2024-03-21 18:50
This other morning, as I was hurrying my children out the door, I opened the refrigerator and a half closed jar of maraschino cherries came tumbling out, hitting a shelf on its descent and s… Read More
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Caramcduna Blog
caramcduna.com
A blog about my life and times. I have a husband, a baby and two dogs.
2024-03-06 14:38
We are, well, what are we exactly? I think that’s the first problem. Mid to late winter, with Valentine’s Day over (somehow a bright spot) and sort of, almost spring. I hesitate… Read More
2024-01-19 20:56
When I last wrote, I shared my love of resolutions. Not a surprising admission as so much of what I do in my writing is make goals and publicly share them, in the hopes that in bringing peop… Read More
2023-12-30 21:52
I’ve been trying to think of something meaningful to say as 2023 comes to an end. As I’ve written many times before, I love New Year’s. Not just the trappings of the holida… Read More
2023-12-18 19:22
My father hated it when I’d leave my brush on the kitchen counter. I get that. It’s a thing for your hair on a surface where you deal with food. For him, there were quite a few t… Read More
2023-12-02 14:38
Today I woke up feeling annoyed. I told this to J upon delivering coffee. I had put eggnog in his, a couple-of-times-per holiday season thing he enjoys, which was nice, but my immediate comp… Read More
2023-11-30 19:01
One of the actions I undertook to assuage my overwhelm this holiday season was some bold decluttering. While I know decluttering is such a catch-phrase…such a mainstay-to-the-point-of… Read More
2023-11-28 22:49
This morning I attended a 6:30 am class at a gym I’ve been going to for years. I love this place. It is always challenging, and always feels like home. I’ve been attending 8 am o… Read More
2023-11-27 16:17
I have a something to share, but it’s not a good secret, or fun gossip. It is lame enough that it makes me feel silly, but common enough that I feel in good company, and it is this: in… Read More
2023-11-04 08:22
November 3, Palermo, breakfast room at the hotel - I was standing at the coffee machine, confused, as I had been the day before, and also grateful that we had such easy access to the coffee… Read More
2023-11-03 17:51
November 2, Palermo - Today I came back to the hotel room in the late afternoon to drop off some of the things we had purchased on the quiet street my mom and I walked today, dotted with art… Read More
2023-11-03 17:33
The agriturismo in Menfi was heaven; it was what I pictured when I pictured a vacation in Sicily. I sat one morning, just after getting up, with a double espresso on the terrace overlooking… Read More
2023-11-03 07:19
November 1 - Yesterday we walked around Mazara Del Vallo, the closest point in Sicily to Africa, which includes a casbah section and the “Casa Tunisa.” We started at the ocean th… Read More
2023-11-01 07:32
October 26 - JFK-Rome-CataniaIt is obviously easier in some ways to travel solo. One thing I didn’t anticipate is how much fun I’d have observing people, with all this energy and… Read More
2023-10-23 15:58
“Travel,” my mother said to me recently over the phone, “is really one of the most important things.” I was standing, as I so often am these days, on the sidelines of… Read More
2023-10-03 19:56
I have told many people that, despite it not being in our best interests logistically speaking, J and I almost always drink a cup of coffee in bed before starting our day. Before t… Read More
2023-09-15 17:48
During our recent trip to Ireland, there was one afternoon-into-evening in the town of Dingle that stood out to me because it was such a great example of a sort of everyday kismet that marke… Read More
2023-08-30 16:44
pick out outfits for the first day of school! (do not, under any circumstances, be lulled into a false sense of security that, because you have been “doing this back to school thing fo… Read More
2023-07-26 18:31
We are midsummer. High sun, abundant thunderstorms, reaching 5 million hours of pool time. Yesterday Gabe told me he wanted to know what the plan was for the day and I pointed to the rocky c… Read More
2023-06-28 15:34
Dear Nora, We have passed a crucial threshold, one I knew was coming and pretended was not. You are away for much of the remainder of the summer and Taylor Swift will end her US tour on Augu… Read More
2023-06-19 18:30
Teachers, you are saintsI can’t express it in wordsHere’s this potted plant Missed the camp deadline!No big deal, we’ll muddle through!Feel good about this! 😐… Read More
2023-06-07 21:33
We are going to Ireland this summer. We are going to Ireland to attend one of J’s closest friend’s weddings, and we will be traveling around the country with his college crew and… Read More
2023-05-10 14:12
I was in between activities the other afternoon, which is the usual these days. I had dropped Aidy off at soccer practice on the wide, green fields behind the middle school and done a quick… Read More
2023-04-24 16:53
When my children were very little, I used to take the long way home from dinners out with friends, postponing the inevitable return to whatever awaited me at home. I wasn’t an unhappy… Read More
2023-02-03 16:17
