When A Cat With Less Is More Than A Cat

 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:   I told a friend this week to cut off her cat’s leg. Hold on, before you get PETA or mental health officials on your speed dial, let me explain. My friend’s kitty, Eloise, was injured by a dog or some critter who had chomped down on the sweet girl’s back right leg. I certainly wasn’t suggesting my friend

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My Best Efforts To Avoid My Big Dream–What’s Your Best Excuse?

            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:             I need to go walk my pet chicken.             Shoot, I only checked Facebook 12 times today. Better check in, just in case I missed someone’s fascinating update.             I wonder if there are any new recipes posted on the cooking blogs I follow?             There you have just a few of my

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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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Could I Blame My Mother-in-Law?

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 would’ve been so easy to blame all this on my mother-in-law. It was, after all, her chocolate pie recipe that reduced me to tears this week. Looking back, the true challenge was feeling worthy and getting caught up in trying to impress.  Maybe you can relate? This started with our neighborhood’s upcoming first ever block party. Our house

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Still Not Easy Learning To Share

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: My parents’ chiding still rings in my head. “Daryn, you need to learn to share your favorite doll and toys with your little sister.” Ah, memories of being 8 years old and being taught to share. Now as an adult, it seems to me of all the absurd things we try to teach and expect kids to do with

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Can’t Tell A Brother, “No.”

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: Pretty much the only thing impossible in Kyle Pease’s life is telling him, “No.” I offer this as guidance, because Kyle strikes me as clever enough to know that’s not what most people expect when they first meet him. Being as most of us our visual beings, you’d probably first notice a 28-year-old man who has spent his life

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Old Dog Love

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: Many days she smells no better than an old blanket that’s been soaking in a bucket of sour milk for week. Her body sports more lumps than a bride’s first attempt at making mashed potatoes. Still, I look at her and know that I’m in love. She is my 13 ½ year old dog.  Together, we’ve reached a bittersweet

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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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Three Words That Drive This Mom Nuts

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:                        Okay I get it.                        The disapproving faces grimacing back at me and the crock pot of burned indiscernible mush soaking in the sink is helping to get the point across.              Perhaps a slow cooker recipe featuring chicken, frozen corn, sweet potatoes, onion and an entire bottle of BBQ sauce covered with raw cornbread mix was not

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Getting Up Off The Floor–How Sweet It Is!

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:       April Harris, owner of Marble Slab Creamery in Brookhaven, GA, now seeing much sweeter times after hitting lowest of lows.         Ever been through one of those bend over with pain, hit the floor stretches when you can’t take one more piece of bad news?             There are indeed bad stretches.             And

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