Earlier this week my wife planned a big networking dinner for many of her professional female friends. For a week before she told all of us we were welcome to be home during the party, but surprisingly we had no interest to be flies on the wall for this kind of party. It was more about giving her and her friends their space rather than hiding in the basement all night watching the dogs. Number 2 and I had talked about what we would do with ourselves during her last night ho

Recently my mom passed away after almost a 2 year stretch in hospice care. Since then I have been back to my childhood home several times in the last few months. My mom was fine with things in her house and made very few changes to it over the time. In fact she still has 2 rotary dial phones in the house. Seeing those for the first time in a long time brought up many memories of the past. In high school I was limited on the amount of time I could speak on the home phone.

Earlier this week, as we dropped Number 3 at college, there was a moment when the best planner in me, met the best taskmaster in my husband, and together we clashed on the dorm room floor. It was short and ended quickly, yet an impressionable moment nonetheless; and, as our better selves re-emerged, it was reminiscent of the ZagZig life we had lived for more than two decades. There is something about the pace and expectations of the corporate life that trains one to be a mani

The song about little monkeys kept running through my head this morning… four little monkeys, jumping on the bed, and one fell of and bumped his head; mama called the doctor and the doctor said, no more monkeys jumping on the bed. With kids now in the teens and early-adult years, I haven’t sang that one in years; however it is all coming back to me as one more of the four monkeys heads off to start a new adventure, and we will only have one left in the house. Just for clarit

Last week was our family vacation in Northern Michigan. This has been a family tradition for me for about 25 years and for Kori, it has been a yearly occurrence since she was about 3 years old. This has been a favorite trip of each year for the family with many memories being created when we are all together. As the kids have grown up the dynamics have changed as have my expectations. When the kids were little we took several trips to Disney World and the best advice I rea