We celebrated our last official day of summer vacation today with some classic Americana: swimming, barbecuing, and getting together with friends. Norman Rockwell would've been proud. Granted, he probably would've been a little disappointed by the hoards of kids lying around en masse, playing games on iPhones. Or our family wasting its final summer evening [...]

So here's where I am right now. . .• We just got home from an eight-day, second annual Nevada road trip (this time to Vegas), and my house looks as though mythical creatures who secretly live underneath my carpet have finally shown themselves and puked up the following: dirty laundry that smells like casino smoke [...]

Tonight I spent nine minutes watching my two kids do individual, interpretive dance routines to music from a Toy Story greeting card that only played the first four lines from "You've Got a Friend in Me."  The reason I know that the dances lasted nine minutes is because I mistakenly videoed them with my phone, [...]

We're less than two weeks away from the anniversary of my mom's death, and I stupidly (and, yes, incredibly) thought this would only be difficult on the actual day it occurred and not all the days leading up to it.  But then what would I know -- I'm a newbie mourner.My first clue was when [...]

So we're one day into summer vacation, and I'm already about to string everyone up.I tend to get the most pissed off when I've been busting my ass for other people's benefit and then all I get is grief.  It's enough when no one notices -- that, I've come to expect.  I am, after all, [...]

There's nothing quite like a vacation to show your family what it's really made of. It's like life on steroids.All things considered, I wouldn't say we're on the Mark McGwire of trips right now, but we're still on some serious roids. Tenzin, the kids, and I are driving across eastern Nevada on the "Loneliest Road" [...]

I cleaned my house today. It was my birthday, and I cleaned my house.Now, some people may think this sounds like the absolute worst possible birthday they can imagine. I say "some" because I already know that there are plenty of other people (mostly friends of mine with kids, big houses, and busy lives) who [...]