There are two ways to test a smoke detector. One is to stand on a chair and press the “test” button.

The other is to fill your kitchen with smoke and see if the alarm goes off.

One guess as to which option I chose.

The story starts out innocently enough. I had a left-over ham bone in the fridge and decided to make some soup. My husband was away for a couple of days, so getting caught up with a make-ahead meal seemed like a good idea.

I dropped the bone in a pot, filled it with chicken broth, threw in a handful of frozen mixed vegetables, and put the fire on medium high.

Soon the aroma of ham and pea soup was filling the air, so I decided to check my email on the computer in the back room. And then I jumped on Facebook to see what was happening.

Someone posted a song by Frank Sinatra, and I found myself listening to some of his other tunes as well as some other holiday favorites.

I was quite relaxed.

Until I smelled something burning.

I jumped up, ran to the kitchen and saw smoke. The liquid had boiled out of the pot, and all that was left was a charred ham bone and a pot spewing out thick smoke.

Immediately, I turned off the fire and then spent the next half hour turning on fans and opening windows. I counted myself extremely lucky there hadn’t been a fire and no damage had been caused.

Thirty minutes later, the smoke was gone from the house, but the burnt smell remained. And here’s where I came to a fork in the road.

It’s one thing to do something incredibly stupid when I’m alone. That act of stupidity jumps to a whole new level when I have to tell someone else – my husband who would never leave something cooking on the stove unattended – what I did.

Guess which option I chose.

I had 24 hours.

I stopped at the store the next day, bought two cans of Febreeze and sprayed every single room in the house.

Next I opened all the windows and turned on all the fans. I had to sit in the living room with a jacket and a blanket, but after three hours, the smell seemed to be gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I’d covered up the fiasco. Until I went to set the house alarm. While opening the windows, I’d accidentally broken one of the alarm seals.

Still trying to escape admitting my stupidity, I sent my husband an email, nonchalantly mentioning I might have broken one of the alarm seals while airing out the house. I conveniently left out why I was airing out the house, but I rationalized that was a minor detail.

The next day, my husband returned, fixed the alarm and didn’t say anything about any smoke smell. I thought I’d gotten away with it and then the guilt hit.

Sighing, I told him the real reason I was airing out the house. He said he’d smelled the smoke right away and was just waiting for me to give him the whole story.

I’ve learned my lesson – never walk away from anything cooking on the stove and every month, test all our smoke alarms the easy way – press the button on the front.

And, just in case things do go wrong, belly up to the bar early on. Eventually, those chickens, or in this case a ham bone, come home to roost.
 
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

It’s the first day of December, and many of us are finally finishing off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers and turning our thoughts, and wallets, toward Christmas.

On the radio, crooners Perry Como and Nat King Cole gush over snow-covered sidewalks and shoppers bundling up in coats, scarves and boots.

For way too long, northern states have crafted what Christmas is supposed to look like, totally ignoring the South that, frankly, has it pretty good during the winter months.

First there’s the weather. Here in the South, when it snows every 10 years or so, it’s a delightful treat, not a mountain to battle our way through every morning.

Santa might visit other parts of the world in a sleigh, but he’d probably find it a lot safer using water skis to land on a snow-free Southern roof.

And that woolen suit? Forget it. A southern Santa would be better off trading those scratchy duds in for cotton khakis and a “Gulf Shores” T-shirt.

Then there’s those time-honored traditions mentioned in song and verse. Most Southerners have no idea what it means to roast chestnuts on an open fire or sip flaming rum punch.

We do, however, understand the satisfaction of gathering pecans in our back yards and making a home-made pie from the bounty while sipping on a glass of Luzianne iced tea.

Jack Frost doesn’t nip at our noses. It’ll be a cold day in July when any Southerner with an ounce of gumption allows an elf to bite at his or her nose.

Here in the southern states, we’re more likely to run the air conditioner than the heater during the winter, and many of us have no idea what it means to have coal delivered to the cellar or how to make angels in the snow.

We don’t understand wearing three layers of clothing, a coat, scarf and snow boots just to go outside nor would we ever believe getting up an hour early to shovel snow off the sidewalks is acceptable.

We scratch our heads at people who think 20 degrees below zero is tolerable and think it’s odd for people to put chains on their tires – chains are meant to tote logs, not drive on.

