I’d never done a de-lurking thing before. I’m so glad I did – I’m not sure why it feels so good knowing that people are reading me, but it does! I’ve never been one who needs too much in the way of affirmation/accolades, but your comments made me feel really, really good. I have this great memory of my Nana, who would love nothing more than receive a letter from someone. When she received a letter, she would read it and reread it, relishing every word, read between the lines, and just really revel in the details of the letter. I feel that way – a keen appreciation for all the comments you left. Thank you.


This weekend I saw the damage that we have inflicted on Edie being the baby of the family. We decided this year is the year that the Meanie’s ski. All of us. Gracie is in her third year of skiing, and Edie in her first. Grace is in group lessons, Edie, being a 4-year old Mariah Carey, has been enrolled in private lessons. Last week was the first week, and there weren’t enough instructors, so Jo and I had to instruct Mariah ourselves. Little Miss Thing held on to our poles as we dragged her to the magic carpet to go up the bunny hill (god forbid she attempt to get here herself yo). We then helped her down the hill whatever way we could, pizza pie from the front, from the back. We employed hula hoops, ski poles, hand holding….you get the picture. So this week, there was an instructor, Carl (he’s French, how do you say Carl in French? Try it, it’s really hard). Carl is pretty much too cool for school. I fretted to him that Ms. Mariah had never skied on her own before. He was non-plussed. And so the lesson began. Carl said “Let’s go” to Edie and didn’t even offer a pole for her to hand on to! He made Mariah glide all the way to the Magic Carpet….and she did it! When Jo and I were on the chair lift, we looked down at the bunny hill to see what trick he was employing to help Edie ski down the hill. From the looks of things he said “and now you ski”. There she was, pizza pie-ing down the hill with no help at all! God only knows how many runs they did – once Jo and I saw that things were going well we scooted off and got a few runs in ourselves. At the end of the lesson, we picked up Edie. Carl said she did great and next week “we practice turns” and off he went. Jo and I looked at Edie, who morphed back into Mariah, held our her little hand and said “drag me”. And we did.