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Category: Memoir-y

Dust Off My Parachute

Dusting off My Parachute – Step 1 – Shopping

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 17 Comments

Today at noon, I will face my greatest fear head on.

I’ll be doing something that I’ve been putting off for a long time and as the day has grown near I have even hesitated putting together this post because I think my brain is still in denial that it’s happening.

What could this dreaded event be?

Am I presenting to a group of a thousand people? No, that would be fine.

Am I flying cross-country solo with two kids? No, that’s a piece of cake.

Am I taking some kind of dangerous, death defying adventure? Kind of….

I’m going shopping.

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Parenting & Other Natual Disasters

Parenting And Other Natural Disasters

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 11 Comments

There’s never a particularly good time to experience your first earthquake. I can, however, tell you one of the worst times: November 1983, a week after being traumatized for life by watching the ABC Made for TV Movie, “The Day After” (insert mental image of a mushroom cloud and decimated city here.)

For an 11-year-old kid who spent each waking moment after watching that movie convinced that the sound of every airplane would be shortly followed by a nuclear detonation, an earthquake could only mean one thing: the end of the world.

And for about 30 seconds that November morning, it was.

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Apologies I Owe My Mom - The Scooter

Apologies I Owe My Mom – The Scooter

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 12 Comments

As a mother, there are plenty of thing to keep you up at night worrying: Are the kids getting good grades? Do they ever get bullied? Do I push them too much? (Or not push them enough and they’ll end up living in my house forever?)

But the thing that worries me most is knowing that even if you do everything right and have a really good kid, there will come a day when they surprise you by making a stupid decision that you never saw coming.

At least that’s what I did to my mom.
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Nose Frida The Snot Sucker

I Suck Snot and So Should You

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 11 Comments

As the mothers of newborns we do some pretty strange things to keep our babies healthy & comfortable:

Would you use your teeth to trim your baby’s fingernails? Anything for my baby!

Would you squirt your breast milk into your baby’s eye at the first sign of conjunctivitis? You’d be crazy not to!

Would you suck snot out of your baby’s nose with a plastic hose? Of cour…..Wait a minute…..you want me to do what?

My name is Susanne, and I sucked my baby’s snot…..and you should too!
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I’m Going to Be in a Book! Martinis & Motherhood – Tales of Wonder, Woe & WTF?!

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 7 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I received the exciting news that one of my stories was selected to be included in the upcoming anthology, Martinis & Motherhood – Tales of Wonder, Woe & WTF?! which is being published in June by Shannon Day (Martinis & Motherhood) and Tara Wilson (Don’t Lick the Deck) of Tipsy Squirrel Press.
martinis motherhood cover

I’m so excited and honored to have my story included along with 35 other talented authors sharing their stories of the Wonder, Woe & WTF moments of motherhood (and of course, martini recipes.) Read more about the book here.
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Our Bathroom Remodel Episode 8 I'm a Knob Snob

Bathroom Remodel – Episode 8 – I’m a Knob Snob

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns Leave a comment

MARCH 26 – I’M A KNOB SNOB

I buy cheap wine, most of my kids’ toys (and clothes) are purchased off of our neighborhood Facebook Garage Sale page and I usually go with ‘cost efficient’ over ‘luxury’.

So why would I spend my whole morning driving the equivalent of a trip to San Antonio to spend 3x as much money for cabinet knobs at Restoration Hardware (a store I usually avoid at all costs) instead of my beloved Lowes?

Because I’m a knob snob.
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Top 14 Reasons Preschool Boys are Like Drunk Old Men

The Dusty Parachute by Susanne Kerns 11 Comments

When my daughter (now nine) was around four or five years old, every once in a while she would enter a special kind of state of mind that we fondly referred to as “drunk college roommate.”

99% of the time “drunk college roommate” showed up at bedtime, primarily when it was time to put pajamas on. It would start innocently enough with her telling a little silly joke and then proceeding to laugh so hard that she could fall down, in various stages of pajama undress. Then she would attempt to stand up and steady herself and get all serious, stare deep into my eyes and while patting down both sides of my hair with her tiny hands say things like, “Momma…you’re sooooo pretty.” (All of this, of course, with only one leg of her pajamas on.)
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