Shelbyville Times-Gazette: Life & Leisure

Take these tales with a grain of salt (11/18/09)
This has been a week for what I call "Duh!" news. For example, researchers recently announced chocolate can lower your blood pressure -- and a Hershey's kiss can give you more of an emotion buzz than a real kiss. Like I said -- duh. The article reminded of another amazing, miraculous, brand new tidbit these so-called researchers (all of whom I assume are men) came out with a couple of years ago...

Equal time for the rest of the family (11/15/09)
COLUMNIST'S NOTE: Husbands, children, this is the column you want to stick on the fridge. In my Wednesday column, I explained why I was going on strike. Naturally, my family had their own response to my list of crimes and conditions. Why We are Going on Strike, Too...

Worry just goes with the job of being a mother (11/15/09)
It's a mom's job to worry. Right now, my own mom is driving me crazy because of how worried she is about me and my blood pressure, but as someone told me yesterday, it's her prerogative as a mother to worry. Yes, I'm still pregnant, and yes, my blood pressure is continuing to go up but goes down when I rest. ...

Warm feeling results from hospital visits (11/15/09)
Over the past few months I have become well acquainted with hospitals -- but it's all good! Most of the time when I'm in New York I spend some time in the Charlie Wood Cancer Center, where my father receives treatments for cancer, and as much as being there stinks, I think my dad has wonderful doctors and nurses on his side. Last weekend, my husband and I got to know some different departments in Middle Tennessee hospitals...

A different path: Former "unruly" student now masters robotics (11/15/09)
Traditional forms of education are not the only paths that lead to future success of students. Just ask Isaac Cawthon. Cawthon, 29, admits he didn't do so well in high school. But now, he's creating computer programs that control robots, and a former teacher of his has taken notice...

McWaiting for family to clean up its act (11/11/09)
Why Mom is on strike: a note to Husband and Sons Ben ... 1. Just because I have a driver's license does not mean I am your chauffeur. 2. Just because I am your chauffeur does not mean you can blow off work early, walk to your favorite geek store and not come home until midnight while I am sitting in front of McDonald's McWaiting for you....

Independence arrives slowly (11/08/09)
There was a line on "Desperate Housewives" a couple of weeks ago when Gaby, the self-absorbed former model and indifferent housewife, berated herself for being such a terrible mom. Her husband Carlos consoled her after a clown-mauling chimp wreaked havoc at their daughter's birthday party. He pointed out that their girls didn't panic like the other kids...

Cascade goes to the 'dogs' (11/08/09)
Cascade Elementary School now allows dogs to roam its hallways. They serve as patrolmen, they read to children, eat lunch with them and generally provide a sense of security to the building. They even have a "top dog" there. But these dogs are not four-legged furry creatures. ...

The boredom of bed rest (11/08/09)
Lying in the bed for over a week now makes it hard to come up with a topic to write about for a column. My time has been spent going to the doctor twice a week, doing homework, reading a little, doing a little homework, napping some and watching a lot of television...

Everything you wanted to know about Sadie but were (not) afraid to ask (11/08/09)
One of the things I think we need to improve on here at the paper is doing follow-up articles on folks we have chosen to feature in the past. It's something I'm working on, and am proud to say I have a few calls out to contacts trying to get updates on individuals who served as focal points in some of our most popular features...

Potato soup a perfect winter warm-up (11/08/09)
About a month ago, I had a message on my phone at work from an anonymous caller asking me if I knew of any great recipes for potato soup. She had a craving. I know all about those and, though I had plans for the food page already in place for the next couple of weeks, I knew I wanted to help this nice lady feed her craving...

A novel effort in November (11/04/09)
"Mom? It's 7:45. Are you taking us to school?" "Mom, the cats haven't been fed and they're staring at Dad while he's napping and licking their lips." "Mom? Mom? Are you in there Mom?" "What?" I dragged my hands away from the keyboard and my mind out of the torrid romance of the he-saids and she-saids of my growing novel to stare at the two bedraggled and neglected waifs standing behind me. ...

