Deirdre Reilly's Blend of the Day

Obama's Missed Legacy

2016-07-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

A thought I find so troubling and just plain sad in the wake of the Dallas shootings and all the other racial unrest bubbling up in our nation is the legacy President Obama has missed attaining.

I didn't vote for him, I haven't supported his policies, and I don't agree with most of his views. But as the first black President, think what could have been if Obama had really been a black leader for all the people.

Remember his first election eight years ago? He was going to heal all wounds; the seas were going to rise and the people were going to link arms and he was going to guide us into a great big beautiful future full of fulfilled promises and the beginning of a brave new world. If one believed his passionate words (and bought into Oprah crying, and celebrities swooning and keening at his feet ) we could almost see how a black President was indeed just what the country needed.

And we did need a black President - it was high time for this nation to elect a person of color to the Oval office. But we needed a President more -- one who could elevate black citizens and also be a staunch ally of law enforcement; a real Commander-In-Chief. But he has been too quick to see wounds that may not even exist, too slow in letting facts develop before making pronouncements on the root causes of racial tensions as well as individual situations. He is not a President for black people or white people -- he is a stylish but hollow genie lamp that overpromises and under-delivers.

He has been curiously opaque; a President we have never really known. A loving husband and father, he seems curiously absent when it comes to his care and affection for the rest of us. He always seems to be somewhere else when big things go down, and he inevitably takes to the podium after a tragedy with an attitude of derision and disgust, seemingly forgetting that this is the America he himself has had a huge hand in making.

The president could have done much to heal the nation's racial wounds, with a steady and impartial hand and an insistence on rights for all the people. But with a liberal agenda to push, actual Americans came second.

We will have to turn to each other to sort out or troubles. With Obama, his stubborn, eloquent but ultimately childish insistence on blacks being the objects of predjudice at every turn has led to a brand of racism against whites and an abandonment of justice and even common sense -- with America the frustrated benefactors of the divided country he soon leaves behind.

Happy Father's Day

2016-06-18T10:05:00.000-04:00

(Dad with George Schultz, former Secretary of State)

Has it really been five months since I've posted to the good ol' blog?

Where does time go? As many of you know, working, kids, and other daily/weekly/even hourly duties that constitute modern life leave us scant time to read, reflect, or write anything. (I write for a living, so my case different, but you get the gist.)

But sometimes, something pops up that is so special, you have to take a moment to share it in any way you can think of. In this case, pre-Father's Day, I'm sharing my dad.

Take a moment to check out this article, and experience the man that is Jim Purcell.

And as you prepare to celebrate your dad -- or the memory of your dad -- I wish you moments that take you away from busy, hectic life and have you enjoying those who mean the most.

Barbie Doll Helps Chart a Life's Course

2016-01-29T13:30:00.002-05:00

Happy Friday!

It's true: Barbie can help chart a course for your life - but only traditional Barbie. Not these new "posers."

http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/barbie-set-high-bar-for-my-life/

Put Down the Pencil, Grab a Rake

2016-01-28T16:44:00.002-05:00

Does it seem sometimes like everything is changing? Is that a function of age, or are things really morphing at lightning speed?

Whew! I can hardly keep up!

Enjoy this article about how even college admissions applications are changing. Your kid may need to spend more time at the soup kitchen to get accepted to a top college.

http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/to-get-into-college-all-you-need-is-activism/

Goodbye, 2015

2015-12-30T21:58:00.002-05:00

Wow...is it really almost 2016?

What a year it's been. More of my friends have had grandchildren this year, our youngest son entered his junior year in high school, and a beloved horse passed away, leaving lessons of love and commitment behind. Our oldest son makes Tennessee his home, and yet another makes strides in the business world of Boston.

Time seems more precious, and time with our parents increasingly precious. Nationally, 2015 saw an increase in domestic terrorism, and scenes of chaos from Paris that seemed from a nightmare. Society continues to change, and an election for President will happen this year.

Here's my prediction: Trump vs. Hillary in the general. Did I really just write that? How fun and interesting it has already been to observe and we're just getting going!

Here at the cusp of a new year, enjoy a more light-hearted piece from LifeZette about baby names. Come on, people they're just getting weird.

http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/the-baby-name-game/

You're A Mean One, Mrs. Grinch

2015-12-02T19:45:00.000-05:00

Many times, if you have traditional values, you are akin to the Grinch. To others - especially those who hold values counter to yours - you seem to always be screaming, "Stop Changing Things!" into the wind, furrowing your brow and wringing your hands like a curmudgeon (great word). You slink around corners and with your long, hairy fingers stealthily snatch all forms of interesting, captivating, modern fun.

