Author name: suzannes

I have been thinking about blogging. I started a blog last year but I tried to make every entry poignant and then I lacked inspiration and couldn’t keep it up. Not keeping up with the blog was an indicator of the lack of balance in my life. Taking on too much, rushing around, not being

As sweet and delicious as cookies can be they can also be a source of cutthroat competition and lessons in life. For twelve years my friend Donna has hosted a lively and lovely holiday cookie exchange. Donna’s friends gather for an evening in December to share holiday cookies, have a cocktail and learn about a

Today is October 28th. It is a gorgeous fall day. The sky is pure blue, the air is clear and crisp, and the golden colors of the season are blazing. Today I went for a walk and the children went for a bike ride with Dad. Neighbor’s porches are alight with orange pumpkins and golden

Just before school started our family went canoing down a local river. On our journey my 5-year-old daughter discovered a little inlet filled with pollywogs. Of course the children wanted to keep dozens. We negotiated this down to four lucky (or unlucky) pets. We put the critters in our water bottle along with some cool

After my son was born, I was hit with the baby blues. He was my first child and the first months of parenting were filled with a bitter mix of failure and loathing. I felt like I had had a perfectly lovely life and I f*#ked it up with an inconsolable ball of annoyance. The

I realized something recently that has me both depressed and enlightened. My realization is that most of my personal barriers are different than I thought they were. Sadly, I am finding that my truer barriers reflect far deeper flaws than I had hoped. About a year ago I decided that to remove two barriers that

I have not written anything recently because I keep waiting for the perfect idea to strike me. I keep coming up with ideas and then either can’t finish them or lose interest. This feels kind of counterproductive because the whole point of the blog was to try to hone my writing skills by writing regularly.

Snow shoveling is a fact of life in Wisconsin. I hate it but my husband likes it so things are usually fine. My problem is what to do when he travels.  Last year this problem was neatly solved by an extremely entrepreneurial neighborhood kid (let’s call him Jake) who ran a small snow blowing business.