We get into the car. It’s about 100 degrees and humid. Maria says: “Ay, carajo, it’s hot!” Guat? And then, I realize. We’ve been listening to the soundtrack from the musical, In the Heights — love and hope in Latino Washington Heights.  The line my kid so expertly and correctly gave me from the back seat [...]

I used to know where all the hot new Nashville restaurants were. It was the double bonus of sitting near the newspaper’s food critic, gossip columnist and music writers. Those people know everything. These days I am more suburban soccer mom than reporter-on-the-spot and I don’t get out much to places when they make the [...]

In the last week, I have dunked myself in the Harpeth River, taken a jon boat out on the lake at Montgomery Bell state park, and swum at the faux beach on the park’s lake. A few nights ago, my daughter stripped off all her clothes and danced in a torrent of cool summer rain. [...]

Have you heard the NPR series on Summer Sounds? Lawnmowers, beans in buckets, bull frogs. I love that series as much as I do Story Corps. Delicious. In my back woods, the summer sound is frogs in the pond. I have no idea what kind of frogs they are, but they’ve been with us for [...]

I am in the kitchen, putting dirty dishes in the sink. My husband and daughter are in the dining room cracking up and repeating “The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant!” over and over and over again. I have no idea why this cracks them up so much. He tells her sports [...]

So, Maria has started school. The First Grade. Oh, what a big, big girl… I realized this week, as I dropped her off, that in the three years she has been in school, my New Year’s Resolutions kick in. I don’t wait until January. My constant list: I will finally finish the scrapbooks I will [...]

Little more than two years ago, I wrote a post titled Looking for All the Latina Bloggers. The post was inspired by my attendance at a great conference that was sorely lacking in Latinas. I later determined, as best I could, that there were three of us out of a couple hundred. Que-que? Why so [...]

I have been told it takes guts to cut off your hair. I guess it does. Honestly, for me, it takes more guts to walk around in a ponytail all the time. I have felt dragged down by the pelo, so off it came. I feel lighter, happier, hipper…and when you’ve just turned 43, hip [...]

If there was a trend at my high school reunion it was Spanx and Shaved Heads. Oh, and a lot of Lime played by the DJ. It was an uproariously good time. I will spare you details, because what do you care, right? But, I have to say, there is something extra cool about looking [...]

My husband tells me on the telephone, while I am 900-miles away in New Jersey, that hey, something got in the coop and got a bird. “Feathers everywhere,” he said. We were down to three guineas, from the original 12, plus two babies who hatched last July. (They’ve passed on with the help of cars [...]