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May 20, 2019
lisakunk

9 comments

Empty Nest: Obstacle or Opportunity?

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman   “For every stage your baby passes through, for every sweet phase you think you’ll miss, you’ll get new stages, new phases. It’ll keep on getting more and more interesting all the time. Just wait until you can have a conversation with your nine-year-old. It’s wonderful. Change doesn’t have to be […]

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 […]

15 comments

Collecting Memories and Steps: Walking Down Memory Lane at an Antique Mall

By Lisa Batten Kunkleman It’s like a treasure hunt searching through other people’s antiques and collectibles. Some memorable items leave us full of pride while others leave us full of questions like, “What were we thinking?” or “Why in the world did we decide that was a good thing to possess?” My husband and I […]

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 […]

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 […]

June 11, 2016
lisakunk

20 comments

Milk Leaks and Dog Leaks

  By Lisa Batten Kunkleman My day began with a soft pat on the arm and a nuzzle against my fingers. No, this was not my husband. It was our people-phobic beautiful FAT black cat, Daisy Mae. I had received a gift from the object of everyone’s desire. When I tried to return the caress, […]