But when it comes to the winter holidays, there are a lot of things Southerners intuitively get.

We understand boxing gloves, not snow mittens, Dickey overalls instead of snow bibs and splashing through bayous and marshes in a four-wheeler, not a horse-drawn carriage.

When we go out to cut down a Christmas tree, we ride on the back of a flat-bed tractor, not a sleigh, and we’re okay with that mode of transportation.

We appreciate the thrill of receiving roller skates or a bike on Christmas morning and then going outside and playing to our heart’s content – in shorts.

Southerners don’t dash through the snow nor do we stop for a visit with Frosty the snowman.

Instead, there’s plenty of fresh mud on the flaps of our Ford F-150 trucks and we’ve got Mike the Tiger, the Georgia bulldogs and Bevo instead of a fickle snowman that’ll melt at the first warm snap.

Just like our Northern brothers and sisters, we understand the true meaning of the holidays – family, fellowship and faith. In these parts, we simply celebrate the holidays Southern style.

And, honey, that’s just fine with me.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

At various stages in our life, Thanksgiving has a different place in our hearts.

When we’re young, the aromas we smell in the kitchen become part of our childhood – the turkey in the oven, sweet potatoes covered with marshmallows or enchiladas smothered in gravy.

On this one day, no one fusses at us when we snitch a bite of turkey off the platter or dip our rolls in the gravy.

As teens, we pretend to resent the time with family, believing other folks must be better behaved, their mealtimes are quieter and somewhat more civilized than our families.

But secretly, we’re happy for the familiarity of our crazy aunts and uncles, our grandfathers and fathers who pass on the tradition of carving the turkey and our grandmothers and aunts who make sure everything on our plate is smothered with gravy.

As young adults, we often miss Thanksgiving dinner with our families as we travel the world, head off to college or eat with a boyfriend or girlfriend’s family.

But while we’re sitting at a different table with unknown rituals, many of us secretly wish we were back home for at least one helping of Aunt Sarah’s cornbread dressing.

When we become parents, we’re the ones stuffing and baking the turkey. We usually cook the same favorites our mothers and grandmothers prepared, but we add our own touch to the dinner and thus create new memories for our children.

And before we carve the turkey and serve the green bean casserole, many of us will bow our heads and thank our creator for our many blessings and bounties.

As I think about all my blessings, the one that comes to mind this year is for the people who aid and help my family along life’s sometimes bumpy highway.

My nephew, Blair, gives patient advice about medications and willingly shares his pharmaceutical degree with my boys and their families whenever they’re unsure about meds for their family. Thank you.

To my sister-in-law, Annie, who answers our questions about our pets, day or night, and always has the best interests of the human and the pet in her answer, thank you.

My siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins and in-laws have always always opened their homes, hearts and occasionally fishing boats to me and my family. Thank you. Your generosity has provided dozens of happy memories for my sons and me, and I thank you for those treasured memories and the ones yet to come.

I’m thankful for my mom. She makes everyone in her life feel special, and she’s always there for our family, day or night. Sometimes with a sandwich, sometimes with pears, but my mom treats every grandchild and person in our family as if they’re her favorite.

For the people who’ve stepped into my family’s path at crucial moments and helped them make wise choices, thank you. And even to those who were not so nice – you showed them how not to live.

Those thanks extend to the people who’ve helped me in my life. Their advice or being there when I needed a shoulder to cry on was crucial. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the people who were encouraging voices in the darkness.

So this Thanksgiving, I’m giving thanks for people, the ones who help us figure out where we’re going, how we’re going to get there and, most importantly, how we’re going to stay there.

They are life’s bounty, the treasure we’re most thankful to have.
 
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

It was a tossed-off comment from a friend, a casual remark, but the words were unbelievably harsh.

“My father thinks I’m a failure,” he said.

This young man is anything but a failure. He’s artistic and witty, but no matter what I or anyone else says, the words of his father pierced his heart, a wound that will never mend.

Most of us compliment our children after a triumphant sporting event, a school play where they’re the star or when they bring home an ace report card.

What about the times when our child isn’t the star of the football team or the lead in the school musical?

Worse, what happens as we watch our friends’ children torpedoing up the ladder of success while our children seem to sit on the same rung day after day.

