Life Out Loud

Life Out Loud: Parenting performance review

In the coming weeks, numerous graduates will stroll, stomp, or perhaps cartwheel across the stage (things are getting so fancy now) to accept their diploma. Still others will sign with various institutions for academics or athletics. In most cases, they will give a speech, be it on stage or a patch of grass in their [...]

0 Comments

Life Out Loud: Winners, losers and eighth place

Blue for first, red for second, third is white, fourth is yellow and fifth is green. By the time they blow past the primary colors and into the decorator shades of award ribbons, it’s fair to say you probably didn’t exactly excel at whatever it is that you’ve done. Burgundy may, in fact, be the [...]

0 Comments

My kids are dating? Game on

There’s a thin line between insanity and coping with your daughter dating. Our son is 16 and has begun to date a sweet and lovely young lady that we all like very much. With that, I’ve already said too much. Our daughter is 14 and slated to begin high school in the fall. We have [...]

0 Comments

These weighty issues

I am currently having an argument with my thighs. They didn’t use to irritate me, but lately, they’ve been on my last nerve. I recently came to the conclusion that, contrary to my popular belief, everyone I know had not stealthily outfitted their cameras with a wide-angle and extra chin lens just for me. Nor [...]

0 Comments

A practical addiction

For nearly a century, East Liverpool dominated the United States pottery industry … During its peak production years (1865-1910), East Liverpool’s potteries produced and sold the majority of America’s crockery … — The Pottery Capital of America, Ohio Historical Society I live within an easy driving distance of the Pottery Capital of America. Like most [...]

0 Comments

The secret to my success

I never tied my mother’s sheer curtains under my chin and paraded down the stairs playing “bride.” I didn’t plan Barbie’s wedding to Ken. I was too busy rearranging the furniture in Barbie’s Dream House to fish Ken out from the nest of dust bunnies he’d been exiled to under the bed. I never once [...]

0 Comments

Helicopter parents who hover, smother

When they are toddlers, we stand within eye and earshot pretty much all of the time. We walk around with our arms outstretched and our hearts on our sleeves. We cushion bumps and catch their falls. Protecting our children from harm is job one.  As our children age, it can be tough to know when [...]

0 Comments

Baby, you can drive my car

Proving once again you can’t trust the government, our fair state has decided my son is old enough to drive. This, of course, is crazy talk. Obviously they just don’t understand just last week we were driving home with him (brand new) in his infant car seat (also new) at a blistering 25 mph because [...]

0 Comments

The unbearable silence of too clean

Every parent knows that silence in small children is not necessarily golden. In households with young children, too much quiet is an instant alert to go investigate immediately. The briefest lull once prompted me to scrutinize my very young son’s whereabouts only to find my toddler, and an entire doorframe, covered in black permanent marker. [...]

0 Comments

It’s all a wash (and we can eat off one of my son’s socks)

The home remodeling continues: Puzzling over LEDs and spin cycles.

0 Comments

I really am lucky to ‘get to’ be so stressed

When you really get down to it, life is made up not of what you “have” to do but what you “get” to do — and that makes all the difference.

0 Comments

You light up my life

When Mr. Wonderful came home and lit a candle before we sat down to eat, I was noticeably touched. Such a romantic! Scratch that. False alarm. He was looking for a breeze again. Off Being married to the man who considers it his life’s work to hold on to every last bit of energy our [...]

0 Comments

Draft dodgers

“I’m excited about insulation.”Who says that?I do. I uttered that very sentence the other night as we were preparing for bed. I have spent enough years with Mr. Wonderful to know that sentence is akin to whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Over the years we have tried to find every last nook, cranny, and [...]

0 Comments

Renovation junkie

Recently I wrote a series of columns detailing our upstairs bathroom renovation. It was a long and painful process (the bathroom — not the writing. The writing came easy. A toilet on the lawn is always good for a paragraph, or six.) The entire process took six weeks of nights and weekends, including the Thanksgiving [...]

0 Comments

Smoke gets in her eyes

It is, I realize, completely self-absorbed to complain about the myriad ways Mother Nature tried to kick my behind last week in the midst of the terrible blizzard, Nemo. Fortunately, I have never shied away from a certain amount of navel gazing. Thus, I am more than willing to go on and on about my [...]

0 Comments

Dress for success

You are what you wear. Our whole lives most of us who live out of uniform — and arguably those who DO — spend our days focusing on our clothing and what it says about us. From the onset, the question of gender of a coming blessed event and whether the baby is a boy [...]

0 Comments

Turning 40 isn’t as bad as they say

Much press and sitcom angst is given to turning 30. Popular expression would have us believe turning 30 is the social and personal equivalent of having one foot in the grave, your best years behind you, and no hope of ever looking cute again. To this I say, drivel. Stages. While my 20s were a [...]

0 Comments

Live and learn

If my kids complain about homework — “We aren’t ever going to need to know this in real life!” — I have three words for them: Dewey Decimal System. I remember standing at the card catalog, sweaty palm clasping the nub of a golf pencil and a piece of scrap paper that still smelled faintly [...]

2 Comments

In with the new, out with the old

I don’t generally pen “how to” columns. “How to be a dork like me” is not a life lesson that is much in demand, generally speaking. Then one day I realized I was living a lie. I maintain a fresh and clean home and pose as if I am a very tidy person. Actually, we [...]

0 Comments

Storm warning

I don’t think there has ever been a doubt I don’t have the ability to take care of myself, but now it’s official: in case of emergency I will die. During the last big storm/possible power outage scare, I finally felt a responsible adult would probably figure out what it is everyone stocks up on [...]

0 Comments
1 2 3 … 29

Get our Top Stories in Your Inbox

View the Recent Newsletter

Similar to Life Out Loud

About Farm and Dairy Newspaper

Company Links

Toll-Free 800-837-3419

Local 330-337-3419

Social

4 Information Packed Sections!

Farm and Dairy Cover Section

Farm and Agriculture News, Local Market Prices and Crop Reports, Columns and Commentary.

Weekly Auction Guide

Hundreds of Auction Advertisements for Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Antique Collector

Featuring Specialty Antique Auctions, Stores and Shows

Rural Marketplace

Hundreds of Classifieds, Autos & Real Estate Listings

Get Farm and Dairy Delivered to Your Home

52 Issues as low as $27.50 or 104 Issues for only $59.50
Secure Online Ordering

the Farm and Dairy family

Farm and Dairy
Social Silo
Shale Gas Reporter
Lyle Printing
Proudly Produced in Salem, Ohio