indya kincannon

There are lots of good reasons to vote for Indya Kincannon for the Knox County School Board, but honestly, I'd probably vote for her even if I didn't know anything about her views simply because she's the only political candidate I know of with beautiful pictures of her waterbirth included on her campaign website.

Motherhood is powerful!

martin pleasant

If you care about the future of Knoxville and Knox County, you should support Martin Pleasant's campaign

i'm reading...horse people

funny jane

The other day, my eight year old daughter, Jane asked me why it's "rude to ask someone how old their horse is." I asked her to repeat her question because I didn't quite understand it, and she repeated it; she wanted to know why it is considered rude to ask someone how old their horse is.

So I told her I had never heard that this was considered rude, and asked her to tell me who had told her that.

Well, she said, you have to look at a horse's teeth to know how old it is and there's that saying, "never look a gift horse in the mouth," ergo -- in the world according to Jane -- it must be rude to ask someone how old their horse is!

(Clearly we haven't been reading enough of the classics at home)

front porches

I spent the weekend moving from the soulless (sp?) apartment-complex apartment my children and Ihave lived in for the past year into our new house. I still have a lot of unpacking to do, but all our stuff is now relocated.

I never could get comfortable in that apartment, which puzzled me. It was actually a really nice apartment, as they go. Everything was new and clean and worked well. It had a nice little kitchen and even a fireplace. There was a pool and a pond and plenty of green space. But the kids and I just never felt at home there.

For months I tried to convince them that they should like it -- that it was really a nice place -- but finally I just gave in and agreed with them that it felt empty and cold. I promised that we would buy a house as soon as we could, and now we have.

Our new house is very homey and warm. It is a working class family's bungalow, built in 1930. It has wonderful wood trim and weird nooks and crannies, and lots of big windows. The yard is nice and the old city neighborhood has sidewalks. But best of all, it has a front porch.

I grew up in houses with front porches and I like them. At my last house -which was a 50s rancher with no front porch where we lived from 1995-2002 -- we added a huge, elaborate deck on the back and I loved it, but I now realize that when you do all your hanging out and sitting and talking on the BACK side of your house, you miss seeing the world go by.

I like sitting on the front porch of our new house and I've even put a picnic table on it. I suspect we will eat a lot of meals out there and I look forward to meeting our neighbors and watching the activity of the street.

Some day I will likely add a back patio or deck for when we want more privacy, but I sure do like the front porch.