dirt don't hurt

           Christmas decorating is not for the faint of heart. This year, because I know my husband’s heart just can’t handle twenty boxes of holiday “stuff” (or whatever he called it) I decided to do all of the decking of the halls while he was away for the night.             Won’t he be surprised, I thought.             Deep down I knew he would barely notice. I don’t blame him for it, really, because deep down spending hours changing the color scheme of my house to red and green for the very few visitors we host seems like a waste of time. But without it I know I just wouldn’t be very holly or jolly or anything else.             So while he was away, nestled all snug in his bed, I tiptoed downstairs and grabbed bins, green and red. With muscles straining because myself I did carry, I lugged them to the kitchen to start with the merry. I opened them up, wondering what I’d find there, and noticed that last year I packed nothing with care. There were wadded up lights, tchotchk

           I don’t have a strong recollection of being called names as a child. I’m sure I was, because hey, kids are mean and I had a really great set of buckteeth before orthodontics kicked in. What I do remember is what we used to say, or what we were supposed to say, when someone called us a name: Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.             Or, my preferred saying: I’m rubber, you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.             Neither one of these made very much sense, especially the one about being rubber and glue because while sound waves may bounce, they don’t exactly stick. Also, being made of rubber is almost as silly as being made of glue, unless your name is Elmer.   I can’t, however, deny that a stiff beating with wood and rock would probably hurt pretty bad.             Yet here we are, a society ripped apart by politics and the ability to exercise our very important right of free speech in many diff

           When the leaves fall, our treed back yard becomes suddenly illuminated. Without the shade of all of the leaves on the trees, the bright sunshine can beam down and light up all of those leaves that have fallen on the ground and somehow managed to land mostly in the pathetic wisps of grass we call our backyard. As if they can aim.             Most people dread the season of leaf removal, but what I dread most is the argument my husband and I have every year. He is practical and smart and efficient and handy, and I am stubborn and old fashioned and traditional and stubborn. (Yes, I said that twice.) When the leaves hit the ground, he fires up the leaf blower and I grab the rake and both of us can’t comprehend the other person’s tool of choice.             He doesn’t understand why I like to rake. He tells me it’s not an effective way to clean the leaves, that it takes too long and that it’s just plan stupid to kill your back and arms when you can stand in one place with

           I love juxtaposition. I even love the word ‘juxtaposition’ because not only will it earn my copious points during some golden moment of Scrabble, but also because when world’s collide, I smile.             Recently our beloved 11-year-old refrigerator took a turn for the worse without us even knowing. A tiny water leak way spewed itself all over the back of the fridge and the wooden floor below. How did I know this? Juxtaposition.             It was a moment of housewife utopia. The laundry was drying, the carpets were vacuumed, and I had just been to the grocery store and had actually remembered my list. Walking through the kitchen to put things away, I could no longer take the curiosity about why the floor was lifting up in front of the fridge.             What’s a girl to do? I pushed up my sleeves and moved, with probably not as much grace as I would like, the entire full refrigerator out from it’s housing and into the middle of the kitchen. Armed with a flashli

           Brace yourselves, your belts, your non-stretchy pants, and your bathroom scales. We are about to enter the food zone, the collection of consecutive holidays that challenges our willpower against those foods that make our taste buds smile. It is long, challenging, and delicious. It is a season that separates the boys from the men, the girls from the women, the carrot sticks from the chocolate pies.             It begins with Halloween, that tempting holiday when those of us with small kids find ourselves with an instant stash of bite-sized candy that we promise we won’t eat, because it belongs to the children. But then the urge is too strong and what starts out as “I’ll just have one little piece” soon turns into you scrambling to figure out how you’re going to explain how all of the Butterfingers are suddenly missing.             After Halloween, you have less than one month to gear up for your next eating challenge, Thanksgiving. This glorious holiday is planned arou