You ask: You know, you write two blogs…and you have a busy life, and sometimes you sound a little overwhelmed. I love your blogs, both of them; would it be a terrible thing to combine the two? (and hey, it would be easier for ME to “read all about it” in one place…I’m just saying…)

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I tell: I used to have only one blog, but for awhile, I was a paid blogger for ClubMom.com. That’s when I started the diet blog. When ClubMom.com discontinued its blogging program (along with almost everything else), I moved the diet blog to its own domain. I kind of like keeping my diet self separate from my main self. So, sorry, you’ll just have to go on clicking twice, I guess. (I think a lot of the diet blog readers don’t read this blog, for what it’s worth.)

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You ask: What three recently released movies would you recommend? Who are your favorite authors?

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I tell: “The Secret Life of Bees,” “Changeling” and . . . uh, I’ll have to get back to you on that. I’m looking forward to “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” I also wanted to see “The Duchess” but it didn’t open in wide release, alas.

Favorite authors: Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Berg, Anne Tyler, Jane Smiley, Jane Hamilton, Annie Dillard, Anne Lamott, Madeleine L’Engle, P.D. James, Mark Helprin . . . oh, and so many more. I am also on a Dean Koontz “Odd Thomas” kick. I tend to like reading everything an author has written, one after the other, though that isn’t always possible.

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You ask: You, like me, have big kids and little kids. Do you ever feel guilty about the attention the little kids get and need while the big kids seemingly languish in their bedroom listening to music, even though it is by their own choice (or dare I say command)?

I tell: There’s no shortage of Mommy Guilt around here. I actually wish that my little kids AND my big kids could have more undivided attention. The big kids can’t remember being the “only” kids . . . and little kids have always competed in a crowd. I hate that the big kids don’t want to do things “with the family” anymore. They’ve always been homebodies anyway and now, when given the chance, they’d rather stay home than do things like going to the fair.

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You ask: What is it you do for a living. You talk about working all the time, but not about what you actually do.

I tell: I work for a very large website that caters to moms. I’m a Community Moderator, working behind the scenes. I work forty hours a week, split shifts, so a normal day has me working from noon to five p.m., then from 9 p.m. to midnight.

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That’s all for tonight, folks!

You asked:  how long have you been married? i think that is you and your husband in the top right pic, am i right? are the kids in the pics at the top yours?? and how many do you have exactly?

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I’ve been married for 21 years, 3 months and 24 days.

The picture at the top is my husband and me before we were married.  The other pictures are of the children, but not recently.   I have four kids, twin boys (15), boy (10) and girl (6).  The twin boys are adopted.  The others are not.

And that concludes this episode of ask and tell.

I’ve been sitting here for a solid ten minutes, wondering if I have anything to say.  I don’t.  Well, I do, but I can’t.

That’s where you come in.  Do you have any questions?  Ask.  I may answer.   I hope you are more creative than I am.

This blog is going down the tubes, and fast.

My son spent quite some time constructing a fake miniature golf course with all the blocks and train tracks.  When he finally finished, he announced with a flourish, “Behold, my super cool maze of awesomeness!”

And from the kitchen, where I stood with my hands in dishwater, a thought nearly felled me:  I’m going to miss that kid.  Even as I type those words, the thought of this boy grown and gone from my house brings tears to my eyes.

Because as surely as a gray hair coils from the part in my hair, he is going to turn eleven and then twenty and before I know it, he’ll be graduating from college and moving all his Calvin and Hobbs books to an apartment.  I’m going to miss his sunny disposition, his hilarious comments on life, his cheery boyhood.

I’m going to miss that kid.  If I could, I’d freeze-dry him, but I doubt he’d be as funny and cute dehydrated and tucked away in a Zip-loc bag.  So I’ll just have to miss him.  (But I think I’ll try to miss him after he’s gone instead of now.)

For the record, I am still not cool even though I now attend a cool church.  Also, I just reread Blue Like Jazz and liked it even more this time around.

I can’t quite decide if I am lazy, overwhelmed or depressed. Or maybe a delicious concoction of all three, with a healthy dollop of exhaustion mixed in. I’m in this constant state of dragging myself along, making myself do things that do not appeal to me. For instance, I love to walk, but lately, I force myself onto the trail, tricking myself into wearing the shoes by promising myself that I do not actually have to walk. And then I have on the shoes and I drive to the trail and I really can’t do anything but walk.

I know that laundry is piled high in the laundry room again, yet I am procrastinating. I don’t want to do it. My head’s ached today with a pesky headache, so maybe that’s why I cannot imagine rounding up enough energy to download photos from the weekend so I can illustrate my blogs. What I want to do is find Zach’s Halloween bucket and eat all the Snickers out of it. Alas, I cannot do that because he carefully cataloged all his candy on a piece of college-ruled notebook paper. (His stash was 109 pieces of candy, just so you know.)

Halloween trick-or-treating on Friday night ended up being a stress-free and delightful as one can imagine. The rain stopped, a gentle fog rolled in, the temperature was mild. We joined our neighbors, so while the children sprinted from house to house, my friend and I chatted. The neighborhood was full of wandering groups of adults and children, unlike many of our previous Halloweens. It was fun.

Saturday found us at Zach’s last football game of the season. (They lost.) We followed that up with a visit to our town’s museum and the much-loved Wagon Shop where the kids climbed into old buggies and used grindstones to sharpen tools. I purchased each of them an instantly-regrettable kazoo. OH THE NOISE.

Last night, my husband took me out on a date to celebrate our 7,777th day of marriage. He also presented me with seven roses, seven chocolates, seven love songs on CD and a gift-card for seven movies. I know! How did I get so lucky to be married to such a guy? I don’t know, but I am grateful every day for having him for my husband.

Today, we went to church at Mars Hill. I was disappointed that Mark Driscoll wasn’t there today–the other pastors who speak are just not as compelling as Mark. (I am sure they are fine human beings and have excellent people skills . . . but I am not an auditory learner and only the very best communicators capture my attention. Alas.) After church, our traditional lunch at Dick’s Drive-In.

And then an hour long drive home through blinding rain. While my husband was dealing with the stress of the driving conditions, I was reading. I’m almost finished with Sue Monk Kidd’s When the Heart Waits. (She authored The Secret Life of Bees.) She is an exceptional writer. (A few days earlier, I read Amy Grant’s