and Family Time →

I was stopped at a traffic light as five tweens were crossing the street to go to school.  Four girls and boy, on their merry way, chatting happily and dressed in sweatshirts, jeans and sneakers.

Continue reading A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Work →

It’s time to start planning spring vacation.  Dominican Republic, you’re looking good.  Never been, have talked a lot about going over the years.  Lots of family-friendly, all-inclusive resorts.  Leaning toward Club Med or the Majestic Colonial.

Club Med has a couple of distinct advantages.  My husband will feel at home there among all the Frenchies.  It also has a circus and trapeze school.  Great kids’ programs.  And a nice spa for moi.

I have no idea where I’ll be in a few months.  If I’m finally going to make a “life change.”  But if I do, I want this vacation booked and paid for.  Just in case.  In the meantime, knowing the vacation is booked will certainly go a long way toward making the upcoming dreary winter months a hell of a lot more bearable.

Sun and sand, here we come!

We ran around nonstop this weekend. Between tennis lessons, errands, food shopping, cooking and cleaning, we haven’t had a break since Friday evening.

Sophie rode her scooter and improved her balance on her temporarily pedal-less bike (don’t ask – it’s a story for another day).

Chloe tried to find accessories ( i.e., clothing) for her Halloween mask, to no avail. Those pop-up Halloween stores suck. Two young teenage girls (15 years old at most) tried on and bought Playboy-branded costumes, which were in no way appropriate for 15-year old girls. Not sure where their parents were. I’m very glad Chloe’s a bit of a tomboy. Sophie, on the other hand, probably would have liked those outfits. The thought makes me cringe.

I wish I had more free time. I have a list of things to do – the photo album from our trip to France, is near the top of it – but no time to get any of it done. And that frustrates me to no end.

Today it was math. Chloe received 102% on her test. Super, right? Well, it’s not super. It’s apparently only ok.

How is that possible, you ask? I’ll tell you. It’s because a perfect score would have been 103% and she missed perfection because she forgot a decimal point. A “stupid” decimal.

Those of you who read yesterday’s post and know me, know I was not serious when I suggested Chloe start studying for the SATs next year, in 6th grade.

The scary thing, though, is that Chloe may actually do it. On her own, in secret. There’s nothing like ambition in a 10-year old.

Chloe is a perfectionist. She had a language arts test this week. She studied hard. She was determined to get a better grade than last time, because it was one of the few times she ever earned less then a 90%.

Continue reading When an Almost-Perfect Test Score Is Not Enough →