I am really struggling with this… It just… looks so… BAD! For the third time in three years, I am heading out to Spain at the end of the semester. And every time I arrive in Madrid, I feel like I have come home. ARGH! Elitist, arrogant, snobby, Western-European-promoting, blinders-on-to-diversity JERK! Yes, that is me. This is how it started: ... Read More »
I survived the college search – as parent – once, and here comes the second round. “I’m wishing I was grown up, but I am really really really scared!” Or maybe it was … “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!” Or in this latest round of college visits… “Do I really have to go? Can I just ... Read More »
When I was a little girl, I never saw my mother finish a cup of coffee in one sitting. As I grew older, I teased her about this: the way she would start her morning with a cup and have to microwave it at least three times before she finished it. Of course, I get it now. As a stay-at-home-mom, my ... Read More »
I’m new to the hashtag game. Thankfully, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Timberlake and Questlove helped explain things to me with their Late Night video. But even so, I was a bit confused when I stumbled across #tbt on Instagram a few months earlier. Thankfully, I know how to use Google and within a millisecond I was learning all about “Throwback Thursday.” ... Read More »
Are you present? Or not? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (click here for the trailer if you have no clue what I am talking about) may well be the classic analogy for modern life. Are you here? Or have you skipped out? I am a perhaps addicted complete fan of modern technology. I am one of the few parents who knows ... Read More »
As time passes and our life circumstances change (read “kids are growing up and will eventually move on”), Stephen and I sometimes now ask the question, “Do we want to stay here?” We live in the Town of New Scotland, in the Voorheesville School District, waaaaay out in the country. We often talk about the idea of having a condo ... Read More »
There’s been a lot written on the power that Internet anonymity has given us to express ourselves in a manner that we probably wouldn’t have the guts feel comfortable doing in a face-to-face conversation. Louis C.K. did a typically beautiful profane/profound rant on Conan about why his children aren’t getting smart phones (click here to get enlightened). Among one of his ... Read More »
I feel Anna’s pain. Desserts are too demanding! Don’t sift your flour? Get ready for heaviness in your concoction. Don’t have a silicone pad for your baking sheet? Get ready to soak, scrub, soak, scrub, and probably give up and heave the messy pan. I used to love making desserts as a teenager. It was my “thing”. It was also ... Read More »
On occasion, I make desserts for barVino to supplement the fabulous ones we purchase from the professional bakers at Cafe Sarah’s – just up the street from bV on Main Street in North Creek, NY. Here’s the thing about baking: it’s meticulous, measured and requires prior planning and preparation. Here’s the thing about me: I’m a bit scatter-brained, not naturally ... Read More »
In what my children would probably call a fairly typical, schizophrenic mode for me, I find myself both demanding that the kids “grow up”, while at the same time, resolving this year that I need to be more childlike. Whaaaaat? Today I witnessed a scene that made me stop multitasking between laptop and smartphone, sit back, and enjoy life. I ... Read More »
Sauced In New York Sometimes the food is in the sauce, sometimes we are