Category: family
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A Belated Thanksgiving
There are a two times of year that make me think about writing a blog more than any other, and that is Thanksgiving and New Year’s. I’ve had traditions over the years to write blogs on these holidays, and this year on Thanksgiving, as we were packing up the kids and the snacks and the…
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Top 10 of 2024
The Shand household is sick, so I’m writing this blog in a clouded haze of brain fog and I’m not entirely sure what I will type. I’m just happy to be writing a blog at all since I’ve been preoccupied for the past 12 months with keeping another human alive 24/7. Mom bloggers out there:…
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The First Thanksgiving
That is, for Charles. Today is Charles’ first Thanksgiving, and I have exactly ten minutes to write this blog. I don’t do well on a time crunch, so you should not expect an Abe Lincoln Gettysburg Address. To set the expectations accordingly, you can look forward to a series of photos of Charles being cute,…
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Texas, part II: Dude, where’s our stuff?
When last we left off in Welcome to Texas, y’all, Rob and I were waiting for our furniture to arrive from Florida. Our move-in date (as scheduled) was June 3rd. As you may recall, two weeks later, on June 15th, All Movers Relocation offered to deliver half of our furniture with no specifications of how…
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Welcome to Texas, y’all
As I sit here on my balcony in 99 degree weather, with the wind gusting sporadically through the treetops and the sounds of DFW airplanes flying overhead, I can say that this is one of the last places I thought I’d ever call home. Queenstown, New Zealand? Sure. Thassos, Greece? Absolutely. Hanover, New Hampshire; Kailua,…
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Celebrating 50 Years, in style
Today my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and I wanted to dedicate a blog to them because this is such a tremendous milestone that it somehow makes me feel special by default.* *my enneagram Four couldn’t be happier Fifty years. Good God, that’s a long time. When they got married, disco was just…
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The Story of the Pork Roll (otherwise known as Sir Hamselot)
My dad is a difficult person to shop for. (Just ask the set of golf clubs he never used that mysteriously disappeared.) Sometime around the 14th flannel shirt we gave him, he finally acquiesced to my mom’s and my plea to give us a Christmas list. This year the list included ski socks and a…
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Joyful Resurrected: Reasons for Gratitude on My 32nd Birthday
In 2017 I undertook a project called The Joyfulness Project in which I blogged every day, for an entire year, my moments of gratitude. It’s been a while since I’ve taken the time to pen down my joyful moments, but last week was so full of joy that I need to spend a moment to…
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Top 12 Joyful Moments of 2017
Greetings, dear friends. As we come to a close of 2017, I wanted to keep in tradition of writing a Top New Year’s list, but instead of writing about food, or pictures, or moments, or pictures of best food moments, I’m going to keep in the spirit of that which has played the largest role…
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A Blog While Waiting at the Airport
Sorry for my blogging absence. I considered writing a belated Valentine’s Day blog (I’ve never not blogged about Valentine’s Day), but who wants to read a story about a holiday that everyone hates over a month after it happened? Not even me. So instead, I’m publishing a terrible blog about nothing for the sole purpose…
Travel & Food Writer 