When a sophomore boy came crashing backpack first through my classroom window, I was standing inches from the rainstorm of glass. Completely unscathed, the student and his friends ran snickering from the scene. Shattered debris had destroyed the reading nook I'd created with my own money and high ... » Learn More about What’s the Secret?
DIY
What Has Life Taught Me That Nobody Else Has Learned
The last time I took a creative writing class, I was at an uncomfortable metal desk as a sophomore in high school. After that, everything became very processed and less about the craft and more about proper punctuation and dangling participles. To make up for what I lost creatively, I kept ... » Learn More about What Has Life Taught Me That Nobody Else Has Learned
Light In the Window
My paternal Grandmother and I weren't particularly close. Situation and proximity saw to that; she enjoyed a much more fulfilling relationship with my cousins. As a child, that was hard to swallow. She rarely spelled my name correctly on birthday cards, and the one time a broken heart let my guard ... » Learn More about Light In the Window
I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!
Women waste too much time scrutinizing the crow's feet at the corners of our eyes. We're also quite good at making ourselves feel guilty when we don't measure up to the one-size-fits-all expectations that other people have set for us. Other people who, by the way, we've never even met. Can we just ... » Learn More about I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!
So You Want a Gun
Some say that death and taxes are the only absolutes in life, but my pelvic floor wants to weigh in on this. I never have to pee as badly as when I'm balancing milk on one hip, a toddler on the other, and repeatedly trying to open the front door with my car key. The new universal truths: death, ... » Learn More about So You Want a Gun
Listen To Your Mother: 2016 Pittsburgh Auditions
Some people look at the New Year as a blank slate, ready to write their own story. I am one of those people. I love the symbolic vat of opportunity that a new beginning brings, and this year, that vat has a name: Listen To Your Mother Pittsburgh. And speaking of symbolic, no one thing or person so ... » Learn More about Listen To Your Mother: 2016 Pittsburgh Auditions
H&R Block Budget Challenge = $$ for your classroom
During my senior year of high school, I took a course called Independent Living. The class taught us things like how to balance a checkbook, a task I still struggle with (shut up), and how to manage money so we understood the steps in the Financial Order of Importance: Step 1: ... » Learn More about H&R Block Budget Challenge = $$ for your classroom
The Perfect Holiday Gift For Baseball & Softball Coaches
You know how when you marry a person, you also marry that person's quirks and passions and annoying habits? Like I'm completely incapable of having a conversation before 7am, yet my husband put a ring on it. Bless his heart. And I willingly said "I do" to a baseball nut. In the dramatic throes of ... » Learn More about The Perfect Holiday Gift For Baseball & Softball Coaches
A Cookie
If you've been reading me for the last year or so, you know my almost 20-month-old daughter has had her fair share of issues. A short stint at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh where she staved off dehydration led to a plethora of testing and worry, including concerns that those holes in her heart ... » Learn More about A Cookie
Winter: My Nemesis
One of my favorite winter activities is enjoying the untouched beauty of the first fallen snow...from within a warm house while wearing fuzzy slippers and sipping hot cocoa. Winter is not my friend. If she weren't so cold or last so dang long, maybe I'd reconsider, but seeing as how she sticks ... » Learn More about Winter: My Nemesis