Pushing on a Rope
Terri S. Vanech
A lesson for teacher, thanks to Quality Control
Three days post-vacation and it’s like I never took a break. Actually it was like that right from Monday morning. I guess that’s true for most everyone, especially these days when work and play are endlessly intertwined. Any muscles I started to relax are back to their bunched, clenched norm, and my jaw is again … Continue reading
Taking it wheel slow
It was impossible to stay away — you knew I couldn’t! Last night after dinner, after I’d loaded the dishwasher, packaged the leftovers, scrubbed the sink, and wiped down the counter tops and my new stove top, I laced up my sneakers and headed a half-mile south to the elementary school where driving lesson No. … Continue reading
Messages straight from the heart
Love is in the air here at the Vaneches. The past two days have brought two unexpected emotion-packed declarations. The first noteworthy moment happened Thursday and involved Catherine — not in the way you might think. She’d returned to ESF Camp for the end-of-summer Family Fling, two weeks after her counselor in training program ended, … Continue reading
Seeking refuge in castles made of sand
Determined to hang on to every second of our final few days of freedom, Basil and I high-tailed it to Tod’s Point today, trying to outrun the predicted afternoon storms that so far haven’t come. It’s no Jersey Shore, but the sun, sand and Long Island Sound still soothe and delight. Being a weekday, the … Continue reading
Give me a brake — Chapter 1 of Catherine’s adventures in driving
It was a big day for the Vaneches. Catherine got her learner’s permit. She balked at spending time each day studying the DMV manual, even when we were in Seaside, NJ, earlier this week, but it paid off: It’s official. Four months after turning 16, she can learn how to drive. This is how she … Continue reading
Saluting summer with sun, sand and a good laugh
In Seaside Heights, NJ, for a couple of days this week trying to exhale. It’s been good to get away (at least one friend pointed out that if we stayed at home we’d only tend to chores and errands without truly unplugging). So we unplugged, got away, ignored the technology and — gasp — actually … Continue reading
Takin’ it to the beach
I’ve been flipping through my friend Kristen’s Facebook album of photos from her trip to Ghana with the Yale Service Club, trying to imagine the stories she’ll be telling tomorrow morning at Jazzercise. It appears to have been quite an adventure — rustic living, colorful customs, audiences with both the king and a crocodile, lessons … Continue reading
Another blogger’s thoughts on international adoption and reunion
Elizabeth Foy Larsen’s Sunday Modern Love column in the New York Times, “Untying a Birth Mother’s Hands,” continues to stir comment and debate among natural mothers, adoptees and adoptive parents. There is, after all, a heaping measure of confusion, frustration, pain and other conflicting emotions for everyone involved in adoption. In “Quest for true understanding … Continue reading
Toasting our next 25 years
Today is the 25th anniversary of our first date. It was a low-key affair — a trip to the local church fair wrangled after weeks of charming me behind the hostess station at the restaurant where I worked. He made conversation, we had a running gag about his variously patterned socks, he sent me slices … Continue reading
Quest for true understanding about the pain associated with adoption
Most Sundays, the New York Times’ Modern Love column makes me smile, or cry. Today’s sent me straight to the keyboard. Elizabeth Foy Larsen’s “Untying a Birth Mother’s Hands,” gets points for having the right instinct — to connect her adopted 6-year-old daughter to her roots — but what it has in heart it lacks … Continue reading
Pushing on a Rope 