“Carrie – You are everything to me.  When will you realize you are my soulmate?  I look in the mirror and I can practically see you, because we are so much alike.  I will do anything to be with you.  Always yours, John.” I set aside the old love letter I’ve been reading, and only…

“Hurry, sweetie, we’re going to be late,” I say, the words exiting my mouth at warp speed as I hook a water bottle on my pinkie. I’m already juggling two preschooler’s backpacks, two snack bowls, my phone and my keys. We have to leave NOW in order to make it to school on time, and…

I’m in the middle of a rather large cleaning job in my house right now, and it has truly changed my outlook on life. Well, if it hasn’t exactly changed my outlook on life itself, it’s certainly changed my outlook on the stuff that life contains. When I describe the project as “rather large,” I’m…

Last October, I started this blog, and with it I started a personal quest to accept myself for who I am, warts and all. I wanted to see if I could successfully reject the perfectionistic attitude I’ve lived with for 37 years, the attitude which has plagued me with self-doubt and indecision even as I’ve…

I think I’ve killed the joy of eating. This realization hit me on my last birthday when Lancelot asked me what I wanted for dinner. I racked my brain trying to come up with something, sitting in silence so long that I started to annoy him. I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I just couldn’t…

This is not a sports blog. I don’t write about predictions, scores or stats. I write about life, and things I’ve learned along the way, and how I can apply them in my quest for acceptance. To that end, I have to address a big something I’ve learned this last year – and I learned…

Have you seen any of those miracle wrinkle cream demonstrations floating around the internet lately? They typically feature an older woman with massive bags under her eyes, and some technician applies a cream while the internet audience sits in anxious anticipation of said bags disappearing. And sure enough, in a minute or two, the bags…

Little Huck Finn was eating a cupcake frosting first last night (as three-year-olds do) when he suddenly stopped and erupted into tears. “My frosting is going away!” he wailed. I came over to investigate and lend support. “What’s going on, buddy?” I asked. He looked at me, then the cupcake, and leaned in to take…

Last week we had our five-year-old son evaluated at ChildFind, an early-intervention program, to see if he was falling behind in fine motor, gross motor, speech, cognitive or social development. We met with both a Speech Therapist and an Occupational Therapist for about two hours, during which The Professor was tested on a full gamut…

As I write this, I’m preparing to take my five-year-old son, The Professor, in for developmental testing. His teachers have noticed a few areas where he falls below his peers and have suggested we get him evaluated to see if there are any local resources that can help. This type of evaluation is quite common,…

Every day when Lancelot comes home from work, I ask him how his day was. I’m a good little suburban housewife, and that question is simply part of the script. And every day, he responds dutifully with something along the lines of, “Great!  We had some great meetings this morning and this afternoon was really…

It struck me the other day, as I sat blogging, that for a blog about self-acceptance, I sure write a lot about self-improvement. For a little while I thought, “Hmm, I guess this experiment isn’t really working. I still haven’t learned to like myself at all, and I’m constantly looking at ways to fix myself.”…