death and life

It is a sad week at our house. Monday morning I found that our bird had died, only a couple weeks after I finally got around to introducing him on this blog. I’m not sure exactly what caused it, but I suspect it had something to do with moving his cage to the window beneath the [...]

10 things I’ve learned in the last week

10. A diet consisting of only Cheerios and milk produces white poop. The latest virus to hit our house took aim at the little one’s appetite. For about 5 days all he ate was Cheerios. And well… now I know.

a mom’s battle with anger

I didn’t want to write about this. I still don’t. It is far too personal and revealing, and I can’t help but think about all the eyes I will encounter after this is published. But I’ve realized in recent conversations with girlfriends that I am not the only woman struggling with this. Many, if not [...]

some new plants and a helicopter ride

Busy, busy, busy. Wow what a week. Last spring we spent several weeks removing areas of lawn to make room for new landscaping. We never got around to planting anything because of the drought. So for a year we’ve had these barren areas of our yard with nothing but pinestraw and weeds. Well they’ve finally [...]

i love spring

I absolutely love this time of year. If I had it my way spring would carry on for about five months, followed by one month of summer, five months of fall, and one month of winter. I guess in reality, we aren’t too far from that ideal here in the south. I don’t really even know where [...]

if you could go anywhere in the world…

I’ve been presented with an unusual dilemma. My husband and I will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary next spring and we’ve been planning to use his accumulated Hilton travel points to go to Hawaii. But the thought occurred to us last night that really we could go ANYWHERE in the world - well, anywhere with a [...]

one more thing

Okay, I’ve been thinking about my last ‘10 things’ post all week. While it is very true that each one of those things would have been very helpful when we were struggling our way through the first years of parenthood, the biggest lesson I’ve learned somehow didn’t make it to the list.
All children are DIFFERENT! [...]

red, white, and black beans and rice

My version of another Louisiana favorite. You could, of course, use any variety of beans you like.

1 lb. smoked sausage
2 cans red beans
2 cans white beans (great northern, navy, cannellini)
1 can black beans
1 onion, diced
1 green pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. water or chicken stock
2 bay leaves
cajun seasoning to taste

 
Slice sausage into 1/4 inch [...]

10 things I wish I knew before I had kids

10. Sam’s brand diapers and wipes are GREAT and CHEAP.  A one month supply of diapers is $30.  A 6-9 month supply of wipes is $14.
9. A child’s behavior (even a very young child) will let you know how sick they really are. When my first child was about 13 months old, he suddenly developed a very high fever of 104+. He [...]

happy hatch day

It recently occurred to me that I had never formally introduced our parrot, Frasier. He’s a Meyer’s parrot, one of the smaller birds in the parrot family, only a little larger than a cockatiel. We’ve had him since he was a baby. He hatched two years ago today, so I thought this would be a good [...]