Piggybacking off my last post, I’ve started thinking recently about various activities, and the way they make me feel; or, conversely, which activities and thoughts I tend to gravitate… Read More
2023-01-24 14:41
Our family often plays the game 20 questions while we are having dinner. Several months back the children created a new rule: “no feelings.” Not, as you might imagine, that the p… Read More
2022-12-30 13:58
Don’t answer people who are desperately calling out your name as though it is an emergency (it is not) while you are in the bathroomDon’t answer people when they tell you to &ldq&hell…Read More
2022-11-16 16:36
My recent bout with “the ivy,” as 5-year-old Aidy called COVID (“the virus”) when we were first in its initial, 2020 grips, provided me some serious downtime to watc… Read More
2022-09-21 11:23
Tuesday, 7:23 a.m. - There’s a conversation that all of us have had some version of, and it concerns the getting and spreading of COVID, and how or why we have or have not yet contract… Read More
2022-09-19 16:12
Our dog, Maisie, is six-years-old and a very good girl, although if I could pinpoint one issue, it would be a general sense of anxiety. And you can’t blame her. Part hound, part collie… Read More
2022-08-31 15:55
Day two, let’s do this!Uh oh, the teen’s not awakePoke her, run away ***School supplies, all bought!Except for a white folderWhich does not exist ***Special fun breakfast!Put you… Read More
2022-07-13 11:13
If I could sum up my relationship with my habits and schedule, I would tell you that I have some good habits, some I’d like to change and that, overall, my biggest problem is leaving t… Read More
2022-06-16 11:39
I’m a little burned out on talking about how busy life is, which is a sort of hypocrisy, I suppose. I’ve been recoiling from the insistence that we are all so overbooked, so expe… Read More
2022-05-12 11:05
A few weeks ago I began experiencing some unpleasant, although fairly mild symptoms that seemed to be related to my stomach, vague as they were. A slight queasiness, akin to the something-li… Read More
2022-05-04 15:20
In which I spent small amounts of time (ten minutes, or longer if the inspired) writing whatever came to mind. March 31: It’s been, as they say and, as nearly always is the case, a lon… Read More
2022-02-06 22:52
When I started writing this post, which was a while back in early January, it felt like the world was spinning out of control. It doesn’t anymore. But then, I felt more anxiety than I… Read More
2022-01-07 14:37
On Monday, Gabe tested positive for COVID via rapid test. He had cold symptoms, but we’d been planning on taking tests anyway following holiday travels. This wasn’t as alarming a… Read More
2021-12-15 17:24
Last week Aidy had a cold. We all know how very normal it is for a child to get a cold in December, but that right now, it is also a momentous event. She took a home test (negative) and then… Read More
2021-10-22 17:22
Last summer I was running, fell, and hurt my right hand. Because I aim for honesty in my writing - and an injury of this sort might cause you to believe I was running fast, and fell due to s… Read More
2021-09-28 16:30
That first day: I helped out as usual with the Thursday rehearsal for the elementary school production of “Seussical Jr.” that never would be, which we didn’t know at the t… Read More
2021-09-23 10:21
My 4-year-old daughter is accident-prone and absentminded, which, in youthful incarnations, are adorable qualities.I watched Nora enter her pre-K classroom recently, face-plant, then quietly… Read More
2021-08-09 14:40
I am sitting on the porch at my mother’s house in Maine, watching my children, brother and sister-in-law traverse the rocks that line the shore. I have been awake since 6 am, when I br… Read More
2021-06-21 15:12
So it goes. You buy a house, get a new bed to replace the one you’ve had since right after you graduated from college - the one with a chewed bedpost, a remnant of your former dog Ceci… Read More
2021-05-18 13:20
We set out tomorrow’s clothes, run the dishwasher and make at least part of the lunches, which we tuck lovingly into patterned lunchboxes stacked neatly in the fridge. The children put… Read More
2021-03-30 17:48
A little over year ago we got a call from the school system. That afternoon I went to pick up my children and help with the play, “Seussical Jr.” I was on the committee, in fact… Read More
2021-02-19 14:20
Dear Dad, First, a note on writing letters to dead people, which is something I’ve never even remotely considered. Silent conversations with you? All the time. But laying out actual wo… Read More
2020-11-30 17:17
I am thinking about a few things as I begin this post. I’m thinking about this one time (probably during a summer break in my college years) when my younger brother, Vinnie, and I went… Read More
2020-11-03 16:59
When I trained for the NYC marathon (the first and only marathon I will ever run), I experienced the much talked about “taper” that comes at the end of such long-distance trainin… Read More
2020-10-08 15:57
Fifteen years ago, J and I began our married life with: a wedding, naturally; an unwelcome downpour that became its own character in the story; a bunch of friends, family and mojitos; and a… Read More
2020-08-18 19:33
