Seller’s Remorse

Wisconsin Estate Sale, Antiques, Collectables, Linens, Furniture. Quality Household Miscellaneous. Pole Barn Full of Tools. Everything Must Go! Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to write one of those ads. But let me tell you, it’s pretty hard to make the words “household miscellaneous” jump … Read more

Orange Alert

Orange Alert, everybody. Avoid crowds. But go shopping. Keep the economy strong. Have an emergency plan in place. A central location for you and your family to meet in the event of, oh, I don’t know…an explosion? The deadly release of a new Ben Affleck movie? Wash your hands, please, but masks are for the … Read more

Refugees at Home

I swear to heaven that it sounded like a good idea at the time. Hypnotized by HGTV, we took a perfectly good kitchen (if not our aesthetic ideal), ripped it out by the seams, and have for the last four months given a painful, bloody Lamaze-style birth to the placement of each pantry cupboard, each … Read more

Alma Mater? Don’t Know Her.

Aw, hell. You won’t believe what I got myself into. So I’ll just tell you. I’m going to be a guest speaker at my old high school for career day. Delicious irony #1: I never completed high school.Delicious irony #2: Either they never bothered to check this fact, or they don’t care. My dilemma came … Read more

Halloween or Christmas-Which Is Scarier?

How many shopping days left until Christmas? Well, whatever it is, it’s not enough. Cry all you want during your next trip to Target about the Bleeding Skull Halloween costumes hanging next to the icicle lights and the faux-fir tree display. Do you hear what I hear? It’s the rat-a-tat-tat of mass merchants gunning for … Read more

Shameless Self-Demotion

September 12, 2003, 1:37 p.m. Two days over deadline. Behind in not only this job, but all of the other part-time jobs that create this dubious, ever shifting “whole” of self-employment. OK, Colleen, get a grip. Don’t subdivide your anxiety; just concentrate on one thing at a time. 3:41 p.m. Staring at the screen for … Read more

Faithful Friends

1972. I don’t remember the month, but it was warm enough for me not to be wearing a jacket, just my head-to- toe Garanimals red outfit. A T-shirt and jeans in my signature color. I was four years old. I could dress myself, and when I put on that outfit, baby, I meant business. Everybody … Read more

Dear God, Thank You

Hallelujah and amen! You know what time it is. I can smell the cornmeal and sizzling fat in the air already. Set aside petty concerns of the pending apocalypse and don the raiment of joyous festival! Bring me my cutoff jeans, and my baseball jersey that depicts the beer swilling cartoon bear! Unearth my novelty … Read more

The Final Stage

Josh Hartnett is cute, sure, but he’s a little green for us gals in the Been Around the Block Club. Plus he’s got a girlfriend anyway, duh! So, for those of us who like our hometown heartthrobs with a few rough edges and a checkered past, not to mention killer timing, may we present Minnesota’s … Read more

Viewer Indiscretion

I’ll come clean. Though I produce my own small bit of pop culture, I am not a big fan of the stuff, particularly not movies. On average, I see about three movies a year. I watch about two hours of television a week. And most of that is accidental viewing. My channel surfing is akin … Read more