Me: No MysteryMan: What do you mean, “no”? Me: What do I usually mean when I say “no”? MysteryMan: That I’m right and you don’t want to admit it.

Last year when I took my (then 9 year old) brother out to dinner for a little one-on-one time: Me: Shi… oops! I shouldn’t swear around you. LittleFish: That’s okay….

Bubba. Two of the greatest loves of my life are short and furry… go figure.

I don’t often put real personal truths up here, but this is one of them. In a letter to MysteryMan: “I can’t lay my soul anymore bare than I have…

My cats and I have a routine. I wake up every morning to Bubba alternatly sitting on my feet or standing on my chest purring his fish-breath into my face,…

“Girls are like candy bars, you can’t have just one flavor.” That would be his fathers influence on him, by the way.

I am blessed with a half brother, LittleFish, who is possibly the funniest 10 year-old ever to walk the face of the earth. This exchange took place a couple of…

My version of heaven: On my porch with a new Harry Potter book, fresh squeezed lemonade, and sugar cookies. The depressing part of which is that it will never happen…

ME (3:15 PM): My horoscope today said to give up on you because you don’t respond to all my flirting. Mystery Man (3:17 PM): ya i read that this morning…

I love bloggers that share recipes, so I’ve decided to join the crowd. Welcome to the first recipe on the Eat Happy portion of Pen & Irony. Today’s lesson? Fried…

Memorial weekend was one of those power weekends, even though it started out raining, and the patio stones we had meticulously cleared two weekends ago now looked like this: Mom and I thought…

I’m running on about four good hours of sleep right now, which hasn’t been a sufficient amount of shuteye to keep me functioning like a normal human being since sometime…

Despite the shaving, the cramps, the occasional smashed fingers because you aren’t strong enough to lift a 150 lb piece of flagstone by yourself even though you think you can,…