01. Balancing Act

Some days, it’s difficult to balance on the thin line between achievement and failure. Read more →

02. New on Scary Mommy

I’m excited that my essay “How I Learned to Release My Inner Control Freak” has been published by Scary Mommy. Read more →

03. A Rose by Any Other Name is a Different Friggin Rose

Recently, Anna Murray, a good friend and kick-ass writer, wrote a series of posts about women changing their names when they marry. As part of the project, she asked friends to share their reasons for their choices. Anna’s posts are provocative and well-researched. I particularly love the one where she debunks the myth that women have always taken their husbands’ names. I highly recommend reading the whole series in one sitting.

The project got me thinking about my own choice to keep my surname.

I never considered changing my last name, especially since I married later in life, in my mid-thirties. By then, I was known in all my social and professional circles as “Colette Sartor.” Any name recognition value I’d built through the years would have gone out the window if I changed my name. And, from what I’ve heard, legally changing names is an administrative nightmare.

But really, the choice to keep my surname was more personal than that. Read more →

04. Family Blood Sports

I like to think that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve evolved and learned to take unexpected events in stride. That I no longer adhere to the lesson ingrained in me since childhood about how every crisis, particularly an unexpected one, requires a huge fight.

But sometimes, despite my best intentions, my early crisis management training creeps up and overwhelms me.

Take, for instance, this past Super Bowl Sunday. There was no rising above adversity, no gracious laughter in the face of a screw up.

Instead, there were massive acts of bitchiness. On my part, of course.

As if there were any question about that. Read more →

05. Don’t Hide the Crazy

I started out my dating life as a serial monogamist.

From my teens until well into my twenties, I held on tight to my relationships, especially the difficult ones. Nothing worth having should be easy to get. I would find the formula to make a difficult relationship work.

Guess what? No formula. No success. In my late twenties, I gave up on serial monogamy and started dating in earnest for the first time.

I had no idea what I was doing. Read more →

06. The Queen of Cool

I am a haphazard housekeeper, at best.

I didn’t used to be. Before I met my husband and had my son, my house was pristine, every surface a glorious, bare expanse: no pictures, no tchotchkes, no vases or plants. My bed was always made, my books always shelved, my paperwork and bills hidden away.

I even had rules about the way I kept my refrigerator: containers lined up by size, cheeses and meats in the deli drawer, fruits and veggies in the crisper, and only liquids on the top shelf since that’s the tallest shelf and liquid containers are the tallest items in the fridge.

No top-shelf solids. Not ever. Read more →