As a writer and an editor, I’ve had a varied career that’s constantly in flux. I normally find myself changing jobs (or having to change jobs) every five years or less, sometimes not knowing what my next step will be. I’ve written for community newspapers, websites, blogs, magazines, The Wall Street Journal, local businesses and even Soap Opera Digest, where I was a reporter and later a copy editor. My career has been an interesting one, one that has taken me to TV sets to interview actors and has gotten me in radio and television interviews. But, my career has been anything but stable – say…

As a mom of two third-grade daughters, I am increasingly grateful for the time that I, as a mom who freelances from home, is able to devote to supervising her kids’ homework. It seems that as my children get older, the time that’s needed from me to be around for my daughters to answer any questions they may have, to track homework due dates and to keep them on track for longer projects, grows. In reading about the subject online on websites like alphamom and parents.com, I've found that  the issue of just how involved one should get with kids' homework is an issue with which parents often…

In the next week or so, I plan to paint the study nook that I have planned for my daughters. I have successfully dismantled the gigantic, heavy desk that once sat in the space, and just last week, I went to a local paint store (that was having a sale) and bought a can of paint in the light shade of green that my kids picked out. I plan to get two inexpensive desks from Wal-Mart  (in my daughters’  favorite colors, pink and blue) and put up a brightly colored wall decal (on the wall behind the desk) that my daughters picked out. But this time when I paint, I plan to do it right. Back when I …

Last weekend, my daughters’ soccer team played two soccer games and lost two soccer games. When the second of the weekend’s games concluded, one of my daughters said, “I knew we were going to lose.” That’s most likely because out of the team’s first three games, our team has lost all three games. But that’s not for lack of skill or effort. My daughters’ coaches have the philosophy that all kids on the team should play, learn the basics of soccer and have fun. That philosophy means that the coaches, like many of the coaches in my daughters’ league, don’t just play the top few players most of …

When my husband and I bought our house years ago, all that stood on our block were trees filled with birds. I liked the quiet and thought it would be a wonderful place to live. Once our house and our neighbors’ homes were built, many of those trees were gone, and I saw how close our home is to the schoolyard behind us, offering us little privacy. That schoolyard (which was set more back from us before) became even closer to our house when a new classroom wing was added to the school behind our house. Children play in that schoolyard both during the day and in the evening after school, so …

The other day, I flicked on the upstairs hall light in my home, only to have the light bulb immediately burn out in a flash of light. I was confused, since I had only changed out the light bulb a few days before. On further inspection, I discovered that I had inserted a 75-watt light bulb in a maximum 40-watt, builder-grade fixture. Apparently, I didn’t see the caution sticker in the cheap fixture, which sells for less than $6 at Home Depot. The risk of putting a bulb of too high wattage in a fixture is that it could cause an electrical fire, and could also damage the wiring in the fixture. …

If you were to take a look at my home’s front garden bed, you will find a weedy mess. That’s because in amongst the roses that I love are a variety of weeds that are growing happily, thanks to the frequent watering that I give my rose bushes. So now, I have quite a job before me, as I need to dig out a lot of very well-established weeds. So, next year, I plan to make my life easier. After consulting some gardening books, I have decided to take these actions to minimize the work I will have to do next year to keep my flowers looking pretty: Apply mulch just after my tulips stop blooming in the…

After a two-year struggle with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, my husband and I finally have a new title for an old car that has been sitting in our garage for six years. The car belonged to my mother in law, who lived with us before passing away in 2005. We found it hard to deal with her sudden passing, so it wasn’t until 2009 that I tried to get rid of her car, which sat in our garage unusable (since we didn’t renew the insurance or registration, not to mention that the battery died) for years. The person who served as the executor of her will is a New York City-based lawyer that …

In past school years, the tradition at my house has been that when my elementary-aged school kids get home, they immediately go to the kitchen table and complete their homework. Which is great, but sometimes I wish that they could have their own study space. That’s because our kitchen table often gets covered with a mess of books, pencils, paper and rulers, etc., that must be cleared off before I can set the table for dinner. Also, there was a time in the past when a magic marker the kids used permanently stained our wooden kitchen table. While trying to remove the stain, I accidentally …

As the new school year begins, I am wondering as I have in years past about whether I should insist on making more of my daughters’ school lunches. I let them purchase their lunch most days at school, but am disheartened to see that what they wind up eating is mostly unhealthy things like chicken nuggets, hamburgers and mac and cheese. Of course, my daughters love buying lunch. I guess they are still at an age where that kind of food is very appetizing and fun to eat. So, if I start insisting that they bring in a lunch more often, I would have to make their lunches more appealing to them – …

