There are many metaphors for the phenomenon I’m experiencing: hamster on the wheel, attempting to climb the slippery slope, two steps forward/three steps back, etc., etc. When it comes right down to it, I’m feeling a little under-appreciated by my family, and A LOT like I might never be a productive member of society again. This has […]
Carrie On Parenting: Sippy Cups in My Wine Fridge
“MILK!!!” Sawyer, my youngest who is 19 months old, is learning to talk. He has a few favorite words: mama, no, Good Girl (his name for our dog Lexi), and milk. He yells “Milk!” approximately 88 times per day, and that is where my story begins. I have a cabinet full of sippy cups…they have multiplied, […]
Carrie On the Holidays: Great Expectations…Thwarted
I heard a great sermon this weekend about expecting the unexpected. You’ve probably heard me wax poetic about the Clark Griswold-esque expectations we often put on the holidays, but this sermon really brought it home to me. My main takeaway from it is that, instead of being disappointed when the 12-foot tree doesn’t fit in […]
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 […]
Nerdy Carrie: I’m Opening a Literary Cocktails Bar
Last December, one of my favorite magazines, Reader’s Digest, plugged a great coffee table book that I just had to have. Sadly, Jeff didn’t get the “hinty-hint-hint” (read: lots of shameless hints) that I wanted, nay, needed this book. When it didn’t appear under the Christmas tree, I took matters into my own hands and grabbed […]
The 5 Stages of Supermarket Cart Grief
A few months ago, I had a really, really tough day in the grocery store. While I was pushing my cart through the five stages of hell (oh, I meant the canned goods aisle), I considered the stages of my grocery store cart development while parenting. The Baby-Carrier-on-Top-of-the-Cart-Handle Stage:This stage is meant to lure unsuspecting parents into thinking, […]
Carrie On Annoying People: A Tale of Two Mail Carriers
I am a friendly person…this is an inherited trait, passed down from many generations of Southern women who know what is best, how everybody should act, and how they should conduct themselves in the presence of others. This leads me to question the conduct of one USPS mail carrier in my new hometown in Arkansas who […]