Often that frustration is a reminder of how we were as youngsters, and we feel the hurt all over again but with much more anguish when our children are involved.

But instead of being the wind beneath their wings, we’re sometimes gale-force winds, destroying our relationship with our children and blowing away their confidence.

Looking back, there were times when I said the right thing at the right time to my boys. They’d be angry or confused, and our subsequent conversations seemed to help.

I believed I was an involved parent – I read them bedtime stories, tucked them in at night and was on the front row for all their events, from kindergarten plays to sports to graduations.

I thought I was providing a good example by some of the things I did and, shamefully, an example of what not to do.

One evening, after the boys were grown and living on their own, I found myself on our back porch, listening to the quiet, watching the sun go down. I thought about all the good times we’d had together and, then reluctantly, all the tough times.

The arguments. The disagreements. The times I didn’t listen. The times they didn’t listen. And I longed to pull my boys back in time, hold them close and tell them I was sorry for my mistakes and shortcomings.

So I called one of my sons and apologized for all the missed opportunities and missteps I’d made as his mother. His answer surprised me.

“I don’t remember anything you did wrong,” he said softly. “And I think I turned out okay. So don’t worry about it anymore, Mom. I’m just fine.”

And with that short conversation, I realized that even when the sins of omission are great, even on the days when we feel we haven’t an ounce of patience left, our children forgive us and accept us for the flawed human beings we are.

Thank God.

Thinking about that conversation with my son, I told this broken-hearted young man the best way to prove his father wrong was to continue growing into a strong man, one capable of loving his children without reservation or judgment.

He’d come to understand that, over the long parenting road, sometimes he’ll be right and sometimes he’ll be wrong.

We all are.

I won’t win any parenting prizes, nor will my boys send me mushy Mother’s Day cards. But I can watch them as they continue to grow into wonderful men, capable of great love and genuine forgiveness.

And, in the grand scheme of life, that’s a whole lot better than a gold-plated mother-of-the-year trophy.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The young man sitting next to me was resting his hand on top of two small books. He was waiting for a book appraiser to tell him how much they could be worth.

He was one of dozens of people visiting the Houston Museum of Printing recently for a book fair, some there to purchase or sell rare books. Others, like him, to have books appraised.

“I picked this one up in New Orleans,” he said, showing me a book with a worn leather cover. “I liked the way the author described all the old-fashioned remedies for ailments.”

He then showed me his second book, a look of pride on his face as he disclosed he’d bought the slim book at a garage sale for 50 cents.

“But no matter what the appraiser says they’re worth, I wouldn’t part with them,” he said, breaking into a smile. “I just love books.”

And that seemed to be the spirit of everyone visiting the museum for the annual book fair. My friend, Pat, invited me to go with her to the museum, and I readily accepted her invitation.

I’ve always wanted to tour the museum as my family’s past is intertwined with newspapers and printing presses. I know my family’s history, but I’ve always wanted to know more about the printing industry that shaped my grandfather and my father.

At the museum, we were treated to the entire history of printing, from using rocks to make prints to sepia-colored etchings to rooms filled with antique books for all ages and interests.

One of the first exhibits we toured featured an old Linotype machine. I knew what it was without looking at the metal plate on the front because my dad ran a Linotype machine for the family newspaper when he was a young man.

From his stories, I knew the printer had to load small letters into a slot backwards, and just laying out a newspaper required hours of behind-the-scenes work.

For the next few hours, Pat and I wandered around the museum, marveling at copies of front pages documenting important days in history – the day President Kennedy was shot and the day the Titanic struck an iceberg.

We were peering through the window of the old-fashioned print shop when a friendly girl came up behind us. She was going on break, but she said she’d be happy to give us a tour first. She unlocked the room and then patiently explained how the machines worked and how much effort was required to print one poster.

She was quite excited about the process and said she began volunteering after taking a paper making class at the museum. Seeing how much time and effort went into these antique presses made me appreciate a printed book even more.

As Pat and I rounded a corner, we ran into the young man we’d been chatting with in the appraisal line. He said the expert told him one book was worth $50 and the other $75.

“Not a bad investment for a garage sale and a souvenir,” he said, a smile spreading over his face.