Is it just allergies? If I voted for in-person school does that mean I hate teachers? But how did he get it? Are we following proper “pod” rules? Is forming a “po… Read More
2020-06-18 11:03
I’ve told this story before, maybe here, maybe to you in person. My parents were visiting when Nora and Gabe were little, and one afternoon my mom offered to drive Nora to a ballet les… Read More
2020-05-13 16:52
I was talking to a friend recently who made an excellent suggestion for this…I refuse to say “uncertain time” anymore, I can’t do it. For this time. Her suggestion w… Read More
2020-04-27 20:34
Up in the finished part of our attic in a little wooden bookshelf against the wall, there are a whole bunch of books about writing. Books about journalism and essay writing; books about famo… Read More
2020-04-13 14:46
April 3#1 goal: write in the attic officegrateful for: second cup of coffee, current feeling of calm, house projects April 6grateful for: the Nespresso machine, “Homeland,” our h… Read More
2020-04-08 19:32
When this all began, what seems like a legitimate lifetime ago, I wrote a post that included a list of ways to possibly utilize this sudden free time. So many of us wrote lists like this! We… Read More
2020-03-27 20:59
As I’ve mentioned previously, I do not like the idea of keeping a journal. I do not like the word “journal” used as a verb, as in “journaling.” It’s ironi… Read More
2020-03-19 21:58
Yesterday didn’t seem like a good day. I mean, collectively. Like, for society. Besides the rising numbers of coronavirus in our country, and besides the people getting very sick and… Read More
2020-03-16 17:50
Well. What in the world. Here we are, collectively stumbling our way through this confounding and uncertain new reality. The speed at which life is changing is astonishing. Just a week ago… Read More
2020-02-24 16:45
There are a few notable markers on the timeline of my recent personal history that I think about fairly often. In November of 2016 I ran the New York City Marathon, the culmination of severa… Read More
2020-02-05 15:59
We were having this very nice weekend morning recently. I’d gone for a run, and was thinking about what we’d have for dinner (this is what I’m thinking about 95 percent of… Read More
2020-01-02 20:07
Each December, despite the lack of sleep, lack of healthy eating habits and lack of structure my family falls prey to over holiday break (on several nights I had to aggressively negotiate Ai… Read More
2019-11-29 15:15
My plan was to write these “grateful” blog posts in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, which obviously I did not. My plan was also to write about just one idea in every post… Read More
2019-11-14 19:12
One of the pieces of advice I come across quite often - now that I’m 41 and exploring self-help-type texts with openminded curiosity, admitting that this genre I once treated with unch… Read More
2019-10-30 18:08
When I carry the very full laundry bins down to the basement I am bursting with hope for a productive day. This optimism is quickly diminished when I bump up against the walls of my house … Read More
2019-10-15 15:29
When I first became a mom, one of the things I worried about a lot was imparting to J just how hard it was to take care of a baby all day. A baby who, I should mention, slept all the time. L… Read More
2019-09-23 17:25
One of the issues I’ve rediscovered while getting back into the swing of things this academic year is that while - yes - working for myself, at home, on my own schedule is an absolute… Read More
2019-08-29 18:49
This week we got the lunchboxes out, set our alarms and said goodbye to the summer of 2019 with our first walk to school of the new academic year. Nora replied with a chipper “yup&rdqu&hell…Read More
2019-06-19 15:18
Every year around this time, I make what I always believe is an excellent decision: to leave the first few days (or more!) of summer break gloriously unstructured, so that the kids can enjo… Read More
2019-06-07 13:39
In years past, as the days get hotter, I get excited about grilling all sorts of adventurous things (and then usually don’t), bedtimes extend until the sun sets later and later and we… Read More
2019-05-22 17:02
A few weeks ago I decided to do something that was a not particularly great idea, and that was take my two youngest children - Gabe who is 8, and Aidy who is 4 - to the grocery store around… Read More
2019-03-28 17:46
I went to Mexico for a week in February without my husband or children. While you take a moment to stop and wonder at this, I’ll point out my good fortune in being able to do so: the v… Read More
2019-02-04 19:01
Several weeks ago, J and I were lying in bed on a weekday morning drinking coffee. This - having coffee in bed before the reality of the daily circus set in - is a thing we used to do on occ… Read More
2018-12-31 13:53
In a few days I’ll turn 41. While turning 40 was, obviously, a notable deal (and something I wrote about a few times in the past 12 months, most recently here) 41 seems an absolute non… Read More
2018-12-20 15:59
My children are going to Sunday School this year, a fact that troubles me on multiple levels. Most notable are my problems with the Catholic Church, the church I was raised in, casually at l… Read More
2018-11-27 16:18
