Get On Board With Hardwood Floors: An Ode To Living On Real Wood
A few years back I had a job working for a company that flipped houses. Basically that means my boss would buy fixer-uppers, send his guys in to re-model the whole joint, and then turn around and sell...
View ArticleUltimate Marriage Wisdom: A List Of Bullet Points For Your Fridge
I have been married eight years next week. That’s not too shabby, really. Especially when you consider that in all of that time I have only really been “officially” kicked out of the house for one...
View ArticleThese Arms That Open Out To Grab A Hold Of Anything
The first line of the first song on the first album that Serge released with his former band, Marah, occurs to me a lot. These arms that open out to grab a hold of anything… I wrote about it in the...
View ArticleFunny, Stupid or Brave?
Serge and I have had an argumentative couple of days. Mostly because he’s an insensitive jerkface, according to moi. Of course, his story would be drastically different. In fact, his side can be summed...
View ArticleRock-n-Roll Dreams: What’s It Really Like To Be In A Band???
Maybe you languish at your desk in those dull mid-afternoon hours, slugging at your cup of office coffee, staring out across the parking lot at the horizon. Perhaps you finally get your kids down for...
View ArticleDust and Pride: The Pros & Cons of Hardwood Floor Restoration (PART 1 of 2)
Hardwood floors scare the crap out of most people. Not in the aesthetic sense of course, everyone knows that they look fantastic (and they hardly ever bite or anything like that). But when it comes to...
View ArticleSaturday Night Special: The Raw, Uncensored Bedroom Tape That NO ONE Was...
It is not easy to write this. I’m actually crying on my keyboard, big drops of brain rain from my head plopping down onto the letters before me. XXX See!? That was three fat teardrops in a row landing...
View ArticleNo More Tattoos and No More Bacon!!!: 10 Surprising Things That the Bible...
What if the Bible had little tests in it, put there by God himself, to see how smart we were? Think about it. I mean, if you were the CEO of one of the biggest publishing houses in the galaxy, and you...
View ArticleDust and Pride: The Pros & Cons of Hardwood Floor Restoration (PART 2 of 2)
This is PART 2 of a two-part article. You can read Part 1 here. So, you’re still thinking that you might just be able to refinish your hardwood floors on your own, after all? Of course, you can! In...
View ArticleTop 20 Halloween Costumes For Couples
Every year I tell myself I’m going to go all out for Halloween, and I ain’t talking about the kids. I’m talking, months of costume planning and then I will go to parties with Serge and we will be...
View ArticleLunch at the End of the World: On Traveling, Eating, and Daydreaming
I’ve always thought that eventually, through some strange twist of fate and no little amount of luck, I was going to push myself away from some table somewhere some night, lean back on the rear legs of...
View ArticleDancing In The Kitchen Light: The Truth About ‘Love Affairs’
A lot of people hear the term ‘love affair’ and they start thinking about scenes from a fairy tale, about balconies and boomboxes playing ‘In Your Eyes’. But, the truth of the matter is that there is a...
View Article‘The Reading Corner’: How a Small Rug Became a Local Legend
If you ever happened to be over at our place and my daughter Violet snags you to come read some Clifford the Big Red Dog or some Yertle The Turtle to her, chances are you will end up sitting your butt...
View Article20 Spectacularly Spooky, Clever and Just Plain Insane Halloween Yards
Every day I drive past this one house in my neighborhood that has a bunch of tiny ghosts dancing in a circle on the front lawn. It looks fantastic. Ghosts are spooky, but kid ghosts are even creepier....
View ArticleThe Stir Fry Two-Step: Lessons Learned from a Slippery Kitchen Floor
I like cooking because I like eating, and I like eating because I like living, but until recently I thought that maybe, just maybe, that whole circle of innocent love was gonna get me killed. See, a...
View ArticleLove & Marriage: Is There Really Such a Thing as ‘Meant To Be’? (PHOTOS)
This isn’t easy to write. But, I’ve been thinking pretty hard lately about that phrase ‘meant to be’, you know, and after some careful consideration, I’m not all that sure that me and my wife Monica...
View Article11 Tips For REAL Black Friday Shopping Success(PHOTOS)
Dear Wife, Some people love Black Friday. They bask in the anticipation of the thing, their very souls clawing at the ribs caging them in. Like tigers hungry for the sort of meat they have been denied...
