Loving Tradition When my kids were born, I started the tradition of having an Advent Calendar. The tradition continues on even though everyone is grown and it’s still a family favorite. I am currently looking for a second Advent calendar so that each of my children will be able to carry on the tradition when they have their own families! The kids would take turns and everyday a door of the advent calendar would be opened; each day there would be a different small gift inside

The year that my third child was born was a year of big changes for me. We had bought a beautiful new house, my true “dream home,” I had taken on a promotion at work, my grandmother passed away and I discovered my husband had been unfaithful to me steadily for the last 5 years. It’s such a cliché but, of course, I had found out by listening to his cell phone messages one day as we were having “date night,” but that’s a story for a different day. Part and parcel of finding ou

Alexa Dot One of my favorite gift ideas! The amazon dot is the perfect little helper to an answer or song on demand. I have one in my bathroom and in my office. With a 3-minute set-up, she can do a long list of things. Things that I have figured out how to do: I can check the weather, get the latest news, listen to any song that I want, check the time, set a timer, and make a to do list or a grocery list that goes straight to my phone. My FAVORITE thing... she will play sooth

So Grateful! No matter how bad things appear to be, there is always something to be thankful for. We are grateful for the blessing of our beautiful children and if we had to do it all over again, we would! We would however do it very differently, ensuring not to change anything that would alter their presence in our lives. Happy Thanksgiving… 50, Fabulous & Finally Free #UnfaithfulSpouse #CheatingHusband #Grateful #Family #Thanksgiving #Giving #PhysicalAbuse #Manipulation #Is

Loving Tradition This is a relatively easy recipe but once my kitchen starts to smell like pumpkin pie, I’m transported back to holidays when my mother and grandmother were the ones doing the cooking and I was the official “taster.” The spices in the pie are balanced delicately so that the flavors aren’t camouflaged under a blanket of cinnamon.. My grandmother would never have considered any crust but homemade, but any refrigerated pre-made crust works for me! Grandma's Pum

With the clarity that only comes from hindsight I see the small acts of rebellion that I undertook – even if they went undetected by my husband – to somehow still feel connected to myself and my history. In the actual day to day I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about it, I was a busy mother to 3 young children. I didn’t examine my situation all that carefully, I adapted and adjusted as one by one I was isolated from any of my family and friends that my husband deemed neg

New tradition??? The best part about this is that you can easily prep and cook it while working on your other Thanksgiving dishes or you can make it a few days ahead of time. Letting it settle in the fridge for a few days actually helps the flavors blend. This also makes it a great potluck side dish. Cranberry Orange Sauce Ingredients: 2 cups water 1 cup sugar 1-1b package of fresh cranberries ½ cup of other fruit or berry (for this recipe we used clementine tangerines) Direc

Some people use the word family and it means something warm and inviting, like a big bathtub full of warm water and bubbles. For me the word family was a jagged pill under the best of circumstances but as the holidays approach each year, it becomes even harder. My mother was an abusive bi-polar manic-depressive so it made sense that I married a manic-depressive with sociopathic tendencies. To say that family was complicated is an understatement. Of course my husband didn’t ge

Family means the world to me, and I learned that from my mom. Growing up in the south, almost every holiday involved food in some way. We sat down for dinner almost every night, whether it was fancy and complicated, or a simple meal. My mom was an amazing cook, unfortunately not something that I inherited:( Much of what she made was either too difficult or too messy for me to ever attempt! Simply put, if it had more than a handful of ingredients, I was out. I have collected

I remember thinking that the pumpkin had to be carved just right – my vision was that it would be perfect and therefore everything else would be ok. I labored over the template for hours, making tiny cuts into the flesh of the pumpkin, doing my best to make sure it was an exact match. The more I focused on this project, the less I could think about the last few months. The bruises on my neck had faded; it no longer hurt to turn my head. My children were happy. These were the