Category: Family

Family, Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn, Parenting

Oh, Yes I Did! Told Teen Girls What I Thought Of Their Fashion Choices

Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I find that a less attractive option the older I get. There’s that. Maybe I just shouldn’t have looked. But who could miss it? My eyes popped out first. Couldn’t Believe What I Saw Two teenaged girls behind me waiting to check out in the grocery store wearing shorts. Shorts. What an understatement that was. Shorts. Too long a word to describe the length of the garments on these girls. Hoochie mama shorts.

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Family, Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn, Uncategorized

The Lucky Charm Who Changed My Life Forever

As lucky charms go, mine is not shy. “Daryn, you should write a column about me,” she strongly suggested this week. Since she is the one who, I believe, changed my life for the best ever, hers is a request I’m sure to fulfill. So here goes. She showed up at one of those low times. One of those, feel sorry for myself, this is never going to get better, I’m on verge of getting bitter, Pity Party for One,

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Family, Parenting

The Day I Wish All Moms Could Have

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.  Here’s this week’s column:     It seems unfair.      Really unfair.      It’s something so wonderful I wish all moms could have it.      And yet, only a small minority of us get to.      My fellow adoptive Moms, this is the column you could’ve written. That Sad Look         You know that sad look some people give when they see someone

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Family, Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn

Time To Address Festering Issues In My Long Term Relationship

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.  Here’s this week’s column: Dear Valentine’s Day, Let’s face it: things have not been great between you and me. With your special day upon us, I feel no better time to discuss the issues we have had over the years. All that time I was single and you insisted on stocking every grocery store, drug store, flower shop, shopping mall and airport kiosk

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Family, I Screwed Up, Parenting, The Hard Stuff

It’s Going To Be One Messy Year

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio.  Here’s this week’s column: Well, hello there, New Year you, who promises to be 12 months, 365 days, 8,766 hours, 525,948,766 of mess. It’s not that I’m starting the year as a Negative Nelly. It’s actually more about being grateful for what and who I have, which leads to reality, which in my case, and perhaps yours, means accepting life is messy. Anyone

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Family, Parenting

Thinking About Someone Special On My First Mother’s Day

             I think about her every day. We are forever linked through one of the greatest joys of my life. And I’ll never be able to tell her. That’s what I find myself thinking about this, my first Mother’s Day as a mother. I’ll never be able to say “Thank you” to the woman who started the job I’m blessed to continue. She is my daughter’s other mother. I’ve shared here in this column how I’ve recently come to

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Family, Parenting

Why Didn’t Anyone Warn Me Before I Adopted My Daughter?

  If I’d only known. Somehow, I thought by adopting a full-sized kid I would avoid biological changes to my body. Silly me. I met my daughter when she was 11. We finalized the adoption earlier this year. No, there were no post-pregnancy pounds to lose, as I had my figure back within minutes of signing those papers. I can’t blame any stretch marks on my body on pregnancy. Those were of my own making. But there is one key

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Family, Parenting

The Neighbor I Never Expected

Please catch my newspaper column each week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the Dayton Daily News and other newspapers across Ohio. Here’s this week’s column: Leave it to my young teenaged daughter to succinctly describe a scene from the sitcom that is sometimes my life. “That awkward moment when you discover your gynecologist is moving in next door,” she said as she slid down in horror in the front passenger seat of my car. There is some teenager embellishment in

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Family, Life Lessons Took Me Long Time To Learn, Marriage

The Three Little Words So Hard For Me To Say

This confession might shock you. There are three little words that are really hard for me to say. Sometimes even get stuck in my throat. Me, who writes each week about love, who shares how happy I am in my new marriage, how much I love being a mom. I have a hard time saying, “I love you.” It’s no big mystery to me why it’s so challenging. I didn’t grow up in a “I love you” kind of house. 

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