View ArticleKiss The Cook
If pressed I would probably admit to you that Serge does the lion’s share of the cooking around our house. Which, well, he’s the lion so that would be appropriate, yes? I, the lioness, don’t enjoy...
View ArticleA History Of Hair: Do You Do Your Do To Please Your Mate?
Okay fine, I admit it. Cutting off my hair was a mistake. I knew it was bad news the second I did it. Hell, I knew it was a mistake before I did it. I mean, come one. Cutting bangs in 2009 threw me...
View ArticleSpaceships,Tinsel, & Four ‘AA’ Batteries: A Grown-Up Kid’s Christmas Memory
Christmas, 1977 or so. I remember waiting at the top of the steps in a ‘Crouching Tiger’, ready-to-pounce, squatting position next to my little brother, who was more or less in the same boat as me. We...
View ArticleCouple Announces Break-Up With A Song, Posts Vid To YouTube (Video)
If Serge and I ever divorced, aside from telling our kids, the hardest part would be breaking the news to family and friends. Most of the time it seems that the friends have to choose which person...
View ArticleWill Our Kids Be Glad They Grew Up On Camera? (VIDEO)
Yesterdays tend to clog up our ‘sappy filters’ way more than tomorrows. It makes sense, too. We recall certain smells, certain Saturday morning cartoons and eating our Eggos on the carpet in front of...
View ArticleWe Wish You An Awkward Christmas
Dear Loved Ones, Hope this letter finds you as full up of holiday spirits as we are. Wow. What a year! First, Serge accepted a new position at Goldman Sachs, which, in case you don’t know, is a Fortune...
View ArticleTragedy, Triumph and Scandal: Top Parenting Stories of 2012
In between reading about how French parents do it so much better or how we aren’t mom enough if we aren’t breastfeeding our toddlers, it’s been a difficult year for moms and dads. From the nanny...
View ArticleSex, Love, and Divorce: The Top 15 Couples Moments of 2012
Every January 1st, as we welcome the next year with a steaming headache and eyeballs that hurt even when we think about them, we are each faced with the impossible task of trying to predict for our own...
View Article2012 In Photos: You Don’t Need A Photographer or An Expensive Camera to Snap...
Most people above a certain age don’t have a ton of photos from their childhoods. They likely have a string of stiffly posed family photos taken by a professional photographer that feature them smiling...
View ArticleThe Slippery Slope of Marriage: 12 Things Your Spouse Probably Isn’t Cool With
Marriages are anything but well-defined, despite the billions of so-called ‘rules’ we are told we must follow in order to hold up our end of the bargain. Love, and more specifically, the act of...
View ArticleHere Today, Here Tomorrow: 15 ‘Interesting’ Couple’s Tattoos (PHOTOS)
Love is hard to contain, isn’t it. A few times in our life, or even once if we’re really lucky, love hits us hard right between the eyeballs and we end up spending at least a short period of time...
View Article10 Ways Women Are Tougher Than Men
I heard a strange, high-pitched screaming coming from Henry’s room and rushed in to see what was going on. I should’ve known. Serge got poop on his finger again. Just a smear but, well, you would’ve...
View Article20 Weird and Wild Facts About Marriage
Sometimes, when trying to navigate the often rough waters of marriage, I get lost in the storm of everything I think it’s supposed to be. And just what do I think marriage is supposed to be? I don’t...
View ArticleA Dad and His Daughter: A Photo Series
From the moment of her birth there has existed something magical between Violet and her dad. Not only is she an adorable, mini version of this bearded, grown man, but it’s as if they lived past lives...
View ArticleThis Valentine’s Day, Get It Right: The 14 Most Incredible Hotel Rooms On...
Let’s be honest here, the chances of you and your better half jet-setting off to some magnificent hotel in some sophisticated far-flung corner of the globe this Valentine’s Day are about as good as the...
View ArticleThe Road to True Romance: A List of Bullet Points For Your Fridge
If you could spend a few hours rewinding my life (not that you would ever want to, God forbid), you could chomp away on your bucket of buttery popcorn and tilt back your box of Goobers til the...
