The back-to-school adjustment always takes me a little by surprise each August. I think, with hope, that we might slide back in to our normal school routine a little more easily than we did the year before. But then reality hits.

This weekend in New Orleans I popped into the St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square, a building I've walked by several times but never entered. The usual things brought me inside this time: curiosity, a compulsive search for cool pictures that increasingly defines my days, and a sudden desire to find a calm spot in a nonstop city I love that can nonetheless can be exhausting.

Love is glue, money is oil.  While staying at home with your children may be its own reward, the world runs on money.  So, it's possible, especially in today's economy, that you've considered moving from SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) to WAHM (Work-At-Home-Mom).  You may have have decided that your family needs a financial boost, but lamented that you don't want to work outside the home.

“Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.” --Gore Vidal

Nearing this winter holiday season when stores sell more toys than at any other time of year and during a year when we've heard so much about dangers like lead paint in toys, I've been wondering where can parents find safe toys? Do you wonder the same? Parent News at The Pikes Peak Gazette, a newspaper serving Colorado Springs, Co., offers a standard tip to parents with toy-safety concerns this year:

When the kids go back to school, the germs go back to working overtime. How long does your child have to be back in school before he or she brings a boat-load of viruses home to the family? Have you already had the pleasure? I have. Do you think there is a connection between kids being in school and your family getting sick? Do you think children are exposed to too many germs when they are at school? Do you wish you could minimize your child's exposure to germs? Here are a few of the facts about germs and your child's classroom.

There are things that I have become quite adept at avoiding, things other than my bank account thus aimlessly guessing the amount that is in said account (hint: I’m usually wrong). In addition to this folly, I don’t like to look at my pay stub because I fear knowing how much in taxes is being taken out (hint: holy hell). I also avoid unknown places like my closet or underneath my bed or the trunk of my car because I tend to arbitrarily toss things and the result is usually terrifying. Like month old Trader Joe’s bean dip terrifying.

I was supposed to be at the BlogHer conference in Chicago this week. Had I been able to attend it would have been the first vacation I've had in three and a half years, but I'm not at BlogHer, and I can't even help promote it, and I've turned off the guilt machine in my head because if I listened to its dogma, you all would have to order a straight jacket for me.