Here’s the scene: Your kid dutifully tucks her still-fresh-from-the-gums baby tooth under her pillow, cuddle down and go to sleep and, in the morning… the tooth is still there.

Used to happen at our house all the time. Now that our youngest daughter is nearly 5, I’m sure it’ll be happening again, with embarrassing regularity.
Read the rest of this entry

The other night, I was faced with a kitchen-full of dirty dishes. And pots. And pans. At midnight.

I was already tired. I had been up late working, and I’d gotten up early, too, thanks to my 2 1/2-year-old alarm clock of a son who wakes at 5:30 a.m. (and who obviously didn’t read my post about how I prefer to stay up late rather than get up early). But the kitchen was a wreck, it’s hot and humid outside and, as such, bug season, and call me crazy, but I cannot stand having anything with more than two legs in the kitchen, and that includes the dog.
Read the rest of this entry

I started clipping coupons when I was a dirt-poor college student, having to decide whether to spend and extra 60 cents on a couple of packages of Ramen noodles or use that money for bus fare to get to work. (Sounds terribly dramatic, but it’s true. It was Syracuse, N.Y., and it was worth going without dinner in order to avoid a three-mile walk home in the snow at night). Back then, the quarters I scraped together went a long way — a couple of coupons could yield savings equal to the amount needed to wash a load of laundry — and so the sorting and clipping was definitely worth my time.

I still clip coupons, but now it’s more an exercise in frugality, as well as a challenge to see how little I can pay for the things I usually buy anyway. Every once in a while I hit a jackpot — a buy-one-get-one free item for which I have coupons, for instance — and I find myself wondering: What if I did this all the time? Can you really save that much money with coupons?

Kathy Spencer says yes. And she can help teach you how.
Read the rest of this entry

I’ve always been a night owl. When I was a kid, I hung a small dry-erase noteboard and a pen next to my bed, so I could doodle when I couldn’t sleep (reading after lights out was not allowed). As a college student, I found it easier not to go to bed at all some nights than to get up early for class or work. And when I was in my 20s, I was working nights — I slept until 10 a.m. in order to get seven hours of sleep, not because I was sleeping in. It was always easier to stay up late to finish (or start) my work than it was to get up early.
Read the rest of this entry

My 4 1/2 year old found a little Tiffany’s pendent on the playground at school. She stuffed her new-found “treasure” into the pocket of her jeans, and was just as excited to rediscover it days later when the washing machine started sounding clunky and I fished it out of the filter.

Thank goodness it was clean, though. Because I don’t know what made her think it was a good idea to put the tiny padlock in her mouth. And then swallow.
Read the rest of this entry

Once upon a time, I had an actual home office. It had a desk and file cabinets and a door that closed, and I shared the space with my husband, whose stuff took up the far side of the room but left me with plenty of space to spread out.
Read the rest of this entry

The speculation has been rampant since Sarah Palin announced Friday that she will be stepping down as governor of Alaska.

After her time in the national spotlight with Senator John McCain, she didn’t seem interested in running a state, The Asssociated Press suggested. Being governor during a recession — and when there are 15 ethics charges and budgeting squabbles hanging over your head — is a chore, Slate.com quipped. She says she doesn’t want to “embrace Lame Duck status,” even though the next election is 16 months away, Ed Morrissey points out at Hot Air.

But it’s probably best to consider what Palin herself said about her decision: “Life is too short to compromise time and resources. It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along… but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out.”

As a working mom who compromises her time and resources daily, I beg to differ.
Read the rest of this entry

We just got back from a road trip and, after several days in my uncle and aunt’s pristine, gorgeously decorated, child-free home, I have to admit that my own house feels like a pig’s sty.

There’s mud on the carpets. Something gritty under the kitchen table. Things scattered on countertops. Laundry piled on the floor of our bedroom. A downstairs bathroom counter full of bottles and brushes. And a toy-filled family room that is starting to cause problems.
Read the rest of this entry