Only a few months after I married my husband back in 2006, I peed on a stick, there was a plus sign, another plus sign, and two lines a couple of times (this was kind of a shock, so I needed lots of confirmation), and I became a mom. I had always wanted to be a […]
Bring Your Kids to Work Day (Every Day)
I’m lucky enough to have experienced motherhood both as a working mom and one who now stays at home with my children. I was a high school English teacher for 11 years, the last 6 of those years in a Nashville, TN suburb. My husband and I chose that particular suburb because the school system offered on-site daycare for teachers’ children in […]
Carrie On Parenting: You’ve Gotta Love Childhood Innocence
When the doctor first handed me each of my three children, I couldn’t believe that here in my arms was a perfect, untainted little soul, a sweet baby smell, a head full of soft hair (at least for my kids), and, scarily enough, a blank slate, completely devoid of experience in how the world works […]
Dear 25yo Carrie (A Letter to Myself from the Future)
Dear 25yo Carrie, I’m writing to you from the future. Yes, the future. Right now, you’re 25, and I’m about to be 37. I have 12 years of intimate Carrie knowledge (and a few surprises) to pass on in only a short amount of time. So, listen up. ***And if you want some MAJOR spoilers, you can […]
It Ain’t Easy Bein’ RWG (Refugees Without Grandparents)
We joined the RWG’s back in 2013 when we moved from middle Tennessee, a mere hour and a half from our three sets of sweet grandparents, to central Arkansas, where those same grandparents who easily made day trips to see us and drove home to sleep in their own beds…must now drive 7.5 hours one […]
Dear Targeted Marketing People, I Think You’ve Made a Mistake.
When I retrieved the mail the other day, it was the usual bills, coupons, and magazines, but one clothing magazine, which I shall call Mercury (not the magazine’s real title), mystified both my husband Jeff and me. Don’t get me wrong. Years ago, my college Visa and I had an uber-blast ordering from Vickie’s Secret’s hottie college girl […]
Carrie On Housekeeping: St. Becky of Gladeville
Friends, I am many things, good and bad, but I am not, will most likely never be…a cleaner. I define the difference between “neat” and “scrubbed-clean” in very strict terms. Our home is neat. We pick up after ourselves (read: I pick up the kids’ stuff, or Jeff gets frustrated and does it, or I threaten the children with […]
A Story I Hope to Never Tell My Daughter (and Apologies to Andrew)
When I was in the 10th grade, I found a note in my locker. Kids, we used to have these things called pencils and pens. If we wanted to communicate with our friends, we would write a note. On a piece of notebook paper. With a pen or pencil. It was not instantaneous, and sometimes […]