Grasshopper New Media Presents...

I’ve written boatloads about various fruity ideas for the past 3 weeks, today I want to finish the series by discussing some ways to preserve summer vegetables.
Common ways to preserve veggies are canning and freezing. Drying is also a good method; however I have no experience with drying foods so I will leave that […]

As my two kids get older, I find myself with reduced stress. The kids are growing into fine adults. They are helpful, they are considerate, they are, best of all, more able to meet their own needs! They no longer ask for a glass of water or for me to carry them or any of […]

A lot of my fellow moms are fit, but the level of fitness amongst most of my mom friends can’t be compared to that of the fittest triathletes I have met. When some of them have told me that they had been pregnant, I have almost fallen over. Given a choice between believing […]

The Fourth of July is just around the corner. What fun have you planned for your family? We’ll be doing lots of eating, playing, and watching fireworks. And then eating some more. We all agree that holidays are about the food, right? No? Dang.
If you’re looking for something more than just potato salad (and why, […]

Working Mom and I are expecting our second baby girl in November! By New Year’s Eve, I’ll be a stay-at-home dad to two girls under 3.
I’m so screwed.
I feel completely competent as a stay-at-home parent, sometimes. (Some rare and brief times, but some times all the same.) Last Wednesday, for example, I was lifting a […]

My youngest son turns ten this week.  He made the transition from Toddler to Little Boy to Boy a while ago, but now that he is “hitting double digits”, as he puts it, it’s time for me to admit he’s no longer a little boy anymore.
As the youngest, and also being somewhat small for his […]

Confession: when I ask my boys to clean their bedroom it usually ends in a huge weeping pile of me. After hours without progress and constantly breaking down tasks and repeat repeat repeating myself I am left wanting never to face this challenge again. So I wait and wait and then rinse and […]

Summer is in full swing in our neck of the woods.  The weather has been great, not to hot, not too cold.  We have had trips to the beach, a trip to the water park, a trip to a state park for some camping and fishing.  And yet, even with all this wonderful weather going […]

I went to the family reunion somewhat grudgingly.
A distant cousin had been doing research and discovered a pool of people that shared her great-great-grandfather. She planned a trip from Colorado to Michigan to Pennsylvania to Connecticut. She wondered if the Michigan people could meet.
So a bunch of people with Kies somewhere in their family tree […]

I live in the state with the highest number of drownings in the nation for children age 1 to 4 (according to a 2007 Nova Southeastern University pilot study of drowning prevention practices in Broward and Miami-Dade counties).
In fact, in 2004, enough children drowned in Florida to fill four preschool classrooms, despite local and state […]