The son is leaving for his first year of college, and I spent his last week at home making his favorite foods. Parmesan-garlic chicken with penne pasta. Homemade meatballs. Pancakes. Bacon. A different kind of ice cream every day. (Oh wait, the ice cream was for me.)

Jumpin’ juniper! It’s the last day of June already! I thought this month would never end.

Back when spring was new, I kept hearing a strange tapping, tapping outside my bedroom window. It sounded like a woodpecker pecking on the side of the house, except that we have vinyl siding.

I do love me some ice cream, but I have some concerns.

I try hard not to hate anybody or anything, but I am having some very unkind thoughts about housework.

On Monday, there was a frog in the house, near the front door. On Tuesday, there was a frog in the kitchen. On Sunday, there was a frog in the mailbox.

Today, class, we are going to talk about “double negatives,” because how could I not not do it?

Here are the books currently stacked on my nightstand:

A friend and her 9-year-old daughter drove down to visit one recent weekend. I got snookered into playing Monopoly with young Miss C.

My daughter is working as a camp counselor this summer, and she asked us to send her letters. Not texts. Not emails. Actual letters.

I was in high school when I first started raiding my father’s closet.

Penny penny penny penny penny …

“Rattlesnake plunges from tree into kayak” — The State, May 21, 2018

I have a boring name. “Lisa” was the most popular baby name the year I was born. I was never the only Lisa in my class.

The hardest workout I get is figuring out ways to avoid working out.

I have many regrets in my life, but right now one of the biggest is that I didn’t fill out my dog bracket.

Everybody always says school is harder than when we were kids. Just for fun, I tested that theory. I tried to do my some of son’s high school homework.

Like every other red-blooded American, I got an Instant Pot for Christmas. The Instant Pot — a new-fashioned pressure cooker — was last year’s hot toy for grownups.

Fortunately, my husband and I were able to schedule a last-minute getaway last month to Texas, to see old friends and eat barbecue made from beef.

I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics this week and feeling inadequate.

How long should leftovers be kept in the refrigerator?

Y’all, I can’t even. The New York Times has printed the word … I can’t even say it. Rhymes with “pitmole.” The closest I can come to saying that word in print is “s—hole.”

On the first day of December, I started off the morning at Anniston High School with a performance of “The Nutcracker” ballet for area schoolkids. Every year, Knox Concert Series invites hundreds of third-graders to see the ballet for free.