There’s no motivation like an approaching hurricane. My husband and I haven’t been able to park our minivan in the garage for years. For months, I intended to empty out the garage to create some storage and parking space, but never seemed to have the time. Well, on Friday, I somehow found the time. With foreboding forecasts about Hurricane Irene, I desperately wanted to park the van in the garage. So, I put in some backbreaking labor, and about two hours later, our van was in the garage. I got the van in by transferring our lawn mover, snowblower and other outdoor equipment and lawn supplies…

Now that the summer is nearly over, I am compiling a list of chores to do around the house when the kids go back to school. I am hoping to arrange my work schedule so I will have a few hours here and there during the day to get much needed projects done around the house. A major project I would like to get done is to stain or paint the pressure-treated wooden floor of the brand-new shed that my husband and I had installed in our yard last summer. (We waited a few months before staining or painting the floor on the advice of our handyman, but then our busy schedules got in the way of getting …

To prep for the recent hurricane, I recently emptied out one-half of my home’s very crowded garage. I relocated many things to our backyard shed, including mowers, bikes, seed and fertilizer, and a variety of garden tools. But now that the hurricane has past, I’d like to move some of the stuff back to the garage, since it’s almost impossible now to get around our shed. And while I can get our minivan into the garage now, it is still a rather tight squeeze. So, I figure that some garage organization is in order. With the exception of a set of plastic shelves in one corner of our garage, there …

With Hurricane Irene on its way with fierce winds and rain (the storm is expected to hit our area Sunday), I am planning to stock my house and pantry with essentials, should we be stranded at home over the weekend, or should our home lose power. Along with batteries and bottled water, I intend to load up my fridge and shelves with necessities to get us through the weekend. I’ve planned a few meals centered around low-cost or non-refrigerated items, should our fridge lose power. (So, I won’t be stocking our fridge with expensive cuts of meat for the weekend.) For the menu, I’ve planned meals …

Drawn in by circulars advertising low prices for back-to-school shopping, I recently purchased back-to-school items for my two daughters. On my list were composition books for 40 cents and discounted blue sticks from Target. The items are among the supplies that my daughters will need when they return to elementary school this fall. For parents looking to prep for the upcoming school year, stores like Target have school district-suggested shopping lists on hand for their customers in the stores’ school supply sections. Parents of East Brunswick can download lists of supplies the schools …

Last week, my family got together with some family friends to watch the Japanese animated movie, “Spirited Away.”  Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli, the movie, which was the highest grossing film in Japanese history, is a beautiful tale about a 10-year-old girl who gets lost in a world of spirits while making the move to a new home. When her parents are turned into pigs by a powerful witch, it is up to her to save them with the help of a boy spirit, a river spirit. My daughters are both eight and our friends’ daughters are seven and four, and all four of the girls …

When I was a kid, I simply learned how to swim by spending lots of time in pools and lakes with my friends and family. It was only when I was a teen and already knew how to swim that I took formal swimming lessons, and that was to perfect my strokes. Now that my daughters are 8, I am wondering if I should enroll them in swimming lessons. They took lessons when they were 4, but the pool was so deep for them and the water so cold, that they barely learned anything. My daughters started out this summer with rudimentary swimming skills, swimming only a little under water and doing a pseudo doggie…

A few weekends ago, my daughters and I were on a nature trail when one of my daughters got stung by a bee. She started shrieking and crying, and when we pulled the stinger out, she was still crying and in pain. I quickly dug into my purse, and was very disappointed to only find a pack of Band-Aids. I called my daughters’ doctor, and was told that Tylenol and an antihistamine could reduce her pain. I also worried that she could have a reaction to the bee sting, since my husband and I have many allergies. Of course, I didn’t have any allergy medicine or kids’ pain relievers with me, and had to …

Early one morning this week (at about 2 a.m.), I finished reading my first book on my new Kindle, the electronic reading device from Amazon.com. I received the Kindle as a gift on Mother’s Day, and have been in love with it ever since. My first download for the Kindle was “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett. The book explores the lives and relationships between Southern black domestic maids and their Southern white female employers. The book was totally engrossing and completely immersed me in the lives of the story’s three narrators, maids Aibileen and Minny, and aspiring journalist, “Skeeter.” I…

My family and I just returned from a family vacation to Washington, D.C. We stayed three nights and four days and had a wonderful time for less than $1,000 — we drove down by car and found a good hotel package through AAA. We stayed at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, which is located about three blocks from the National Zoo and about two blocks from a metro station. Even better, the hotel has a great outdoor pool which is open to 10 p.m. each night, so we spent our evenings swimming in the pool. During our trip, we discovered that visiting our nation’s capital makes for a great family trip — my kids…