I asked him if he’d reconsidered selling them, and he said the answer was still no. Books, he said, would only grow more profitable as printed books lose the race against electronic editions. Besides, he confided, he simply loved his books.

Book lovers know exactly how he feels. There’s something about holding a book in one’s hands – feeling the weight of the paper as we turn the pages and running our hands over the covers – that transports readers to a far away time and place.

I know electronic readers are portable and save paper, but I can’t take one to the beach with me nor can I spend hours in a cozy store, my neck crooked to one side as I read titles and authors, getting ink on my fingers and marveling at the beautiful dust jackets that protect old covers.

The Museum of Printing History reminds us to cherish and treasure written words for they are the most powerful tools in the world. They can enlighten and empower, entertain and educate and move us to action, laughter or tears.

And that adventure begins with four enticing words – “once upon a time.”

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. The Museum of Printing History is located at 1324 West Clay Street in Houston.

After one of the driest summers in recent memory, recent showers were a welcome relief. The rainbows appeared, the grass perked up and the flowers bloomed again.

Yes, beauty was everywhere until, of course, millions of flood mosquito eggs hatched. In a matter of hours, we were literally swamped with squadrons of blood-sucking bugs.

Not even a heavy dose of Off kept them away, and maybe that’s because they’re skeeters from Texas. And everything in the Lone Star State, from bugs to the state capitol, carries that unique Texas stamp.

We’re big. We don’t quit. We’re ferocious.

Growing up in New York state, six months of snow kept mosquitoes and bugs at bay. After we moved to Louisiana, however, my knowledge of the insect world grew exponentially because we were surrounded with bugs year round.

From the cicadas in the trees to the stinging caterpillars – which should be used in trench warfare – to stink bugs, southern states have more than their fair share of creepy crawlers.

I shouldn’t mind the bugs as they’re all part of Mother Nature’s plan. But my rational mind is overruled by my irrational mind when I spot something skulking across the floor.

Like the cockroach.

These insects date back thousands of years. They adapt to any environment, they’re indestructible and absolutely gross. Walking outside after dark and seeing one crawling across the sidewalk sends me running for the front door.

Once you know these 2-inch long monsters can glide from the top of a tree, or a door frame, and sail down on top of your head, those prehistoric bugs become a living nightmare.

Texas is also home to the practically indestructible fire ant. Nothing, and I mean nothing, seems to be able to get rid of those ferocious ankle biters.

They can survive for days at sub-zero freezing temperatures and a prolonged drought. No amount of ant killer, Tide detergent or, in desperate measures, gasoline and a match, can destroy them. The grass might be struggling to survive and the shrubs are withered and brown, but the fire ants are alive and well.

Like their cousin the cockroach, fire ants survive floods, hurricanes and twisters. Maybe it’s because they’re sneaky. They hide down in the ground and, when they hear a person arriving, they’re out of that hole like after-Thanksgiving Day Wal-Mart shoppers.

Right behind the ruthless fire ants are the Crazy Raspberry Ants. Although they’re small, they’re not hard to spot – they scurry around like they’re on crack. They’re an invasive insect that’s recently made its debut here in the Houston area, and there’s nothing on the market to get rid of them.

Great. One more bug that’ll be here long after humans, like Elvis, leave the building.

The crazy ant’s cousin is the pesky but fairly harmless sugar ant. Once those ants are in the house, they’re harder to get rid of than telemarketers on a Friday night. Nothing’s worse than opening a cereal box and finding those little critters crawling all over the Capt’n Crunch.

But there’s more to fear in the creepy crawly Texas world than just ants and bugs. One of the creatures that thrives in the South and terrifies me is the newt. They’re those small, embryonic salamanders that are absolutely disgusting because you can see right through them.

They don’t bite and they’re pretty harmless, but they scare the daylights out of me. I’ve actually paid a neighbor’s son to get them out of my house. He looked at me like I was crazy, but those newts definitely belong in the bushes, not my kitchen window sill.

Cool weather has finally arrived, and the first cold snap wiped out the flood mosquitoes. Thankfully, we’ll have a couple of months of mosquito-free weather until spring arrives.

The flowers will bloom, the grass will grow and the mosquitoes and fire ants will return, bringing their distant cousin, the Love Bug, with them.

I can hardly wait.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The post on the “Caring Bridge” website was sobering.