You are a stick-in-the-mud, a fuddy-duddy, intractably stubborn and mired in "the old days." You're a mean one, Mrs. Grinch.

It is not a resistance to change that motivates traditional, or conservative people. It is an energetic and optimistic belief that certain things just work. It is an ability to see down the road and say, at the end of the day, this will bring discord and dissatisfaction and a hollowness to either personal or national character.

An applied, exercised foresight. Change for change's sake, or worse, to fulfill empty whims of children, is not worth our time or effort.

This may seem harsh when applied to the story linked to, below, but honestly, we are doing our girls a disservice if we bend to this latest example of whim-ery.

Work to make things better, girls - don't blow them up when they don't suit you.

Here's the subject of tonight's blog post: http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/no-you-cant-be-a-boy-scout/

To prove that I'm neither curmudgeon or fuddy-duddy, here's a list of modern things I DO like:

1. Texting
2. Chipotle Burrito Bowl (get your act together with the e-coli, Chipotle!)
3. Adele
4. Sweaters on Dogs (as long as they're comfortable)
5. Fancy wine-openers that come in a velvet box
6. The Fitbit - it's on my Christmas list
7. Budweiser commercials with puppies and Clydesdales

Jazzed for Christmas

2015-11-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

This year I am so jazzed for Christmas!!

Most years I feel under-whelmed at this point in the holiday calendar; I love to start the holiday craziness a little later than what is now popular. Around December 12th I decorate the house and do the bulk of my Christmas shopping. I begin to listen to Christmas music in earnest around that time, and attempt to make cookies, too. I basically self-immerse in it all.

And if it snows? Forget it - I'll be the first one to make a snow angel in the yard.

This year, I'm feeling that beloved holiday spirit early. I am excited for the Masses at church and the Christmas carols to come. I have also decided to do the following to usher in my interior celebration:

1. Although news-watching is a part of my job, I will limit the amount of time I watch bad news on television. The world is crazy, and we'd better get used to it. Seek out the good.

2. I will go to Adoration once a week - this quiet chapel time where your thoughts expand in the silence and yet are more focused, too.

3. I will pick a way our family can give that is meaningful - and as Mom, drag them to do it. That's the American way.

4. When my boys were little, I used to make tea and sit in front of our creche at night after they were tucked in, contemplating, imagining, and generally being blissed-out on a fact that my human brain can't even begin to totally take in - a loving God sent a Son He so loved into this poor world, and that Son for a time walked the earth among us.

I will try to have a few of those quiet times alone in the dining room again this year.

I would like to thank the Simons, the Lewises, and Pam Koner of Family to Family for helping me remember what is important; it was an honor to write their story. Check it out, below:

http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/from-one-family-to-another/

I hope you, too,find your way to a meaningful, super-connected Christmas or Hannukah celebration. I hope you have those moments of seeing how loved you, in your imperfection and striving, really are.

And I hope the shivery light-bulb moments of true understanding come to you as we ready our homes for this most joyous of times.

T hank you for reading. :-) God bless!

Campus Craziness - Don't Attend Victimology University!

2015-11-20T13:56:00.000-05:00

College craziness - kids needing safe spaces, apologies, the re-writing of history, and the list goes on, and on...so read on http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/college-campus-craziness/

Have a great weekend, stay safe, and talk to your kids about staying grounded in an increasingly bizarre world.

Don't Spoil Your Teen!

2015-11-02T10:46:00.002-05:00

Are you raising a great teen or a self-centered wreck? Read this cautionary tale. Our kids are our greatest work - so lets keep up the work to have them turn out right - good citizens and adults capable of caring for themselves, as well as others.

http://www.lifezette.com/momzette/spoiled-teens-tune-out/

Happy Monday!

Michelle Obama - don't bother with punctuation - that's not cool!

2015-10-21T20:09:00.001-04:00

Click here to read all about Michelle Obama
s new social media sharing initiative - where you should forget grammar and keep content "raw."
What???

The Last Game in the Old Stadium at ENMU

2015-10-17T05:46:00.000-04:00

I am taking a trip next week that I am so excited about I have a case of the butterflies. Something on the horizon that is so special, it's as if my whole system can''t wait to go. I am going back to my college town - Portales, N.M.

A small dusty town nestled in the southeast corner of the state, next week-end Portales will be my Paris or London.

I live thousands of miles from where I went to college. In what was a blip in an otherwise smooth experience of east-coast-ness, at 17 I left home and traveled from Maryland to New Mexico for higher learning with a side of desert sunsets. It was a culture shock, an adventure waiting to be had, and a savior to a perpetually restless personality - a trait that would continue, in ever-lessening frequency, for a lifetime.

