Author Archives: rkpaulus

About rkpaulus

Writer. Mom. Wife. Basketball coach. Lover or all things chocolate. Winner of bubble gum jar! Grace is my oxygen.

The Signs of Life

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Photo Credit: Web MD Report on Head Bugs
Got a text this morning that rang up there on my list of a mothers’ worst nightmares. 
“All the girls have lice!” 
No! 
I was in shock. They just left a few days ago. I gave them all haircuts two days before. They all washed their hair the night before the trip. They wash their sheets and blankets often. Sometimes twice in one week. They’ve been out of school for over two weeks now. How did this happen?
For a mom of four girls with heads full of thick black hair, often wearing it long, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen sooner. 
I have no experience with lice. I don’t recall ever having it, but I guess I should call my mom up to double check about my younger years. I don’t even know what lice looks like. 
And there in lies the first problem. Continue reading →

Upside-Down Kisses

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Photo Credit: Foodcore on Flickr
I’m sitting in Starbucks finishing up some writing when I get a text from hubby a few hours after the girls leave for a week long adventure with their cousins in Delaware.

“Be home by 8:30. It’s a date night! :)” 
The cafe latte in my tum-tum does a flip. Yup. This girl still gets giddy when her hubby asks her out. Nothing like being asked when least expected! Continue reading →

Summer Daze

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Spent yesterday giving the girls summer haircuts and pumping up a nice sized blow up pool to battle the summer heat. Love all their new looks and so thankful for my neighbor’s air compressor. I would have passed out if I used the bike pump for more than ten minutes. Now if I could just figure out a way to rig the pool to stay put at the bottom of the tree house slide, we’d have a water slide presto! Just not sure how safe it would be as of yet. 

The last time we tried to rig a Mr. Turtle pool at the bottom of the slide, even padded the interior for a soft landing, poor little light-weight Sarah landed in the pool and popped right out, onto the driveway, on her little bottom. Ouchie! Not exactly how we had hoped it would work. This pool is much larger and the blow up walls taller and better barriers for potential crashing. Hmmm? For now, we’ll leave it on the driveway until I think of a plan that passes Hubby’s safety inspection. He wasn’t too happy when he heard about Sarah’s sore tush. Yeah. This mommy needs to hang up her engineering hardhat and keep her day job. 

Speaking of…  Continue reading →

Brave Enough

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Can’t believe I didn’t have a hot dog on the fourth of July?

I guess hot dogs aren’t primarily served at weddings. Unless maybe you get married in Texas.

Anyway, my baby princess played the part of flower girl for the third time in her life. Dress rehearsal was two days before the wedding, and she has been looking forward to this day for months. The shoes! The dress! And don’t forget her star earrings and of course, Mommy just has to curl her hair. But not till the big day. Tonight is just a practice run. We’re not even wearing the shoes tonight.

As I watch Sarah walk down the aisle with her empty basket and pretend to toss petals here and there, two thoughts run through my mind. One regarding the order of the wedding procession, the other simply connected to the event. A rehearsal.

I think to myself, “What if life had a dress rehearsal?” How about for just the tough times? Would we get a chance to practice our lines, revise and rewrite—before family and friends arrive and words cannot be taken back? Continue reading →

Fireworks of the Heart

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The flickering light whizzing around the dark living room brought a glimpse of fiery orange glow for  two seconds and then went out again. Thought about several fun tweets immediately:
“The night light in our house has a mind of its own. Oh wait. Just a firefly wanting some attention.”
“If I were a lightening bug, I would only offer to count in hide and seek. Just sayin.”
Or…

“This little light of mine is buzzing above my head. First official summer #firefly spotting. And she’s indoors!”
Never get the energy to rise and type in my tweets. Decide it’s okay to let it go. Enjoy the moments inside my head, smile, and move on. No one in the cyber world’s life depends on my firefly fixation tonight. Continue reading →

Sushi, Stomp, & Something Sweet

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Love walking around the City! Shake Shack,
we’ll come back for you next tme…fo sho! 

So we started out our NYC Operation Birthday Date by driving into the city, and during our hour plus commute from Locust Valley to Manhattan, we debrief and deflate, one of the gifts of marrying your best friend. I still remember my high school English teacher Mr. Quick referring to this human gift as a “sounding board,” surely a reference to some famous poem or literature. [Will look it up when my energy supply rises back to normal levels.]

Earlier in the day, I simply asked hubby to please cooperate with tonight’s plans. It was my “Follow the Leader” after all. And after a fashion crisis (yes, guys have those too,) changing from casual to less casual shirt, and then from his runners back to his dress shoes, we are on the road, in our Honda Accord with no a.c. Hubs tried to fix it, but there must be another leak since the freon only lasted a day or two. Nothing like natural cooling with the windows rolled down and the wind blowing through your hair and the scents of New York floating into your air space.  You know—that familiar combination—smog of taxi cabs, cigarette smoke of pedestrians, and ethnic food of all sorts.  Continue reading →

A Man in His Ocean…Drowning

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Photo Taken In Feb 2012

Walk into the hospital room and see Papa sitting on the edge of his bed with the lunch tray still in front of him. The pudding, ice cream and jello containers are empty. Sugar packets lay torn and scattered near his half full coffee mug. The salad sits untouched. 

“Rajdeep, you came?”
“Hi Papa. How are you?”
“Good. Good. Fine. I feel fine. Can you take me home now?”
“Not until the doctor says you’re okay to leave.”
“I feel fine. Good. I can go now.”
“Sorry Papa. I have to wait until the doctor says it’s okay.”

“Can you go and call the doctor then? Call him right away.” Papa is tugging at his I.V. as if it’s a chain.  Continue reading →

My Niagara-Sized Love Story… Page One

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Photo Credit: Phombo

I grew up in Canada. Windsor, Ontario to be exact. And when I moved to Michigan, senior year in high school and continued my education over in Evanston, IL, not to far from where I met my future hubby in Chicago, I never knew that my Canadian roots would play a part in my love story or my career path as a writer. 

Found out today that my little story on how hubby and I began our love story in the mist of Niagara Falls is published online at MaClean’s Magazine. Who-hoo! The link is below. Enjoy! And “Ohhh Canada! My Home and Native land…” Thanks for remembering me! 🙂


How about you? Have you ever visited Niagara Falls? Where do you call home away from home?

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Neva say Neva…A Bieber-Blog!

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia & Justin Bieber

I know he’s not perfect. And maybe it’s the fact that I have a bunch of tweens in my house. But I feel like when Justin Bieber came onto the music scene, he gave today’s youth [okay girls] a teenage heartthrob with a sunshiny smile that seeps into the hearts of every generation. He’s a cutie. And he can sing. In my opinion. And his fancy footwork doesn’t hurt.

Sure he’s a little full of himself. Thinking I want him to “Be My Boyfriend,” to which I respond, “Baby baby, baby, Ahhh. Thought you’d always be mine.” But at my age, Justin, still need my Starbucks!
Continue reading →