“Kinley, the baby girl in the room directly across from Lily is being taken off the list today. They are turning off all machines. Kinley will die today. Surely she will be a guardian angel for the other children on the unit. Please pray for her family.”

The post came from Lily’s parents, Michael and Cheyenne. Lily is their 9-month-old daughter who was born with CMV, a common virus that causes chickenpox and shingles.

It’s harmless unless the baby is infected before birth. If that’s the case, the child can develop serious health problems. In Lily’s case, this cruel and silent virus destroyed the left side of her heart.

Michael and Cheyenne found themselves in a New Orleans hospital a few weeks ago receiving news that would devastate any parent – their baby daughter needed a heart transplant or she wouldn’t make it.

Most of us never have to face a life-and-death operation like this for our children. I cannot imagine what those young parents felt like as they watched their daughter struggle to live.

In Lily’s case, a human heart became available almost immediately, and Lily became a donor recipient. In the midst of their joy, Michael and Cheyenne asked for prayers for the family who’d lost their child.

Lily’s been slowly improving since the transplant, and we all feel a mixture of elation for Michael and Cheyenne and admiration for all the heartbreaking decisions they’ve had to make in the last four months.

Before I had children, I dreamed of all the fun activities we’d have together – dressing up for holidays, coloring together and going to the park to fly kites. It never occurred to me that along with the fun times would also come tough situations.

Those include frantic trips to the hospital emergency room and the terror a high fever brings when it’s 2 a.m. and you’re the one your baby is depending on to take care of business.

Parents face hundreds of unexpected moments in their child’s life, the ones where things are normal one minute and hanging in the balance the next.

Those start the minute they get here, and we kid ourselves into thinking the day will come when we’ll no longer worry about our offspring.

When they’re infants and cry inconsolably, we worry because we don’t know what’s wrong. Those nights last forever, as do the nights when they’re young children and they’re crying because of a stomach ache.

Then there are the nights when they’re adolescents, worried about their appearance or that they don’t have any friends. They turn into teens, and we worry about drugs, alcohol and premarital sex.

Every day, parents wonder where they’re going to find the strength to be an effective mom or dad. The parenting books don’t mention what to do about a tired that seeps through your bones.

They don’t offer solutions to feeling like you want to scream at the top of your lungs in frustration. They don’t tell you what to do when you receive news that your child could be facing a terrifying health issue and you have to make difficult decisions.

Books don’t tell parents what to do when they grapple for the answers with every ounce of strength in their bodies. We ask friends, family and experts to help us make a decision, but our children, whether they’re 9 months old or facing mid-life, are where we find the answers.

With one hug and one smile, we find the strength to go on without a moments’ hesitation and know that the tough decision is usually the right one. Because no matter what cards we’re dealt when a child is put into our arms, we will play that hand and never, ever fold.

In Michael and Cheyenne’s case, they’ve always known they had a winning hand with Baby Lily who’s getting better every day, thanks to a difficult decision another set of parents had to make.

They found the strength to give the gift of life to another child. And for that heart-wrenching decision, we are eternally grateful.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Driving home from work today, my little sedan battling ferocious winds, the meteorologist on the radio confirmed my suspicion – colder temperatures are barreling toward southeast Texas.

After a brutal summer of 100-plus degree temperatures and a lingering and crippling drought, most people would be glad the temperatures are dipping into the upper 40’s over the next few nights.

Not me.

I grew up near Buffalo, N.Y., living with snow for six months out of the year. After we moved to the South, my blood thinned out, and I cannot take cold temperatures anymore. I thrive in the summer and whine my way through the winter.

When cold weather does roll into town, it means I have to find the few winter items I own. I put off hauling out those cold-temperature clothes until the mercury hits 50. According to the weatherman, the day of reckoning has arrived.

Sighing, I started rifling through my closet to see where I stand. I have a pair of blue jeans I wear in the summer and the winter. They’re light-weight denim because I refuse to wear pants that weigh more than a bag of potatoes.

Underneath the jeans I discover my favorite winter clothes – sweat pants. Avant-garde fashion designers turn their noses up at sweat pants, but I don’t know what I’d do without my baggy sweats to get me through the winter.

