dirt don't hurt

Thanksgiving is a beautiful time of year for all of us, and whether you use this holiday as one last deep breath before the full onset of the Christmas season or spend the entire day planning your route for the 5:00 AM door-opening sales, one thing remains true: Turkey.  (Unless you’re vegetarian, and I’ll let you have your tofurky and eat your share of the dark meat.) We all know that the first Thanksgiving was nothing to rave about.  There was no parade to watch, nobody did little cutsie pilgrim plays, and certainly there was no Snoopy special on TV.  They ate things like mussels and eels and turnips there probably wasn’t a whipped cream topped pumpkin pie in sight. We can only pause and give real thanks that somewhere between then and now, this holiday has progressed.  From its start, it has evolved from the meager harvest of a settlement by the sea to what my husband calls the greatest holiday ever.  “You just sit around and eat and eat, watch a little bit of dishes, watch

With a hint of chill in the air, I reached for a cup of tea and found this quote by Pietro Aretino staring back at me from the box.  “Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.”  Instantly I thought that dear Pietro didn’t have to shovel driveways or dress children in snowsuits who mysteriously have to go to the bathroom the second the zipper goes up.  I thought that Pietro must not have had to endure darkness at 4:30 while his kids bounced off the walls and surely he didn’t mind the smell of well-worn snow boots permeating through his house. But still, the spring of genius.  And as I sat there with my steaming cup of tea, snuggled in under a blanket while the outside world grew a bit more dark and a bit more cold, I thought that maybe Peitro was on to something.  I may not be a genius, but good things can come from hunkering down overwinter, reading books and drinking tea and playing board games by the firelight.  Knitting and crafting and singing songs, and cooking b

(Because of space issues, this column didn't appear in its entirety in the newspaper.  If you were looking for a missing ending, find it below...) They say everything’s bigger in Texas, but I think everything is bigger in Parenthood.   I came to this realization when I recently downsized the girth of my vehicle.   I did this purely out of selfishness, because I really got tired of my kids calling it a “spaceship” and having to park in Timbuktu so that no one would smash into my doors. Bigger cars are convenient for children.   You need seats to put them in, cargo room to haul their things around, and compartments galore to hold emergency snacks, books, deodorant, homework pencils, etc.   If I had a semi-trailer, I could certainly fill it with the things we tend to need while on the road running from this to that.   In fact, I would be lying if I said I never dreamed of just buying an RV so I could take an honest nap during piano lessons. But with my new smaller vehicle, I’