Tuesday, November 6, 2012
As if a certain university name stamped on my child’s college degree will grant our entire family some earned level of prestige.
Fall is when we catch college fever. Deep into the college football season, sports fans choose favorite teams based on hometown geography, our alma matter or a superior mascot. Fall is also crunch time for college admission applications. Since I’m inclined to idolize education, knowledge and intelligence, I’m overly impressed by where my friend’s kids go to college. I keep a mental ranking of universities in my head and wonder what it will take to get my kids into “good” schools. Maybe you think a preoccupation with things like academic accomplishment, sports success or artistic achievement isn’t so bad. These are all good things to foster in our families, right? Yes, but over-emphasis on any of these things might be a character flaw. …
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
There are second-hand shopping advantages beyond bargain-priced apparel.
Halloween is just around the corner. Although I’ve purchased prepackaged Halloween costumes in the past, I try to encourage creativity. Get the kids to consider homemade costumes. Develop a look and then see what can be crafted at home. But what about when a costume needs a special accessory to complete the look? This happened to us last year. That’s when my eyes were opened to what I’d been missing in the retail universe. Our son wanted to be a 1930s-style gangster. He found a shirt and tie in his closet. A plastic gun and fedora were in the toy box. He made a faux cigar from a cardboard paper towel tube. All he lacked was a suit jacket to complete his menacing look. I didn’t want to spend what the costume stores wanted for a poorly made …
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Just because it's cold outside, it's no reason not to be stylish.
The time has arrived. We must begin planning our winter weather wardrobe. If you’re a freeze-baby like me, you’ll want to take advantage of what I’ve learned about staying warm during Woodbury winters. We’re not talking Man Vs. Wild or any real survival skills here. Just some reasonable ideas to ensure you’ll shiver a bit less this season. You’re welcome. Not just for mountaineering and winter camping. I wear a long-sleeved base layer almost every day from November to March. I’ve tried most varieties. Silk is the softest and thinnest and therefore adds the least amount of bulk under clothes. But I disagree with conventional wisdom that silk is the warmest. I’ve found engineered materials like Cuddl Dudds to be warmest. I prefer the …
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Gangnam style is putting on like you're wealthy when in reality, your paycheck is just shy of funding your leased Mercedes. It’s all about appearances. Sound familiar?
I was convinced at age 10 that all possible dance moves had been invented. “What else could anyone possibly think up?” I asked. Then Michael Jackson did the moonwalk. Then there was break dancing, line dancing, vogue, the electric slide, poppin’, krumping and the Cupid shuffle. There’s been no end to the amount of jiggle and jive flashes in the proverbial pan. But have any of these momentary amusements been as amazing as Gangnam Style? I’d first caught glimpses of these silly dance moves on commercials for morning television programs. “Can’t be cool if it’s on the Today Show,” I thought. Out of curiosity, I clicked through YouTube in search of this supposedly hot trend. What I found was a music video that brought a Cheshire cat smile to my…
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Do you have a tattoo? If so, why did you get it?
I don’t get it. Or, should I say, I haven’t gotten one. I’m speaking about tattoos. Years ago, tattoos signaled you were in a biker gang, served jail time or survived a weekend similar to the 2009 movie, The Hangover. Today, you can’t visit the beach without little Johnny asking where some lady’s flowering vine tattoo is supposed to be growing from. I keep waiting for this trend to become passé. For flowering vines to grow only in gardens. But, I’ve seen no signs of a waning ink addiction. And I do believe it can become an addiction. Like tanning spas or plastic surgery, it seems those who do it can easily overdo it. I thought once 40-year-old suburban housewives started getting tattoos, it might lose some of its “hip” factor. What gives? …
44.92221
-92.935429
8470 City Centre Dr, Woodbury, MN
/articles/this-woodbury-mom-will-resist-the-tattoo-trend
/locations/7738895
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
I’m pretty sure that when I was a kid and my mom put me on the bus, she had no idea where I ended up.
It’s back to school and most Woodbury parents are breathing a collective sigh: the return to routine. For some parents, it’s an agonizing day of, is my child going to be OK? Will she make new friends? Will the teachers understand that little Toby has to sharpen his pencil each time he writes a capital letter? Could my son’s dorm room have bed bugs? Every year of big change can bring about fatalistic pondering. Wondering, did I make the right choice for my child? Choice is supposed to be a good thing. It’s what we love about grocery stores, shopping malls and cable news channels. But choice, when it comes to education, can seem daunting. I remember excruciating deliberations about whether to choose public school or private school, all-day …
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Does attending an author reading oblige you to buy a book?
Last night, I attended a reading by Michael Perry, author of Visiting Tom: A Man, A Highway and the Road to Roughneck Grace at The Valley Bookseller in Stillwater. The event was the 12th author reading I’ve attended in my lifetime. Ten of those dozen readings have been in the past 12 months. I’m a reader, yes. I plow though books like a giddy suburbanite with a new snow blower after a blizzard. I collect books. Loan books. Rave about books. Keep lists of books on Goodreads and Amazon. But I’d never learned to appreciate the full experience of hearing directly from authors of my favorite books until recently. I’ve learned that author appearances give readers an opportunity to be curious. I probably never attended author appearances before …
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
What would you tell your child in this situation?
Something unexpected happened over the summer. Something I knew would happen one day. But, I’ll admit, I was unprepared for it to happen this soon. Call me naïve. Girls have been calling our house. They want to speak to our son, to have a little chat about nothing in particular. He watches me watching him while he speaks simple yes and no responses into the phone. He hangs up and smiles at me. I’m not amused. I’m not amused because our son is 10 years old. My husband and I have talked to our kids about relationships, values and respecting women. But when we said those things, we thought we were ahead of the game. We didn’t imagine those discussions applying to girls and boys still in elementary school. I was caught off guard. Unsure how to…
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Too much free time, no matter how much I crave it, will not help me stay mentally alert.
I will never retire. Not because our 401(K) took a beating in the recession, which it did. Not because I don’t have a pension, which I don’t. Not because I love working more than lounging on my porch reading novels and sipping sangria. (Because that depends on the day.) I hope to never retire because I have come to associate retirement with less physical activity, less social contact and less exposure to ever-changing technology. Typically, when I have a job to do, I hurry to get it done. Whether it’s doing a load of laundry, planting flowers or writing this column, my mindset is often dread. I’d prefer nothing to do. Then, I spend an hour volunteering at a nursing home. Let’s say, I’ve learned to be thankful for things to do. Not just fun…
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
What do you tell your kids when they say they want to be a pro athlete when they grow up?
Not long ago, my 12-year-old son asked in which sport he should try to get a college scholarship. I paused, considered my reply and then crushed his dream: “Why wouldn’t you choose to pursue an academic scholarship?” His eyebrows lifted and his cheeks sunk into a wounded expression. “Are you saying that you don’t think I’m a good athlete?” he asked. That’s when I doused him with another bucket of reality. “I think you’re a fine athlete. But I think you’re an even better student. Sports are something that we do for fun and fitness. Not something most people should aspire to for their future.” When I shared this conversation with a friend, he was horrified. What kid doesn’t want to grow up to be a star athlete? How could I discourage that? …
Qin Tang
11:23 pm on Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Yes, getting into heaven is more important than into college, the eternal matters more than the temporal. Unfortunately, many of us parents focus too much time and efforts on academics, sports and other activities than on our kids' spiritual well being. Thanks for the reminder. more ›