One pair is gray, and they’re worn on the knees, but quite serviceable. The other pair is blue, still decorated with the beige paint I used on my son’s bedroom about 10 years ago and the silver paint I used on my youngest boy’s bedroom five years earlier. Both go on top of the winter pile.

Let’s see – there’s a couple of pairs of black jeans in the back of the closet I can wear to dress up, so I should be all set in the pants department.

Now for shirts – I wear T-shirts year round because I avoid long-sleeved shirts like the plague. The cuffs somehow find their way in my lunch and serve as a magnet for every speck of dust and dirt I walk past.

That’s probably an exaggeration, but I’ve come up with a reason why I dislike winter clothes.

Sweaters are too itchy, turtlenecks are too suffocating and scarves, well, they’re just too frou-frou. Usually I throw a sweater over my T-shirts because I can toss that aside, and I run fast from my car to the front door so I avoid wearing a jacket.

There is one area, though, where I can’t avoid the winter fashions – shoes.

Oh how I miss my summer shoes in the winter. Summer footwear consists of lively colors, breezy open toes and slip-ons in every color of the rainbow.

For some reason, shoe manufacturers think all women love to wear boots in the winter, and store shelves are filled with dozens of boots in two colors – black and brown.

Unfortunately, I have thin calves, and my legs roll around in boots like a 5-year-old playing dress up, so I’m stuck buying sensible winter shoes that look like something my first grade teacher, Sister Adrian wore.

Reluctantly I dragged out a pair of black and brown tie-up shoes and wistfully tossed my sandals in the back of the closet.

But in every cold cloud there’s a silver lining.

Socks.

Because winter clothes are so drab, I have socks in every color of the rainbow. Of course, most of them have holes in the toes and heels, but I don’t care. Those dowdy winter shoes cover up the holes, and I love having some color in my wardrobe when it’s stark and bare outside.

Even though it’s blustery outside, hope springs eternal in we warm-blooded creatures. I’m going to leave out a few summer clothes for those warm winter days and circle the vernal equinox, March 20, 2012, on my calendar.

I want to be ready to walk out the door wearing my shorts, T-shirts and sandals when those hot-and-humid Texas temperatures finally return.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

My mailbox stays filled with sales fliers, postcards from digital television companies wanting our business and, my favorite, magazines.

Curling up on the couch with a magazine is a great way to relax, and I love any kind of magazine which is probably the reason I get about six different publications every month.

When I was young, I remember flipping through the beautiful “Life” and “Look” magazines my grandparents had on their coffee table, and I was fascinated by the black-and-white war photos and those of the Kennedy family.

The boys always snickered when flipping through “National Geographic.” They were only looking for the pictures of naked tribes people.

But “National Geographic” wasn’t about exploitation – the magazine was and is about introducing people to the wonders of the world through stunningly beautiful photographs.

The covers are just a sampling of the wonders inside the pages. Nowhere else can one see such fantastic pictures of majestic mountains, hidden lakes and the open plains that make Earth such a beautiful planet.

The stories are extremely well written, and the authors not only describe geography, they give readers a glimpse of how people and animals live, think and survive. These wordsmiths – often writing on a laptop from an igloo or a hut – can make the life cycles of fleas and the Incas equally interesting.

A magazine I’ve subscribed to for over 20 years is “Better Homes and Gardens.” My mom had a well-used copy of the BHG red-checked cookbook in the kitchen and getting the magazine seemed appropriate as I headed off into adulthood.

Although I still enjoy the magazine, most of the decorating articles are for people who love stark contemporary homes, and the gardening articles are geared toward the northeast or the Pacific Coast.

Few of us south of the Mason-Dixon line can grow lilies of the valley in our gardens nor can we leave cushions on outdoor furniture – the mildew, brutal heat or the dogs will make short work of those.

So, for the first time in two decades, I’m letting my subscription lapse because I want to read something that has meaning to me.

Hence the reason “Southern Living” is at the top of my favorite magazine reading list. The articles are about the South – grits and ham hocks, azaleas and pine trees and buttermilk biscuits. There aren’t feature stories about multi-million dollar mansions on the Pacific coast or how to protect the home against an ice storm.

The articles in “Southern Living” are about people who live with 100 percent humidity, year-round air conditioning, beauty salons and dominos.

