Last week, the very bright Sarah Cahill stepped into my kitchen to tell me what was what. Wearing a dusty pink blouse with matching dusty pink sandals, she sat down and immediately launched into a conversation that was so technical, I was reduced to drawing pictures in my notes in an effort to remember how to replicate what she was showing me.

I’d hired Sarah because she is a fresh graduate from WKU with a degree in advertising and, as such, a genius in the world of social media. With my new business Sway Essay (plug, plug!), I am learning that I need to spread its word and basically advertise its presence using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, most of which are either untapped or misunderstood by me.

Read more

The goal of the afternoon was to bake me some pie. I’d seen a photo on Facebook of a strawberry-rhubarb beauty a few days before, the kind where the luscious red syrup has bubbled over the crust but the baker has had the foresight to put the pie plate on a baking sheet to catch it, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

I had strawberries so delicious they tasted like candy from my CSA basket — by the way, a big shout-out to the Waterstrats and their Sustainable Harvest Farm; their produce is really amazing — but I’m always a little stumped about where to find rhubarb. It seems to be at Kroger on an only occasional basis, and I couldn’t count on it being there that day.

So, I messaged the woman who had baked the pie, who happens to live in my subdivision, to ask her where she’d found hers. To be honest, I was asking simply to find out whether I needed to go to Kroger or, shudder, Wally World. But Mrs. Linda Cook messaged me immediately back with the answer: “We have it growing in the back yard. How much do you want?”

Read more

This past Memorial Day weekend, we were lucky enough to visit friends in Knoxville. And as I sat by a pool and read a Martha Stewart Living, or ate lavender and honey ice cream, or drove around our friends’ lovely neighborhood, I thought about what it is, exactly, that makes long weekends so magical.

First off, there is the Friday afternoon beforehand. Isn’t it exciting? Everyone is talking about weekend plans on the radio and it’s the one time that we’re actually interested in what Mark Goodman and Nina Blackwood are up to. In fact, that’s one of the best things about long weekends: that everyone has it too, and we’re all on vacation together.

It’s like life is tinted whether you’re wearing sunglasses or not. You can practically hear people stringing patio lights up on their houseboats or around their campground sites. You can already smell charred marshmallow and hot dogs even though it’s 2 o’clock and you’re sitting at your desk and all it really smells like is hand sanitizer.

Read more

Every week, when I’m trying to decide what to write for this column, I write down a few notes for potential topics. This week, there are two words on my list: “visit” and “poop.”

The first pertains to the lovely time we had when my mom and Peter visited us last week. They arrived late Tuesday, stayed until early Sunday, and in that time, we rarely left the house, enjoyed hilarious happy hours, ate simply, watched hockey and the Royal Wedding, and entertained ourselves by watching the dogs play.

Read more

Several hours ago, Tilly Baker, puppy extraordinaire, attacked the vacuum hose. To be fair, it had it coming. Simply for being so sneaky-slithery, for one.

Same for the brick front steps. I’m not exactly sure what they did wrong, but I’m sure they needed to be put in their place, and I’m glad Tilly was the one to do it. After bounding up five steps — a feat her bro Fitz wasn’t able to accomplish until he was quite a bit older than baby sis — she tried to take a big bite out of the top one.

Same for the water hose, patch of phlox in the garden, and, for that matter, the bark nugget mulch. Makes for some good eating, she’s here to tell you.

And so this has been our lives ever since our baby Boston terrier arrived Friday.

Read more

Two things happened in the past couple of weeks. First, I bought Gabrielle a sweatshirt for her 18^th birthday that says, “Schrute Farms Bed and Breakfast.” Second, Gabrielle told me her friend’s yearbook quote was, “I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious.”

That was enough to compel me to watch the television show “The Office,” all nine seasons of it, once again. If you are not an Office fan, you’ll want to skip this column this week. If you are, welcome to the fold, my friends.

Read more

I’ve never considered myself to be in possession of a whole whack of feminine wiles, but I’ll tell you, I dug deep and employed every measly one I had a few weeks ago in my attempt to convince my lovely husband William that we needed a new puppy.

It all started when a picture of a litter of six pups popped up on my Facebook feed. They were from the same breeder that birthed our brilliant, beautiful and bouncy boy Fitzgerald one year and five months ago.

This picture showed six little Boston babies in various stages of being milk-drunk, laying fast asleep with their little pink tongues hanging out, their paws splayed out from underneath them, looking perfectly, absolutely, and empirically adorable.

Read more