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In 2014, I wrote a piece called Walk With Grace and Other Shit to Say to Your Kids.  It was a list of phrases my husband and I use in situations that can sometimes leave you frazzled.  My husband and I say these phrases because we have thought about them.  They reflect a message we […]

I am in grad school now and I love everything about it.  Well, almost everything… There is a part of academia that just really loves itself.  It loves creating a scholarly tribe where the price of admission is knowledge, and the unspoken wage is a feeling of superiority (over those who do not yet know). Of […]

I was at a party the other night and someone started talking about my birthday.  It was me. I am that someone. I love talking about my birthday and I love having birthdays and I love people singing to me and I love cake. There. I said it. It is not keto and it is […]

The last month has been so packed with feels I am a little numb. We had our re-wedding with our closest favorites gathered, reminding us that we don’t see enough of any of them. We got to hang out, laugh, dance, sing, cook and talk talk talk – but then we had to say goodbye […]

Last week I wrote about what happens when boys torment girls, and I asked that we all think about a different response… for the girls. And there it is.  Even I, the great and powerful Oz, er, Karen Mangiacotti, over-thinker of all things gender, watchdog of injustices toward women, everly mindful feminist – put the […]

I have seen a number of articles recently claiming that when boys tease and become physically aggressive with girls, it is because the boy likely has a crush on the girl.  These articles say that we are setting girls up to equate love with abuse. We are romanticizing these interactions and victim-blaming the girl in […]

As you know, my husband and I renew our marriage every 5 years. This marriage may just be my favorite one ever.  Time brings a closeness that, as it turns out, is a pretty good thing. So, I thought I would tell the story for this week’s blog – because the story is long and […]

This week I will marry my husband, again. As we do every five years. As I hope to do for a long, long time. We do this as a way to check in with each other about the big stuff. We, like most parents, are in a constant state of checking in about the small […]

This Father’s Day, thanks to a Budweiser commercial honoring stepfathers that made me blotchy-red-face-snotty-nose cry when I saw it (and is still making me cry as I write this), I am thinking about stepfathers. The commercial features grown children acknowledging what amazing step fathers they have and asking their stepdads to be officially adopt them. […]

In a recent assignment for my Instructional Design course, I had to create a short video showing a well-known proverb (without telling you what it is). Can you guess what proverb this video represents?   Tell your friends…