When I was in my twenties in Puerto Vallarta, my birthdays were big, BIG news. They were all about going out with friends and eating dinner late, then heading out to the club to dance until I lost my shoes (although that really didn’t stop the dancing). Sort of...

I wanted to reward myself this past Saturday because I was so good at my dentist appointment.  I mean, I’m always good at the dentist because I don’t outwardly demonstrate my intense fear and don’t bite his finger when he revs up the high-powered scaler.  You see, I don’t enjoy the dentist, thanks...

Wednesday, May 15, was Teacher's Day, which is of special interest to me as a teacher. It is interesting for a number of reasons, two of the most interesting being: 1) I never experienced so much teacher appreciation as I have since I moved to Mexico. 2) I had the day off, which is always very...

A letter to myself, on my first Mother’s Day nineteen years ago: Oh honey, the bags under your eyes - I want to tell you that’s temporary, because I love it when you smile. Unfortunately, those bags will never quite leave you. You’ll get a little extra sleep from time to time, like...

When people find out that I live in Puerto Vallarta, they often exclaim over the fun and excitement I must experience every day. I’m almost afraid to tell them that our versions of “excitement in Puerto Vallarta” probably vary a little. Or a lot.  The name “Puerto Vallarta” invariably...

Moms and dads, do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and spend the next forty-five minutes to five hours making a list in your head of all the ways your parenting is sub-par? I have made that list so many times it writes itself: I don't...

I won't deny that I tend toward a 'glass half empty' sort of personality. And you have to admit, it's a pretty compelling line of thinking. When you have a rock-bottom expectation of how things will turn out, you are often pleasantly surprised. Or at least not shocked and...

My husband and I spent yesterday evening trying to calculate when he must have graduated from middle school. And when I say “we spent yesterday evening,” I mean the entire evening. We took breaks to get snacks and to watch an episode of The Three-Body Problem, so we’d feel a bit...

Spring break is a great time for me to take a breather after a busy school term and to re-organize parts of my life that have become a little frayed. During the school year, there's not much time or energy to be spent doing those deep cleaning tasks that...

So I sat down in front of my computer to write this week’s column, but all of my open tabs sort of called to me, and I started going through them instead. You guys.  There are so many things to do when you have one kid in Grade 12...