Restlessness is not cool; it does not make one mysterious in that good way once you're a grown-up. It is a fatiguing, sometimes frustrating need to always see more than what you are seeing; do more than you are doing. It has been a lifelong lesson in appreciation of the now, to mostly overcome restlessness.

I live an ordinary life and am happily immersed in my work as a journalist and the day-to-day of family with a husband and three sons - the last of whom is now 16, the other two well into adulthood and thriving on their own. Now is a good time to take a breath and look back,shading my eyes and scanning the horizon like an archaeologist looking for clues to answer the question: how did this place, put firmly in the past years ago, become so formative to who I am now?

I am travelling back to the place I've only been once since I left, to see the last football game in the old stadium at ENMU before it is torn down to make way for a new one. I am meeting some old friends back there, and rushing time - that robber, that albatross - will briefly stand still.

After I left school I never looked back and never went back - one of the hallmarks of restlessness. Actually I did go back once, when I was in Arizona with my husband and "popped over" alone to New Mexico for two nights. During that trip, I walked my campus as a grown woman, I let two freshmen excitedly give me the tour I went on 30 years prior as a teen, and I had lunch with the town sheriff (by accident; he was reading the paper and offered me a section; one thing led to another.)

I can't wait to see faces I haven't seen in years (and may have to struggle for the name that goes with them.) I'm not a particularly rabid football fan, so I'll talk through most of the game. (And I have a crazy fear of mascots - anything in a costume with a fully enclosed head - but that's for another post.)

I can't wait to feel the New Mexico air, have a real burrito or chimmichanga, and see faces that are now a bit more lined, topped with gray, perhaps, and the dearer for it. I am ready to time-travel.

Houston, commence the countdown.

And there's this...one of my LifeZette articles on FOX News.com.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/15/coddled-kids-crumble-colleges-see-big-lack-resilience-among-stud

Have a great week-end. Get a little restless.

Pope Francis comes to America

2015-09-21T14:02:00.004-04:00

Why has the Pope come to the U.S? Is he wary of America? Is he also a political force? What does he want to let us know about what is important in life?

Click here to learn more.

Enjoy Cuba, Pope Francis!

A Child with Downs syndrome joins the family

2015-09-18T13:42:00.000-04:00

Click here to read about an inspiring American family that I am privileged to get to know in relating their story. The video within the story is amazing, too.

90% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted. This is effectively the genocide of a population. Read the article the get the facts on these special people, who may one day disappear from society, as well as a big dose of inspiration.

Life is meant to be lived fully; enjoy what it brings to you, in the way in which it is brought.

Happy Friday. :-)

Queen Elizabeth is Britain's Longest-reigning Monarch

2015-09-08T20:49:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow, Queen Elizabeth becomes Britain's longest-reigning monarch. I, for one, love the Queen.

Britain and I have a complicated relationship; I adore her, and she is not aware that I exist. How I long to walk (hopefully through a light mist) beneath the Tower of London; how I'd love to have tea or a pint where theologian and scholar C.S. Lewis met with his crowd, The Inklings. I'd love to ride a horse along a craggy shoreline (any craggy shoreline will do), and I'd love to tickle a palace guard to see if they can keep a stiff upper lip.

Click here to read about the Queen Mum's continuing majesty. I will be here, hoping I can soon go there.

Mother Theresa, we miss you...

2015-09-05T09:30:00.003-04:00

Happy Labor Day weekend! Hopefully anyone reading this is doing so because they are taking a break and relaxing a bit. Like many of my friends, I will be in various hockey rinks arund the Boston area.

I was on Laura Ingraham's radio show yesterday talking about the new "babywearing" rage, and also about an inspirational barber from Iowa who offers kids a free haircut if they will read to him. Good stuff, I hope - funny and inspiring. Even though there are a lot of bad/scary stories in the news, there's a lot of good stuff, too -- and that;s what LifeZette is interested in covering.

And lastly, a piece today about Mother Theresa. We often remember Princess Diana's passing, but we lost another important figure around that time - a humanitarian who is on her way to sainthood in the Catholic church.

Click here to read about this inspiring woman, whose legacy continues today.

Katrina 10 Years Later - A Hero Remembers

2015-08-29T11:14:00.003-04:00

Click here to read about Lt. General Honore, who was tasked by the Bush Administration with taking hold of the disaster.

