I participated in the formal election process yesterday, but I had already made up my mind and made a more important choice for my family: I’m not one to talk politics.  I listen and watch.  I observe and follow trending topics.  And yes, sometimes I smile, while at other times, I shake my head.  And…

I never realized the distinction between living alone and living as a single mom.  That there is a difference between taking care of your family in a single parent household…and taking care of yourself as a single individual. This week, my boys have been with their dad.  Having been divorced nearly a year, this was…

Oh yeah, I’m back.  I might be stretching the truth a little bit if I said I was back full throttle (because that’s just an invitation to the universe to adjust my perspective to a grinding halt, leaving me with another round of learnings to process and get through).  I started my blog with the…

This evening, I came across something written by my 11-year-old-son.  Insightful and poignant, inspiring and amazing…and an incredible reminder that we can all conquer obstacles, rise above, and meet every challenge to help shape and mold our own reality.  As a parent, if we are lucky, we learn as much as we teach.  And tonight…

Why a poker face is not nearly as important as what you’ve got left at the end of your bluff… Remember when you were a kid and the sky was the limit?  You only had to wish or imagine what your future would be…and you were young enough to believe it was as simple as going and…

Green Beans So I started my “urban farm” earlier in the spring.  It lacks the uniformity of what you’d typically visualize of a garden…or at the least the kinds that come to mind for me.  I think of neat and tidy rows, with mounds going down a long patch of field, with at least a…

Insert “persons” here. Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  I sometimes think that trying to maintain a healthy relationship with my family bears an uncanny resemblance to this philosophy.  Everyone loves their family or hates them…or loves to hate or hates to…

Pic of one of two machine types I ran #Firstjobs I landed my first real job starting out in the cliché “mailroom” working part time, after dropping out of college at 19. I loved my part time job running two big #Xerox copy machines, printing large batches of copy jobs for an insurance company.  Starting pay…

So I feel a little pressure in writing this…it represents my 100th blog post, since I started   oldschooljournaling.blogspot.com in late 2014. I want it to be impactful, spectacular…thought provoking…but I’ve lived long enough to know that some of the best lessons I’ve learned and shared rarely feel that way at the time. Looking over…

Fear not, millennials…gen x and y…and everything in between.  I’m not talking about moving back home or never leaving the nest! I’m talking about whether or not any of us truly live at home anymore.  I’ve given this more thought as of late, considering my work days, school routine for kids, and all the “dot,…