Monday motherhood: the old sod, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

the girls moher

The earthquake this morning made me feel spry.  Getting out of bed is generally a slow process but today, I was up and running to the girls’ rooms like I was twenty-four.  Combined with coloring my hair just awhile ago, back to its former red, I feel almost like a leprechaun if leprechauns were women, living in the open, not making shoes or hording gold coins.  If I’m captured today while dancing a jig, I will certainly grant three wishes upon my release. We traveled to Ireland, the five of … [Read more...]

2013 was…

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  ...layered. At the top, resting on everything else - often as harmless as a high cloud, sometimes as heavy as a textbook - was Mom's passing. She died at the end of 2012 and so '13 was colored with unexpected emotion. I didn't write much at Daily Cup this past year, but when I did, it was often about her. Having children changed my life immeasurably by the addition of others - plus three - but just as colossal was losing my mom - minus one. I'm ready to 'move on' even as I'm sure … [Read more...]

Lovely December: sobriety, family, Christmas

My greatest gifts.

To me, December is profound. On the tenth of this month back in 1996, we found out my father was riddled with cancer; he was gone ten weeks later. Last year, on the 9th, our mom died. But in December 1991, before either of my parents passed away, I stopped drinking…and goodness came after, even in grief. Not the least of my blessings was the husband, who understood me early on and asked me to marry him anyway. What followed were three daughters, who greatly reduced my egocentric tendencies … [Read more...]

Sunday’s Six Things: Rankin/Bass, Snowden, holiday weight gain, etc.

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1.  Ever since my sister-in-law went home after our Thanksgiving feast and left behind the delicious half-eaten cakes and pies she'd baked, I've been struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Surely an attitude adjustment was in order.  My plan?  To hell with health during the holidays, let's just watch the calorie count.  For instance, I skipped the egg and wheat toast for breakfast and just had the pumpkin pie I was going to eat afterwards anyway (plenty of fiber in pumpkin).  Why have a … [Read more...]

Monday motherhood: Irish lassies at the Cliffs of Moher

“The holly green/ the ivy green/ the prettiest picture you’ve ever seen/ is Christmas in Killarney/ With all of the folks at home…” We couldn’t help ourselves, the husband and I.  Every tidy town in Ireland is in a nascent state for the holidays, but Killarney is fully there.  Yesterday, after a short hike to Torc Waterfall – stunning and loud, then Muckross House where we imagined ourselves living while Erin attends Trinity College, and then Ross Castle -- medieval and cold, all in Killarney … [Read more...]

An Irish Thanksgiving

What’s an Irish Thanksgiving, you ask?  It’s when you’re forty-nine years old and the husband asks what you want to do for your fiftieth and you casually say something like, “We should go to Ireland.”  Then you forget about it because you have three children to attend to, among other obligations, and approaching the half-century of your life doesn’t seem like an actual event because you’re still seventeen, immature and oblivious to the process known as aging, even though it may explain the … [Read more...]