This week is about Family Time and friends! This story is about disconnecting. This post is intentionally short because you shouldn’t be hidden behind a screen this week. Go light up the faces of your family and friends by giving them the gift of you. Turn off your technology! The next seven days, between Christmas …
Picture my kitchen: green granite, white wood cabinets, a center island. Used to be that two children came downstairs each morning to this kitchen. One before the next, forty minutes apart. They both sat on the same side of the island, on the brown wooden stool from Pottery Barn that had been empty at six …
Imagine dinner with the daughters of your mom’s BFFs! Oh yeah!! We have seen each other randomly over the years, but never all together and never with the wine flowing. Is there such a thing as a wine-klatch? We met in our old neighborhood, where one of the daughters bought the home she grew up …
Continue reading “A Daughter’s Wine-Klatch & Memories of Moms”
My husband and I arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. It was our first trip to Africa. Our travel from Minneapolis to Amsterdam to Addis, with a one hour layover in Sudan had gone smoothly. But after twenty hours of travel, we were tired. It was almost like giving birth, except this time …
Continue reading “The Moment I Fell In Love With My Beautiful Son”
A backwards love story of baby, divorce, love & marriage. First time I saw her was when I walked into my wife’s workplace to bring lunch. I knew everyone there but she was a new face. “Who’s the new girl?” I asked. “Oh she’s a temp, part-timer, nobody important.” It turned out that the New …
The older I get, the more I recognize not only the value of keeping in touch with “old” friends, but the absolute necessity of it. I’ve been doing slightly better in this area the past few years, but there is always room for improvement. I recently enjoyed a movie and dinner with a lifelong friend from …
To infuse Valentine’s Day with good loving we spend a lot of energy on planning. There are the cards hidden in sock drawers, boxes of chocolates bought and bouquets of roses ordered. Then there are the reservations needed for dinner dates followed by hours of research into best speakeasies for late night dancing. But here’s a thought – how …
Continue reading “10 Best Practices For Good Loving All Year!”
Laura Lyster Mensh dreams of her empty nest life in an Airstream. Freeing herself from stuff, she’s cleaned out most everything & is proud of her newly streamlined shelves. As she notes, the trash bags going out of her house are heavier than the shopping bags coming in! But what to do about her overstuffed pajama …
Continue reading “Will Nightwear Fit In An Airstream Dream?”
What would my path have looked like with children in it? Sitting by the gate at Logan, held captive by the airline’s whim, watching a steady stream of half-dressed, or overdressed passengers walk, run, and toddle by, the place remains, somehow, stale and lifeless. Until a little princess, right out of a storybook, walks into …
My youngest child – nine years younger than her closest sibling — is that kid with whom I would have NEVER let my oldest children play. By age 2, she was singing inappropriate song lyrics. Her older brother thought it was really funny to teach her the words to Kesha’s Tik Tok. By 5, she …
Continue reading “Tips for Parenting Kids with Large Age Gaps”
Laura Lyster-Mensh confronts the final frontier for the modern feminist mother – Dish-Duty equity when your adult children live at home. Calling dish duty the lowest domestic position, she offers four solutions to managing the kitchen sink pile-up in today’s modern family of working adults, parents and children! Listen Here and share your family’s solutions in the …