Happy Freezing Cold Mother's Day

My wife got a couple of big plants for Mother's Day - a rose bush and some other flowery thing that looks really nice. As you can probably guess, I don't know what it's called.

If the weather was nice we'd have gotten the rose bush in the ground today. Unfortunately, we live in Maine. The temperature reached a balmy 45 degrees and the rain was heavy only about 75 percent of the day. So needless to say, the plants will stay in our dining room for a couple of days. We are actually supposed to see the sun this week, with a high temperature of close to 90 on Wednesday. From one extreme to another, I guess.

I've had three pieces published in the past few weeks. First is this column in the Sanford News, which is about how marriage proposals, which have always been personal, intimate moments, are now out there for the world to see on Facebook and YouTube. People now express their desire to spend the rest of their lives with someone on the giant scoreboard at baseball games. Ask the guy who proposed that way at Fenway Park a couple of weeks ago how that turned out.

Then there is a piece published on Her View From Home, titled Things New Fathers Can't Prepare For. It's about - you guessed it - things new fathers can't prepare for, such as the nervousness you feel during that long drive to deliver the little package home from the hospital. I think it's pretty good, check it out and let me know what you think.

And my most recent publication is What Happened After My Son Dropped Out Of College, which was posted on Grown and Flown today. I'm sorry to say that it isn't exactly a happy, sappy story, but it's one that I think a lot of parents can relate to.