Southern Woman on the Skids

  It’s been a while. Mom died. Things kept getting messy. Work, family, kids. All of it needed to be sorted and sat with a bit. So now I'm home with a baby and my Rob trying to nurse a new little life, spend time with the one year old, keep the tween from growing up too fast and  my almost out the door seventeen year old son talking to me.  But I'm just mediocre. So why would he want to talk to me? I mean that in the most wonderful way. I do. I love my kids. I fail but I try. I work at my sweet new marriage. I know how precious it is. I try to write daily, but sometimes I don’t. Or I just can’t. Sometimes life is all just too real. Too mediocre. Too messy and painful. But then I start to write anyhow. And it makes me feel better. I am not wildly talented. I may never publish a book or do anything world altering. My son tells me the house is chaotic. And it is. Four kids, two dogs, one cat and a bird. Two adults running between them all. I get it. It’s chaotic. But it’s li...

  My dad often tells us that mom knew it was really important to start traveling with us kids. She said before they knew it, we would be out of the house, so she wanted to make memories while she could. She had a travel agent, but her and our dear family friend Mrs. Roberts scoured Fodor’s for the best hotels and excursions so that they could have a blueprint of what we would be doing. Our bookcase was stocked with worn travel books from all over the world. Little notes in the margins with times we  would arrive at a place or if it was miserable. Those vacations are some of my very best memories of my mom. She worked so hard to make them wonderful. And even when things got mixed  up or a flight was delayed, that was all part of the adventure.  Things are more complicated now. It should be easier, right? It’s not. There are  so many sites that once you fall down a “vacation hole” as Rob calls them, it can be impossible to decide which choice is best.  Well, ...