My father was a lover of things. Marie Kondo would have been appalled at his habit of lining the bookshelves with knick-knacks, like his collection of pocket knives, and littering his bedsid… Read More
2018-11-13 01:24
There was no school for the older two due to Veteran’s Day, so we had “brunch,” not to be fancy but because everyone was hungry mid-morning. We went to Atticus, a restauran… Read More
2018-11-12 01:40
2018-11-08 16:46
Today I learned, like all of you, that there has been another mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, California. This made my heart hurt. It made my stomach bottom out and quickly changed my outloo… Read More
2018-11-07 02:47
I’m coping by: drinking this martini texting all my friends every five seconds or so asking my children if they are nervous? and having them ask me back why I keep asking them that? an… Read More
2018-11-05 11:32
This month I’ve decided to write one new blog post a day in an efort to replicate the “NaNoWriMo” novel-writing project, only I’m not good at fiction so my pledge is… Read More
2018-11-03 22:10
A few weeks ago - I think around the time that the Kavanaugh hearings were going on - I retreated to our basement where I knew we kept lighter mysteries and paperback bestsellers. I wanted t… Read More
2018-11-02 16:33
I’m not totally comfortable with my feelings when it comes to “This Is Us,” the NBC tearjerker about the beautifully complicated Pearson family. I like watching it. Ok, fin… Read More
2018-11-01 18:16
Gabriel’s birth was called a VBAC, which stands for “vaginal birth after caesarean,” aka Nora didn’t come out the way we anticipated and Gabe sort of did, aka if I we… Read More
2018-10-24 18:35
When I was in my mid-twenties I had several concerning but not alarming incidences when I would wake up in the middle of the night with my heart beating rapidly. Not the kind of rapidly you… Read More
2018-09-25 18:44
Dear Nora, No doubt by now you’ve gotten the picture: double digits is a big deal. It’s arbitrary, really, and I know you didn’t feel markedly different between your last n… Read More
2018-09-12 17:06
A couple nights ago, because he agreed to marry me and will therefore be victim of my unanticipated proclamations forever and ever - get used to it buddy, although I’m sure you probabl… Read More
2018-05-22 18:13
When I was in college, I was an English major, philosophy minor. First of all, I know, way to make a splash in the job market, right? My business major friends thought this course of study w… Read More
2018-04-06 19:17
Next week, barring any major catastrophes or nervous breakdowns, both of which are possibilities, we will be moving from the house we moved into almost exactly ten years ago in New Haven, to… Read More
2018-03-13 13:49
This year I have readopted a title I'm very familiar with: freelance writer. I've done this before a few times in my life - not had another job while solely freelancing - and while it is "in… Read More
2018-02-23 12:47
The other day we were chatting after finishing part of the multi-faceted drive we've undertaken for this year's Presidents' Day/February vacation: from New Haven to Chapel Hill to reuni… Read More
2018-02-13 17:10
On January 5, while dealing with our chaotic daily routine, receiving loving well-wishes from near and far, opening cards that contained jokes about how old I was and eating a cake that had… Read More
2017-12-27 14:18
A few weeks ago I ran the Christopher Martin's Christmas Run for Children, an annual 5K in New Haven. The event raises money and collects toys for local families in need, which is wonderful… Read More
2017-12-08 23:12
I am pretty sure they are supposed to collapse into flat puddles like this immediately upon being placed in the oven. Good job!… Read More
2017-09-25 17:54
My father died on June 26, 2017, one hour into his 78th birthday. I have had a strange, comical urge when asked "How was your summer?" by people who don't know, to answer, "Fine! My dad died… Read More
2017-08-31 17:35
About ten years ago, on a weekend visit to New Haven in advance of J starting his post-doc in microbiology at Yale, he took me to Anchor Bar, a classic establishment in a city I didn't… Read More
2017-08-16 20:53
It has been a little too eventful of a summer for me personally to write anything very emotional or specific just yet. Also, the past few days have been so politically charged that it seems… Read More
2017-06-07 17:08
Last year, one of the goals I made was to "try a new recipe every month." I was sort of successful, the excitement dying off by about March. So, come to think of it, I wasn't very successful… Read More
2017-06-04 16:37
there should be a Valium dispenser in Costcothere should be a special device in my home that helps get peanut butter off utensils because the dishwasher cannot handle what we are imposing up… Read More
2017-05-22 18:30
Listen. I, like you - like everybody probably - finds it really annoying when people talk about running all the time. So, I apologize. But at least I am not telling you my dreams!… Read More
2017-05-18 22:45
One of the the things I've mentioned on this blog and in other writing and, if I know you, a lot in conversation, is that Gabriel can be kind diffcult to deal with. It started shor… Read More
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