Blowing & Drifting

Today is a pretty big day in the Tassava family: Shannon signed a contract for the book she’s written about modern stay-at-home motherhood. Some of the details are still being ironed out, but the arrangements are firm enough that we can look forward to seeing the book in print sometime in the next year or [...]

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I’m lucky, this Mother’s Day, to be spending it in the company of the two women who have had the biggest and best effects on my life: my own mother (here in 2005 with her mother and father – my late grandparents) and Shannon, the mother of my wonderful girls. Happy Mother’s Day, mothers!

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Shannon’s reading of her essay in Torn went very well! The house was packed with about 25 people (including the girls and Shannon’s parents, who came down to surprise her); her fellow essayist, Katy Read, did a wonderful job with her own piece; the Q&A was smooth and interesting; and of course Shannon read beautifully [...]

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On Wednesday, May 4, at 7:30 pm Shannon Hyland-Tassava and Katy Read will read from Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield (420 Division Street; 507-645-6700). TORN is an anthology edited by Samantha Parent Walravens. The 49 stories are fascinating, true, day-in-the-life [...]

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I keep thinking that a “book trailer” is something you attach to a book to haul stuff (bookmarks, a highlighter, etc.), but it’s actually a short video promoting a new book, such as Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood, in which my wife has a great essay.

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The other night, Julia and I had a conversation about whom one can marry. She was going through all the usual permutations, trying to figure out why she can’t marry her sister or her father. She asked if she could marry her best friend. I told her, “Sure you can. I married my best friend.” [...]

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This is what happens when you have your first grader help wrap her mother’s presents and make tags for them. You can just barely see the gift under the “tag,” which in fact has a whole fold-out angle going on. (Julia made another, slightly smaller tag, while Genevieve interpreted “tag” to mean “a dozen small [...]

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We took a nice little road trip to Red Wing today, a pretty little town on the Mississippi River that apparently thrives by appealing equally to Big Ag and Big Service: the ADM grain mill is the most prominent feature on the riverfront, but the entire downtown is a temple to the tourist’s disposable income. [...]

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Soon, I’ll finally get around to writing a post about my late Grandpa, but for now here’s a great picture of him with two of his workhorses. The man was a teamster in the original sense of the word, and his love for the animals is obvious. One of the best moments I ever had [...]

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One of our wonderful neighbors – someone who runs Swag, a great (web-invisible) shop in downtown Northfield – bought some oversized adirondack chairs for her backyard. Before wheeling them out of sight, she invited us to come over and sit in them, which we promptly did, being suckers for a cheap fun time. Julia predictably [...]

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The Betsy-Tacy road trip was a huge hit.* We spent the better part of four hours touring the beautiful (tiny!) houses, walking the neighborhood, and picnicking in the same park where Betsy, Tacy, and Tib picnicked. The girls were great – curious about the oddities in the houses (a sewing machine! old-fashioned telephones!), patient on [...]

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I had an oddly happy, satisfied, excited feeling all day today. Absurdly, I initially chalked it up to having a quiet, meeting-free day at work in which to get a lot done. I did, and I did, but after dinner, playing outside with the girls, I realized that the sensation was much more due to [...]

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I dunno why, but Mother’s Day 2010 was quite the up-and-down affair at our house. On the “down” side, Genevieve has some sort of cold-allergy thing, Julia acted like a bratty teenager several times (including once while we were out for bagels this morning: mortifying), and, worst, the girls ended one activity by actually hitting [...]

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This afternoon, Shannon and the girls went to the mother-daughter tea party that a family friend throws every year. This is a Big Deal, and the three of them got all dolled up for it. Not visible in this picture is the enormous number of delicacies that they all enjoyed at the party. This is [...]

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At the risk of using up my entire yearly quota of good parenting ideas in the first third of January, this morning I suggested that we all go to Carleton’s fabulous Recreation Center for some exercise – Shannon could run while I played with the girls. Amazingly, it was a complete success. Not only was [...]

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