first

16 comments

Emtpy Nest Between Thanksgiving and Christmas: (It’s shorter than you think)

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman I wrote this little ditty, several weeks ago and almost waited too late to post it with Christmas just days away. I’m rushing to get this out, just like the family photo Christmas cards I never got around to sending last year that will go out next week, only one year […]

35 comments

Eclipse Watching Without Eclipse Glasses

  By Lisa Batten Kunkleman Eclipse, eclipse, eclipse.That’s sure been a big story on the news. You’d think it’s a rare occurance or something. On our farm in Charlotte, NC, crescent shadows shone everwhere. With no fancy eclipse glasses, of course we couldn’t look up toward the sun and burn our retinas, so we looked […]

29 comments

Fluttering In and Out of the Empty Nest: This Time With Grand Pets

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman It’s Empty Nest time again. Time to either cry or celebrate, depending upon your point of view. It’s a little different for us this year because we’re sending five family members back to college instead of the usual three. Each of our twenty-year-old triplets came home for the summer, two of […]

June 28, 2017
lisakunk

31 comments

Who’s running this house anyway?

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman I could write all day about our menagerie and explain that Hubs and I usually have three dogs, one cat, and two horses. That number changed when our college kids flew back  into our empty nest bearing two more critters.  A puppy named Tucker and a kitty named Zor. Let’s just […]

May 11, 2017
lisakunk

24 comments

Fluttering In and Out of the Empty Nest: This Time With A Puppy

  By Lisa Batten Kunkleman Families all over the place are experiencing reverse-empty-nest-syndrome. The birdies are flying back in from college with either big plans for work, internships, and trips or perhaps big plans for lying on the couch and playing video games. A summer of recuperation from the rigors of college life, they might […]

April 12, 2017
lisakunk

19 comments

Life, the Great Classroom

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman   I’ve always wanted to be a professional student. If time and money allowed, I’d be signing up to audit all kinds of classes. No tests or projects for grades, thank you. Now that we have an empty nest, how fun it would be to sneak, unseen, into the back of […]

32 comments

Parenting Invincible Young Adults

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman   Parenting young adult children is a whole new experience. If you think parenting and protecting children from birth through the teen years is tough, look out for the twenties.There’s a huge difference between being invincible at twenty and cautious at mid-life. I’m definitely in the cautious at mid-life stage when […]

27 comments

Mom, Where Should The Ambulance Take Me?

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman I answered my cell and heard, “Mom, I kinda dislocated my knee. Which hospital should the ambulance take me to?” If only our son Sam’s kneecap were simply dislocated and not shattered into six pieces when he fell while doing pull-ups, that would have been almost delightful. This event was the […]

June 15, 2016
lisakunk

10 comments

Empty Nest Flutterings: The Multiplying Condiment Miracle

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman How is it possible to clean out my fridge, using my large sink as a holding spot for discards, filling said sink with outdated bottles and jars of condiments and beet remains while still ending up with a chockfull fridge? Dang! It hardly looks any different from when I started except […]

May 31, 2016
lisakunk

13 comments

Empty Nest Flutterings

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman The birds flew back into our empty nest. Quiet slipped out the back door, to be replaced by chatter, showers, cars and friends galore. The living room became a drop off spot for book bags, jackets, and laptops. Oh, and shoes, brass instruments and music stands. They’re ba-ack. And oh how […]