Eliana Osborn

The most important things my mother taught me included work from Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, Wham! and Whitney Houston.

Being a person of faith isn’t cool. It is very personal to me and not something I like to talk about a lot, which goes counter to the whole idea of ‘sharing the good news of the gospel.’

You know how someone can give you a compliment that you know isn’t true? Like, they tell you a dress looks good when you are absolutely certain that is not the case? But if they keep saying it looks good, you start to think “Yeah... this looks good.”

There are some days of parenting that are magical, full of unicorns and four leaf clovers and lottery winnings. Those are the moments when I catch myself, just for a second, feeling content and happy and looking around trying to freeze things. Out of 7000 days, those maybe make up five a year.

I’m not alone in being troubled by how people suddenly disappear in life, right? That’s essentially why the internet was created. You may have heard rumors about Al Gore inventing it for military purposes... Lies!

Don’t listen to horror stories about airplane tantrums. Listen to me while I let you in on the secret perks of seeing the world with kiddos.

It is hard to find any real numbers about how many people do "direct sales" or how much money they make. The web is full of either big promises or pissed-off former sellers. What I do know, from bazillions of friends and family, is that making much more than pocket money means selling like a real job. Yes, it might be more flexible, but there’s no magic formula.

I always have a small piece of my brain on mom mode, no matter what else is happening. I have no problem with this, since that is how humanity has survived.

Is anyone else with me on this? White foods are NASTY.

Standardized tests are taking over the world. I can say this because it is true. Like a creeping vine that seems attractive and charming at first, tests appear to be reasonable for the data and direction they can provide.