READING BETWEEN THE PINES

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  • How to Party Like A Pro This Holiday Season

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    It’s that time of the year again when truckloads of invitations get dumped on the doorstep and you’re forced to ditch your Juicy sweats for spandex and a pair of sparkly shoes. Following are my tried and true tips to make this holiday season the most festive ever, especially if you’re new to the neighborhood…

  • This is a Simple Story About Love

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    All a mother wants, above and beyond anything else in life, is for her child to be happy. It’s a subliminal inclination fueled by emotion, like the echo of a throb…a primal instinct driven by that first, curious flutter in the womb. And it never goes away. My grandmother is no different from any other…

  • What Do You Do When Your Child Disappears?

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    Last Friday, my eight year-old daughter, Essa, stayed home from school with a bad case of everyone-else-in-my-class-is-sick-so-I-wanna-be-sick-too-itis. As a mother, I’ve experienced these strange illnesses before. My son, Taylor, once had I-can’t-go-to-school-because-I-sprained-my-ankle-and-halfway-through-my-day-off-started-limping-on-the-wrong-foot syndrome, and my other daughter, Grace, recently struggled with I-didn’t-get-my-book-report-finished-therefore-I’ll-cry-until-my-face-turns-an-unnatural-shade-of-puke-so-I-can-stay-home-and-finish-it disorder. Needless to say, I’m usually unsympathetic to the sudden onset of these…

  • A Strange Tale of NyQuil, Rodents, and Random Christmas Lessons.

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    Let me start by inserting a spoiler alert. I wrote this after shotgunning about a gallon of NyQuil. Yesterday I was bragging to my husband, Scot (who’s fighting off a tiny cold and is bedridden for the foreseeable future…likely until America pole vaults off the fiscal cliff) that due to my impervious genetic make-up, I haven’t…

  • How Do You Move Forward When You’re Grinding All Your Gears?

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    As humans, we’re constantly in motion. But motion and movement are two very different things. Just because you’re in motion doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going anywhere. Trust me on this, I know. If I could catch a ride with Richard Branson on his uber-expensive Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space, I’d easily be able to assess…

  • I Think I’m Smarter Than You

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    No, not you. The you I’m referring to in this post is my seven-going-on-seventeen year-old daughter, Essa. Running short on time and long on things to do, I had a simple conversation with my little girl the other day that went something like this. Me: Essa, we’ve gotta pick up Taylor and Grace. Get in your…

  • I Am Not A Farmer (Part I)

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    After creating two posts a week since the inception of this blog, I’ve written nothing for the last three. Zero. Nada. Zilch. I’ve been on vacation mode, and I can’t bring myself to do anything that doesn’t involve self-tanning, a cocktail, and my DVR. For the Type A, sometimes over-achieving, often napping Gemini that I…

  • To The Gentle Giant From A Mom Who Sometimes Gets It Wrong

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    by

    Stacie Chadwick
    in

    I have an unsuspecting guest blogger today.  It’s my eleven year-old son, Taylor, or as I like to call him, the Gentle Giant.  Gentle because he was born with a heart much more complex and intricate than most, and giant because, well, he’s really, really tall. Taylor has always been sensitive to the ways of…