And I loved that he called me "Darlin'" when we talked. :-)

Modern-day Schindler Rescues Girls from ISIS

2015-08-26T22:13:00.003-04:00

Click here to read about a modern-day Oskar Schindler who is raising money to rescue girls from hellish existence as ISIS sex slaves.

Not a fun story,but this is the world. or a slice of it, at least...

Happy Monday - talking about too much homework on Laura Ingraham today...

2015-08-24T09:27:00.003-04:00

Hi all, and happy Monday!

If you have the chance, at 11:30 EST this morning I'll be talking with Laura Ingraham about my article "Homework Hell" for her site, LifeZette.

Should be interesting - a new study shows that our kids are swamped with homework....like they don't have enough to do, just trying to be the best at everything!

I remember my best friend Nicole bringing me a Reader's Digest article years ago called "The Joys of Being Average." Can't we flip things around so that kids are average in sports (meaning, it's ok if they are - of course gifted athletes should zoom to the top of their sport) and excel at school - without hours of homework but instead solid teaching in the classroom?

Food for thought...

Check out the Los Angeles Post Examiner

2015-08-17T19:29:00.003-04:00

I would like to thank the LA Post Examiner and the Baltimore Post Examiner very much for allowing me to have a space there to write for the past year or so.. I encourage all readers to bookmark their site - diverse and wonderful material including poetry, song lyrics and short fiction - perfect when you want to think, ponder, laugh or be amazed.

Here they are - check them out!

I have accepted a full-time writing position with Laura Ingraham's new website LifeZette, so I won't be writing for LAPE anymore.

I will miss you guys!! Thanks, Tim, for the support and encouragement. Enjoy your beautiful coast and all its wonders.

Deirdre

Protester Chic - looking fabulous while changing the world

2015-08-14T11:36:00.000-04:00

Click here for all the latest trends in "Protester Chic" - dressing for the change you want in the world.

Happy Friday!

Guest Blogger - Lisa Ferrari - Some Dreams Do Come True

2015-08-12T14:23:00.000-04:00

Life in the city with a slice of country... my dream come true.

Well, I always wanted to be a cowboy. Yup, that's right, we called everyone in western gear, western movies, and in the west in general "cowboys," (and it was not offensive...) So, half way through my life, I finally achieved a dream come true. I purchased my first horse, a 14 year old registered quarter horse named "An Obvious Gentleman," "Gent" for short. Well, I cannot even describe what it feels like to finally have a lifelong dream come true - it still tickles me when I see him, my dream come true, and I'm a cowboy at last; well, in this day and age, I suppose I'm a "cowgirl."

Even though I lived in the city I managed to have a horse, as well as beautiful trails where him and I, alone, meandered through beautiful woods, contemplating life. Not really, I suppose - I just simply sat on his back, and took in every moment, every breath of his, every click and clack of his hooves, and we sauntered luxuriously through those trails. I didn't need to trot or run, although we did, and I trusted him completely. I had no fear, just like when I was a child, and all of it was enjoyable. As long as I was with him, life was perfect.

I remember a specific trail that I loved. Gent wasn't a real fan of this trail, because it was the longer route back to his barn, where there was hay... but I always went this way. You had to ride uphill at one point, and then the trail flattened out, and all of a sudden, it opened up to the most serene beautiful view. I always, at this point, took my feet out of the stirrups and let my legs dangle - no fear - as we slowly just walked this part of the trail, alone, in peace and tranquility. Just me, my horse's hoof steps, and his breath.

There is nothing more special to me than those rides with him, just me... and my dream come true.

Make Sure Your Kid Does as Well in English as He Does in Foreign Language

2015-08-11T12:39:00.000-04:00

Click here to read why English is still important, even in an American landscape of shorthand and emoticon...

Netflix Offers Sweet New Maternity Package

2015-08-08T11:50:00.004-04:00

Click here to read about Netflix's abundantly generous new maternity/paternity package offered to keep great talent - no more breast pumps in the conference room!

My 16 year old's comment - "Wait, how do people even work at Netflix? Isn't it just like videos and stuff?"

Maybe that's what I should have been covering...

Brian Regan at Hampton Casino Ballroom

2015-08-08T09:45:00.001-04:00

So excited to be going to see this guy, Brian Regan, tonight with the family! Our oldest son introduced us to this family-friendly comedian's work, and it has become a tradition to see his show if he is anywhere in the area.

Click here to see one of my favorite bits... and happy Saturday!

Trump in Debate - Viewers in Caucus State Focus on Economy

2015-08-07T14:04:00.003-04:00

Click here to read about what viewers at Trump headquarters in New Hampshire care about most in the upcoming (years away still!) election. The "Live Free or Die" state usually calls it like they see it.