Family Feathers

  Fall has arrived and that means caramel apples, sweater weather and the greatest joy of all.. the arrival of the Halloween Express Costume Catalog!  It ranks right up there with the Sears Christmas catalog and brings sheer joy to my family.  I have always been drawn to the Power Ranger costumes for my son and the cute witch costumes for my daughter.  Unfortunately, they have long since outgrown such, but I can still see them dressed in their festive costumes.     For nineteen years, I have found great enjoyment dressing my kids as Flintstones characters, superheroes, zombies, and more. For those same nineteen years, I have tried in vain to dress as a sexy pirate.  I'm never quite successful with this look as somewhere during the process of getting children dressed, dying their hair blue, mining in the attic for plastic swords and plastic pumpkins,  donning outerwear that is reflective, trying to get the blue off of my fingers, and chasing down the dog who is chasi

    My husband has dreams of family outings that simply don’t play out the way he envisions them.  Once a year, the kids and I gather round and participate in some outdoor expedition sure to bring happiness to “Dad.”  It only takes one trip to steer him off of this insane pursuit of unrealistic family adventures.  This year’s annual attempt at family fun was a fishing trip in the dead of winter.     When we woke that morning to rain, I should have said "No!"  When I demanded that we take sacks of groceries, extra clothes in case anyone gets wet, an assortment of ointments for everything from contact dermatitis to cobra bites and enough camera gear to look like a tourist, my husband should have said "No!"  Instead, we loaded the gear, text our children to rise from their beds and get into the truck, and headed off to the lake.  Note that I consider myself a professional angler with my Snoopy rod and reel and can cast a plastic lure across our backyard

Kabbaz-Kelly Photo   I pay $40 a month for a security system that tells me if any doors or windows are being opened in my home for would-be thieves or wandering neighbors coming home to the wrong house.  It is supposed to protect us from crime and yet, each week, dozens of socks disappear from our home, leaving their mates to pile up in the laundry room.  Surely a one footed sock thief must be living amongst us as there is no other explanation for this loss of property.   I've done the math and it simply doesn't add up.  Four pairs of socks go into the washer and only three have mates when they come out.  I've devised systems to ensure input equals output, but my systems fail somewhere during the cleaning process.  Someone thought it would be a good idea for me to safety pin each pair of dirty socks together before I put them in the washer.  This person obviously has no appreciation of my time and would prefer mated socks over a home cooked meal or other niceties tha