My dad has Crohn’s. Worst smelling farts ever. After a couple of really bad episodes, he ended having seven feet of intestine removed, which made the disease manageable, but the poor guy will always be super skinny.

I was never one to imagine what my wedding would be like and as I got older, I realized that even if I had, there is actually someone else to think about who may have different ideas. (you know...the groom) Anyway, we planned our wedding in three months, spent $3000, and I would have skipped it all if my mother wasn’t…

I would love to. So far, he has been keeping his church plant on the down low though. I know it is happening, but he sure isn’t advertising it. Yet.

This is how they do. A pastor at one of my former churches was sexually grooming a teenager from the time she was thirteen, but didn’t pursue an intimate relationship with her until she was of age at sixteen. (of age in our state) When she finally came forward to tell the church what happened, he lied his ass off, but…

My husband was a cop for 10 years and he said that no matter what, if a woman claimed she was raped, he took her to the hospital. Some of his fellow officers would roll their eyes and he even got a talking to from his boss because they felt like it was unnecessary, but he did it anyway. He says, if they claimed it, he…

As a new ex-Christian, sometimes I need a reminder that my childhood in the church wasn’t all that horrible even though there were definitely elements of it that I think were bad or wrong. I have been so careful not to villainize the church and the people within, even in the midst of my frustration. I have actually…

My husband is constantly trying to get me to play D&D. I used to do on-line role playing and love board games so he thinks I will adore D&D, but the one time I tried to play I thought the whole thing was abysmally stupid. Sorry, sweetheart, you will have to find yourself other people to play with because I just can’t…

I recently had a conversation along these lines with my mother who insists that she tried to talk to me about sex, but that I wasn’t interested. “When was this?” I asked, because the only conversation I remember having was about girl stuff. And here’s where she gets all confusing. She tells me that that was the “sex…

These kids were 6and 8. Their parents weren’t able to help with third grade level work. Definitely different than Chemistry and Trigonometry.

I read a lot of books and I think that diversity is happening more and more. Is it in the classics? Not so much. But there are a ton that have come out recently. Here’s a few that I read recently from picture books to young adult:

I understand this. Whatever the reasons were, the thing that these parents understood was that because they were not smart enough to help their kids with their homework, they couldn’t have their kids. That’s what they told everyone and what they thoroughly believed.The mom even went and took classes at the local…

Growing up, we had a neighbor couple who had their three children removed from their home for the same reason. CPS and teachers grew “concerned” when the kids weren’t doing their homework because the parents were unable to help the older two due to intellectual disabilities. Even though these two people had…

Yes! Exactly. I like being a redhead, but now I have people squinting at my hair when I tell them that I am a redhead. Especially now that it is really short. If the sun hits it though, no one questions it. Stupid indoor lighting.

I learned it was fake...right now. Shows how realistic I thought it was. As a readhead, my hair has grown darker as I got older and I always tell people that I got the hair that Anne always wanted. Her quote I believe, “A nice handsome auburn.”

Every kid is so different, even within one family. I have a number of siblings and each of us has had to find an equilibrium with our parents. I am a phone talker, so it feels comfortable for me to phone my parents quite often just to chat and it has always been that way. For the longest time, one of my brothers had a…

I would agree, but have learned over the years that living in a big city has given me a very skewed perspective on the rest of the state where I live. A very very blue state. Every time there is an election I am always surprised by the results because I forget that most of my state is blue despite my area being red.…

I have a will that states that I want my ashes put into a biodegradable seed urn that will grow into an oak tree. My parents have some property and I want to be planted there with some kind of plaque near the tree as a headstone of sorts. I love the idea of growing into something. As I don’t actually believe in an…

This kind of thought pattern doesn’t surprise me since I grew up around a super religious mother who used to rail against the perils of yoga and eastern religion all the time. I had to quit a community theater play once because the cast gathered in a circle and hummed. Ooohhmm. My mother believed it was eastern…

I had a grandmother who was a bit of a bitch too. Once, when I was telling her about how excited I was about a possible trip to Europe she grabbed me by the arm, spun me around, and hissed, “Don’t bother dreaming dreams. Your dreams aren’t going to come true.” I never understood why she disliked me so much and loved…

When I was sixteen I had developed a full-on eating disorder for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest one being that I hated the attention I got from (usually older) men due to my overly large chest. I convinced myself that if I just lost enough weight they would get smaller as would the rest of me and then there…