Their readers are constantly searching for the best way to sprinkle Louisiana-grown Tabasco sauce over every dish at a back-yard barbecue and the best flea markets in Texas and Alabama.

Over the past few years, I’ve moved away from the magazines that concentrate on fashion and make-up. I’ve become a fan of practical magazines like “Real Simple” and Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine.

My friend, Pat, gave me a subscription to “O” right after the magazine started publication, and it’s been one of the best gifts I’ve ever received.

The layouts are creative, and the pictures are first rate. Fashion spreads feature clothes that fit the average gal who shops at Target and the mall, not a size 0 model wearing eight-inch heels and fishnet stockings.

The best part of any magazine, however, is the writing, and “Southern Living” and “O” feature talented authors who write from their hearts.

“Southern Living’s” Rick Bragg entertains readers with his thoughts on growing up with shrimp fests and crawfish boils, and “O” readers find articles from women who’ve overcome cancer, rebuilt after losing their home to a natural disaster or simply survived a teething toddler.

Oprah always closes the magazines with her thoughts, and she retains her connection with those of us who wrestle with static cling, extra pounds and whether or not we’re good enough.

Though the pages of magazines, we find our kindred souls and, through that connection, we know we’re not alone.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Most people can feel a cold coming on for days. There’s that nasty tickle in the back of the throat, the beginnings of a stuffy nose or the start of a mild cough.

Not me.

Whenever a cold strikes, it’s a sudden storm-the-beach assault by a legion of nasty viruses looking for someone to beat up. In a matter of hours, I am down for the count, losing the battle and not caring that the enemy’s winning.

Luckily, I don’t get sick very often and I’m back to normal in a day or so.

The trade off for not being sick long is that for those 24 hours, I feel like I’ve been mauled by a Mack truck that not only ran over me but then put that 18-wheeler into reverse and came back to finish the job.

My fever spikes, I ache all over and I’m hot and cold. But no matter how bad I feel, I always follow the same routine for getting over the crud quickly.

First, make room on the couch because staying on the couch is more comfortable than staying in bed.

With a cold washcloth on my head, a box of tissues hugged close to my chest and the remote control in my right hand, I become one with the couch while the battle rages.

I don’t want to talk to anyone. I want to be left alone with reruns of “I Love Lucy” and doze on and off until the cold or tummy virus runs its course.

The couch is where my sons camped out when they were sick, and they coped with being stuck on the couch quite differently than their mother.

They liked being pampered. I remember tucking blankets around them, getting their favorite pillow from their room and then constantly refilling water glasses and taking their temperature every hour because they were all was convinced their fever was high enough to require an emergency trip to the hospital.

And of course there was the moaning and groaning – them from the couch, me from the kitchen fulfilling their coughing request for a grilled cheese sandwich – cut in thirds, please – with chicken noodle soup and crackers or fruit and cubes of cheese, all served on their favorite tray.

This scenario only happened, of course, when they were really sick because all three of my sons tried to worm their way out of going to school at least once a week.

“Mom,” they’d croak from their rooms. “I’m sick.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No.”

“Are you throwing up?”

“No.”

“Then get dressed,” I’d yell back to them. “You’re going to school.”

I’m sure that sounds mean, but I’d been duped by boys who tried every trick in the book to skip school. Over the years, I learned that my darling angels were sneaky.

My boys knew how to hold the thermometer close to the light bulb or run the thermometer under hot water when I was out of the room.

They knew to only spike the mercury to 100 – just enough to stay home for a day but not high enough to miss any real fun.

The fake act that usually works is the stomach ache. It’s hard to judge for sure if a teenager is lying about a stomach ache. But let’s face it – if they say they’re too sick to eat ice cream or Lucky Charms for breakfast, then they’re really sick.

Having sons who faked being sick is where I first came up with the couch as the best place to recuperate. They thought it so I could pamper them while they were in the throes of acute illness.

The real reason was to keep an eye on them, both to make sure they weren’t faking; and, if they really were sick, to watch over them until they felt better. I also told them they’d get better faster if they rested up on the couch.

So a few days ago, when my head started throbbing, the coughing started and I ached all over, I knew it was time to hibernate in the best spot for recuperating – the couch. And in 24 hours, I was as good as new.

Couch time – the best medicine around.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.