When Jessica is with her father

It is turning colder here, and we’ve already had our first fire and roasted s’mores. I am thinking of my summer vacation, which was, to say the least, a curious one. But time smooths out the weird parts and I get to keep the good stuff.

The first one comes in the fall of Jessica’s junior year, a letter from the admissions office of Kansas State University. I don’t immediately recognize what it is. Once I do, for a moment hope flaps its vain and tinsel wings. Maybe it’s true. Maybe my daughter can go to college, and get a great…

So the other day I got an unexpected check in the mail, and I went out and squandered it on a food processor and a Dustbuster. The nineteen-year-old who still lives in my brain was appalled that this is what I would do with a hundred bucks because she would have bought some great shoes…

It’s that time of year when people start dreading the holidays and the gift giving and start bitching about all the stress they’re under and how we’ve all forgotten the meaning of Christmas anyway, so if they express a Grinch-like attitude, who can blame them? Though I am not religious, I love Christmas. I don’t…

When you’re trying to solve a problem, you have to ask the right question. For the 100 choices list I posted yesterday, I began by thinking about how all of us could probably use a few extra bucks about now. I posed the problem this way: How can I make money this year as a…