Sophie's Story

I envy my stepdaughters. Not a lot and not the obsessive consuming kind of envy. They are four of the most beautiful young women I know. Denise has long,thick, wavy black hair and high cheekbones. She has this very classic dark beauty. She's also tall and carries herself well. She must have taken some dance lessons when she was younger as she doesn't walk like she she ashamed of her height. Elin is blonde although her hair has been many colours. She has a big smile and lovely eyes. Carrie has long wavy blonde hair that she styles in a ton of really cute ways. She's got brown eyes too and looks great all the time. I've never seen a bad picture of her,ever. Carmen is the exotic one. She has dark hair, dark skin,dark eyes and looks very mysterious. She's not real tall, but somehow you just don't notice that. She reminds me of the gypsy main character in the opera "Carmen". Not only are they all beautiful, but they are also smart and talente...

Lots of things have been happening in our family lately. Several of my stepchildren have been making big changes in their lives. One of the pleasures of step motherhood is being able to see them make these steps. Today we took Carrie grocery shopping and then out for lunch. Her birthday is coming up. C and I will both be working on that day so we chose this morning to celebrate. I always like spending time with Carrie. She moved out and into a house with several other theatre students after this past Christmas. The last time we went shopping she was still settling in and was on winter break. Classes resumed about a month ago. I was wondering how she was doing and I'm pleased to see that she is doing well. She likes the much shorter commute to school. She has a cosy room on the second floor of an old house in a decent neighborhood. The inside looks clean and comfortable, there is a large living room and kitchen with three fridges that they all share. She told us that she is p...

It's contest season again at Toastmasters. Clubs are planning contests to decide who will compete in the area contests. The spring contests this year are International Speech, a speech on any topic and Evaluations, which means contestants will compete to see who can give the best evaluation of a speech. I was not surprised when I got an email from Lynn, the contest chair, asking for help. She needed judges, timers and counters. I told her she could fill me in any place she needed me. I had no plans to compete and I've filled all of the roles except for chief judge and contest chair, two jobs I am unable to do. I asked her if she had a target speaker for the evaluation contestants. The target speaker gives a speech for the evaluation contestants to evaluate. She answered back with my assignment. I would be the target speaker. I mentally said a few cuss words. I had not intended for her to make me the target speaker. I had only asked because as a new Toastmaster, she may n...

Like many married women, I wear a wedding ring on the fourth finger of my left hand. The ring I wear is an oval cut sapphire set in white gold. There is an edge of white gold around the stone that makes it look like it's in the center of a flower. C designed it for me. Seven years ago, on Valentine's Day, he gave it to me. It is my "official" engagement and wedding ring. Most people who know me are familiar with it. What few people know is that it is actually my second engagement ring. C and I had been talking about marriage for several months before he proposed. I knew he wanted to marry me and I knew I wanted to marry him. He was working as a musician and at a coffee shop when we were dating. He made just enough to pay his own bills and pay rent on a tiny apartment in a very old building. There was very little left over for other things, like an engagement ring for the woman he wanted to marry. I didn't care about such things. Until I met C, I really had ...

As you may have expected,C and I watched last evening's Super Bowl game. We had stocked up on the appropriate food and were well prepared to enjoy it on the big screen TV in the family room. I was enjoying the game up until Green Bay had several key players go out for injuries and the Steelers were picking up steam. The lead that the Pack had built was melting away like a snowball in a blast furnace. They weren't playing well at all. I was getting frustrated. Finally, after one of the receivers dropped the ball for the third or fourth time, I couldn't stand it anymore. I threw my cheesehead hat on the ground. "That's enough! I'm done. Pittsburgh has won." C is the eternal optimist. He did not see it as hopeless. I don't know how. The offense wasn't putting up any points and the defense couldn't stop Roethlisberger. The receivers couldn't hang onto the ball to save their souls and were doggone lucky that a Steeler had not intercepted...

The weather report looked good. No snow was supposed to fall. No wind was going to blow and the temperature was going to be about 25 degrees or so. C and I did what any normal Minnesota couple would do at this time of year. We grabbed our coats, hats and scarves, hopped into the car and headed straight to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to go for a walk. Yes, we went for a walk. Some of the paths are cleared this time of year. A lot of people cross country ski and snowshoe there. Why would we want to waste a perfectly good day staying inside? This is something that people from warmer climates do not understand. I'm sure if any of them are reading this they probably think I have my feet in a pan of hot water and and am suffering from delusions brought on by hypothermia. I know my in laws from South Carolina call Minnesota and Wisconsin "the Yankee deep freeze". They probably wonder how anyone can survive in the frigid temps up here. The only thing more insane than ...

We are having a bit of a cold spell in Minnesota. I don't call it a cold spell, my definition of cold is a bit different. To me when the temperature is zero or below Fahrenheit it can be called cold. Anything else is just normal winter weather for this part of the country. Button up your coat and deal with it. I thought I'd read somewhere that there was a language where there were over 20 different words for "snow". I'm not sure if this is true or not. There are different kinds of snow. There is slushy snow, small flake snow, and the really pretty snow that falls lightly to the ground and looks like sparkles from a snow globe. Assuming that it is true and somewhere there is multiple words for "snow", I think we should also have multiple words for "cold". My South Carolina in laws would not believe it, but there are different kinds of cold. The worst kind, at least in my opinion, is wet cold. This is when it is cold outside and snowing ...