View ArticleWherein We Get All Professional… And Stuff
Yesterday Serge and I drove into the town nearest our little farmhouse and signed a year lease on OUR NEW OFFICE. Yup. We officially have an office in town. Not just in town. On High Street, the main...
View ArticleThe Art of Holding Hands Forever: Pictures of Elderly Couples in Love
Everywhere you turn these days you can find people spouting off about marriage, about what makes a good one and what doesn’t. Hell, I’ve taking my wild stabs at it too, right here in this very column....
View ArticleThen & Now: What Longtime Couples Looked Like at the Beginning of Marriage...
You’ve seen Up, right? Of course you have! If you’re any kind of a respectable human you shed sad tears when Ellie dies. But it’s bittersweet. While she was alive she was half of one of the most...
View ArticleDark Tales of Marriage: How To Make Out With a Scatterbrained Woman
The car keys are missing. And if they’re not missing right now, just wait like an hour or so. They’ll disappear. They always do. Monica, my wife, will walk into a store holding her fancy cell phone and...
View ArticleWorst to Best in Twelve Months
Take heart, those of you in the midst of a rocky marital patch; it gets better. Almost exactly twelve months ago Serge and I decided a mini-separation would do our marriage good. Or signal the end of...
View ArticleLove Story : Life Together After Sixty Years of Marriage (PHOTOS)
Marriage. It is one of the great and lofty mysteries of our time and of all the times before us. Think about it: the romanticized idea of being true and sharing your life with one person for the rest...
View ArticleI Married A Caveman! A Funny Look at Themed Weddings (PHOTOS)
I never thought about having a themed wedding. My wife and I got married at a judge’s house in Salt Lake City nine years ago after knowing each other for two months, so we kind of missed out on the...
View ArticleFrom Worst To Best: 7 Ways I Saved My Marriage
One year ago today Serge and I were dealing with the most difficult period of our marriage so far. In fact, it was so difficult I asked him to move to his mom’s house while we sorted out our feelings....
View ArticleKeg Stands In The Mist: How To Have a Wedding After Ten Years of Marriage
We got married whimsically, if you wanna put the right spin on it. We met in a bar, made out in a truck, and said goodbye in a dimly-lit parking lot all in one night. Two months later we showed up at a...
View ArticleAwkward Engagement Photos That Will Make You Not Want To Get Married, Like, EVER
Even before I chose to get hitched at a judge’s house in the Utah mountains on the spur of the moment, I absolutely knew I would never be half of a couple who chose to send out engagement photos. It’s...
View ArticleJust the Three of Us: The Most Hilarious Wedding Photobombs Ever (PHOTOS)
People make a big fuss about their wedding pictures and it’s understandable. First off, they are the most visual link to that once-in-a-lifetime (okay, maybe twice or thrice) day when your love is...
View ArticleFarmhouse Facelift: A Photo Tour of Our 110-Year-Old Home
We rented the house we live in without ever having stepped foot in the place. In fact, we rented an old farmhouse in the Pennsylvania countryside from the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah. A scary...
View Article365 Days of Marriage: Couple Documents Married Life With Freaky Amazing Photos
Most great art lives within the nuances. Inside of every superbly written sentence or painted detail, we are often swept away by the fact that someone captured something so familiar to us so perfectly....
View ArticleThe Best Wedding Photo Ever
It wasn’t until I saw a wedding party being chased by Tyrannosaurus Rex that I realized that’s the photo missing from my wall collage. Note to self: make this happen for our tenth wedding anniversary...
View ArticleWhat Were They Thinking? 20 Totally Awkward Wedding Photos
I’m not really one to talk. I once posed on a fence and hiked up my skirt to reveal my dog’s collar, which I wore as a garter. But damn, y’all. Thar be some awkward photos floating around the universe....
View ArticleIt’s Not You, It’s Me: 14 of the Best (Worst?) Break-Up Letters of All Time
They say breaking up is hard to do but not for the folks you’re about to meet. Whether it’s mad giraffe drawing skillz, purchasing billboards, scavenger hunts or posting signs on the freeway, these...
View ArticleFrom Plump to Waif: 500 Years of The ‘Perfect’ Female Body (PHOTOS)
As a daddy to a little 4-year-old girl, nothing frightens me more than knowing that the world is a super shallow pit of vipers when it comes to judging people on their looks. There is just no getting...
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