Our boy –who has mainly been obsessed with geograpy–is now obsessed with presidents. He’ll be three-years-old in two weeks. He memorized all the presidents on his presidents place mat, plus he made up a little song set to the tune of “Ten Little Indians.” He points to each picture as he sings each name: “Washington, Adams,…

We got back last week from a trip to Michigan (Go Spartans!) which started with a trip to Ann Arbor. Let me take a moment to sing the praises of the best tourism approach ever: fairy doors. That’s right. Fairy doors. You can pull up–or print out–a map of the downtown area where all the…

We went to see Jaws at the Alabama Theater last week,  and I did a little shark-themed dinner beforehand. (Couldn’t find actual shark meat.) Here’s a reasonably inoffensive shark watermelon and a highly offensive body-part cupcake.    

It’s not that crazy for Birmingham to get snow, but I don’t remember it ever coming along totally unexpected. That’s what happened today–the snow and ice were supposed to hit further south, but instead we had an inch or so on the ground in under an hour this morning. Now there are endless cars stuck…

Alright, I have, from time to time, been obsessed with TV shows. An obsession that led to me still having a little collection of action figures on my desk, including Fox Mulder from The X-Files and Xena from, of course, Xena, Warrior Princess. I also have Wonder Woman and Catwoman. Or I did, at least,…

Three weeks after I finished Margaret Atwood’s brilliant MadAddam trilogy, I am still drifting off and daydreaming about the books. The characters. The world. And the excellent names. She does some great satire, and part of it is her ability to make up names for products (and I’m including genetically engineered animals in “products”) that…

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve a giant box. I read a fantastic children’s book called Christina Katarina and the Box sometime in elementary school, which spun a mesmerizing tale of all the things you could make from a refrigerator box. My grandfather scoped out some department stores in town until he found me…

We spent three days in Atlanta this past week, taking an easy vacation that mainly involved wandering through beautiful parks (for me and my husband) and playing on any available playground in said parks (for two-year-old).  Not that the playgrounds were fully appreciated–the boy is in a zone where he just imagines a firetruck, steering…

Coolest thing about Stanley Park was that the raccoons came out in the daylight. Not aggressive at all, though they’ll approach a bench where you’re sitting with the same look on their face that my dog has before he jumps on the sofa. My stepson was convinced that the fact they appeared in the day…

I’m working on a young adult novel right now, which is part survivalist story and part, oh, I’m not sure what to call the other part. I’ve got my five high school students wandering through the remote woods of Georgia right now, and–a little unexpectedly, I admit–I’m listening to Aretha Franklin belt out “I Never…