The Glass is Half-Full

Okay fellow children of the 70s - do you remember when we 'searched' for colleges? I do and know that my search was less of a search and more of a stumble. And I know that it was way different than the search that my children and the children of this generation embark. My search. I liked the sound of Notre Dame and we had some family connection so I applied. I went to visit my sister Kelli at Michigan State University over a Halloween party weekend and had a little too much fun. Search over.  There may have been more forethought, but I don't recall looking into entrance requirements or how the schools were rated. I have a vague notion that my attitude at the time was "Since my dad won't let me go to New York to study theater, I'll show him and study political science." The illogical logic of a teenage girl with no idea what she wanted. My kids' searches; involve Internet searches, online testing to see what kind of school would best fit their nee

The title might be a bit extreme - Francis might just go to his room and shut the door and put a pillow over his head to silence the 'noise'. I have done that on occasion. And not because I have toddlers, or a kid that plays the drums or even really loud kids - it's because I live in a house where there is one lawyer, one law school student, and two more potential lawyers. And me - the one singing "Let there be peace on earth . . ." The other four Piggins family members enjoy debating. Sometimes, I think for the sake of the debate. John, Michael, Matthew and Delaney seem to really like these 'discussions'. For instance, we were watching a television show recently - I cannot even recall which one, but it seemed fairly bland - when one of the barrister Piggins made a comment that inspired disagreement from another barrister Piggins. That inspired another from another. And then one more from another until the four of them were debating on some point that wa

We spent three days in DC - but only one of those was sightseeing. The first we picked up Delaney at her journalism conference, taking her back to the hotel and letting her nap for a couple hours and then going to dinner at Red Lobster. She took the picture above and was mortified that her parents could be so embarrassing. In other words, we were doing our job as parents - embarrassing our child. that is after all in the parenting contract - "Thou shalt embarrass your offspring on all possible occasions." Our second day, included a tour of American University for Delaney. She loved it - more on that East Coast college tour in a later blog. The third day - we decided to spend our time visiting the Holocaust Museum and Arlington National Cemetery. Hence the title, 'the day of the dead'. We arrived at the museum shortly after they opened and got our scheduled time to visit the main exhibit. I put pride aside and used the wheelchair because I knew that it