The ever-changing seasons of our lives (11/01/09)
One day a couple of weeks ago, it was grey and wet and blustery. (Please, O Mighty Editors, leave in the Brit spelling of "grey" instead of "gray." Grey is the wild heath in winter and gray is the color of government-issued metal desks.) I was driving the boys to school and said, "It's a Novembery day."...

Move over, stuffing: panade is an upscale alternative (11/01/09)
"Having reached age 30, it's not often that I find a food so amazingly delicious that it forces me to wonder why I've never had it before. Sure, I'll sometimes have new variations on pasta or risotto or veggies that are so good they're worth remembering. But rarely do I find a dish that is both unlike anything I've had before and so, so scrumptious that I want to eat all five servings of it in one sitting."...

Relay campaign kicks off (11/01/09)
Bedford County Relay For Life organizers came together last week for the 2010 kickoff of the campaign for the county's single largest annual fundraisers. A birthday party was the icing on the kickoff's cake. "To most people, birthdays are just a reminder that they're getting older," said co-chair Judi Burton to folks attending the kickoff, held at the Blue Ribbon Club on the Celebration grounds. ...

A long way from here to maternity (11/01/09)
A few months ago, I wrote a column about how I don't do pregnancy very well. My appointment at 35 weeks re-confirmed this for me. I had an ultrasound that day to check for growth. The baby now weighs four pounds, 11 ounces and is shorter than average. ...

One short ride, many years of memories (11/01/09)
It's funny how we get sentimentally attached to things ... even the most materialistic things. We know we're not supposed to get attached -- most of us have been told since we were children that things don't matter. It's the people and relationships in life, and how we treat others, that count the most...

Local native manages massive development (10/28/09)
Bedford County native Fred Davis plays a key role in supervising a big project. How big? Ten billion dollars big. No, that wasn't a misprint. Billon, with a "B." Davis, a program manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is supervising the project managers constructing what amounts to a new high-rise city at U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys, about 50 miles south of Seoul, Korea...

Age knows no limits at trick-or-treat time (10/28/09)
One of the Times-Gazette bloggers, Bo Melson, asked a question online the other day about when are you too old to go trick or treating? The answers were varied and funny and it brought to mind a funny column by the late great humorist and mom, Erma Bombeck. The one part I remember best was along the lines of "If you can drive yourself from house to house, you're too old to be trick-or-treating."...

Few things beat the thrill of that first paycheck (10/25/09)
When I first started working, mowing lawns and baby sitting at 9 (younger than my youngest is now), I had a deal with my mom. I always gave her half of my earnings. Then, when I wanted to buy something major, she and Dad would match whatever she had saved back for me. ...

Sweet taste of success follows cooking show (10/25/09)
If burning, red eyes with dark circles under them are indicators of success, I'm OK with that -- today. That's how most of my friends at the Times-Gazette, including myself, look and feel this morning, which happens to be the day after our sold-out relish® Cooking School and Expo...

Hurtful words cut like a knife (10/25/09)
Maybe it's because I'm extremely pregnant and hormonal these days, but people just seem to be a lot meaner than they used to be. A few weeks ago, I was eating lunch at a restaurant and overheard two women talking. They appeared to be in their early to mid-20s. One was clearly upset. I heard her ask her friend, "What is it about me? Why do they always break up with me?"...

Arrowhead ranch hopes to point boys in the right direction (10/25/09)
Preston and Jeffrey Sweeney said they felt "lucky" to have found their 200 acre plot of land in Normandy on the day it went up for sale. That may be true, if you consider that luck is really when preparation meets opportunity. The Sweeneys' lifelong dream of opening a ranch for boys in need of a safe place to live is about to become a reality in Arrowhead Ranch, the once large Normandy dairy farm of Randall Banks. ...