Decorating isn’t exactly my spiritual gift, especially when my kids treat the living room like a gymnasium. After two ceramic lamps met a slow-motion death, I had to decide: do I want a museum or a home where my kids feel free to be themselves? Here’s why my parenting style is choosing memories over mood lighting.

I used to think the teenage ’emotional rollercoaster’ was an exaggeration—until I lived it. From crying in my minivan after HOCO pictures to unexpected office snuggles, this is the reality of raising a teenage girl. It’s a wild ride of rejection, comparison, and deep love.

Boxes weren’t just cardboard cubes waiting to be broken down for recycling. They were potential toys waiting for a bit of imagination, crayons, and scissors.

I think a lot of kids did this in the 20th century. Not just poor kids like me, fishing refrigerator boxes out of the community garbage pile to turn into a one-bedroom apartment. Rich kids too—just to piss off their parents by enjoying the brown box more than the present itself.

At my house, though, the cooler box sat there for two days, ignored and unused.

Being basically responsible for 6 people’s schedules means I’m guaranteed to mess things up now and then.

Law of averages says I screw up timing or days at least five times a year. My family does get irritated at me, but this is the one area in my life where I honestly DGAF.

Listen, if you all had to keep track of all the crap my brain has to keep track of, you’d fail now and again too. I refuse to let guilt seep into this particular corner of my life. When you overload the system, sometimes you’re gonna get a mistake.

There I was, wrangling a dog behaving like he’d railed Scarface’s supply of cocaine and cleaning up 800 fruit snack wrappers, when a guy named Nick asked the question I haven’t heard in decades: ‘Are you single?’ Turns out, leaving my wedding ring at home was a homing device for awkwardness. It made me realize: after 30 years with Vince, I’m officially retired from the dating game. If I ever find myself solo, I’m just keeping a spare ring in my wallet to avoid being picked up in places that smell like expressed anal glands

From balayage hair to Delta Nu energy, Kristina shares a hilarious car ride conversation with her 14-year-old about the “basic” life and visualizing a rich future.