My great-grandmother Fannie, who passed away before I was born, was an incrediby wise woman. One of my favorite of her aphorisms is "If I cut my finger and you cut off your arm, my finger still hurts." I've always tried to remember that it's okay to keenly feel my own personal hurts...

Image courtesy of Amazon J and I recently purchased a juicer. Not just any juicer, mind you. No, we bought the Breville 800JEXL Juice Fountain Elite 1000-Watt Juice Extractor. (Don't ask how much this bad boy set us back.) (It was $285.) (I know.) We became juicers in the only way that I've ever...

I've been trying for a few days to figure out exactly how to return to blogging after losing my dad. I knew that I wanted to write some sort of tribute to him when I returned to writing the Mensch blog, particularly since my father was an incredible role model for how to live like a mensch. But finding...

Considering the recent brouhaha over Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg giving edicts and advice to women (and men) in corporate America, I found this infographic from Easy Finance very interesting. We women have a great deal of power over the economy, and yet we're still not feeling confident about...

You may remember the commercial last year starring Jimmy Fallon and an adorable baby girl who did not want 50% more cash back from her credit card. The tiny child had mastered both the word NO and the ability to throw cheerios and a guitar (although those last two might have been aided by special effects...

Photo courtesy of Huckdavis If you want to start a flame war on any parenting website, post a strong opinion about whether a kid's allowance should be tied to household chores. For some reason, this particular subject can get parents, experts, and passing trolls frothing at the mouth. I've been...

Photo courtesy of Loadmaster , aka David R. Tribble Despite the fact that LO is still several years away from losing his first baby tooth, I have nonetheless recently become quite concerned about what his expectations will be for me--that is, the de facto Tooth Fairy--once that time comes. You see, the...

I mentioned a while back about how I had recently started using Simple Mom's Daily Docket . While I really loved the way Simple Mom set up a daily to do list with her docket, I found after using it for several months that it didn't necessarily work for me. My most productive days since I started...

LO is a morning person. He wakes up, eager to greet the day and get started on his important tasks of drinking juice, playing, reading, watching Cars , and asking for more juice when he's been told no more. Unfortunately, his zest for the beginning of the day does not necessarily coincide with J's...

When my sister was a little girl, she hoped to grow up to be Lynda Carter. Well, no. She actually wanted to be Wonder Woman when she grew up. That was why I was delighted to find this toy Wonder Woman , complete with invisible plane, which is suitable for toddlers: It's a perfect first Hannukah present...