Since the Cottage on Paw Paw Creek at the Mansion House in Snow Hill, Maryland, does its best to shelter us from the distractions of modern technology, we don't have cable TV today, much less wireless Internet access. I couldn't even sneak onto a neighbor's wireless network to post this missive… the neighbors are probably just enjoying the natural beauty of our surroundings instead of roaming the blogosphere. London and Maddie are stretched out on the rug in the homey living room, coloring in... Read Full Story

Rex, London, Maddie and I just finished an amazing dinner at the Blue Point in Duck, North Carolina. I am too exhausted from driving all day to write all about it and to upload my photos of the beautiful food, but trust me that it is terrific and that I will tell all within the next week. So far our trip is off to a great start and I look forward to telling you all about it. Tomorrow, we’re hoping to just kick back, relax, and check out the beach at the Sanderling Resort & Spa. Read Full Story

Today's the day...we're leaving on our trip to Duck, North Carolina. We're going to pick the girls up early from school, and head down to Snow Hill, Maryland to stay the night. Tomorrow morning, we'll look for some wild horses in Assateague or Chincoteague, then drive another four or five hours to the Sanderling Resort & Spa in Duck, NC. Over the long weekend, Mariuca and LadyJava (who now has 7 blogs and has been nominated for Best Diarist in the BlogNet Awards -- vote, vote vote!) are going... Read Full Story

Many of my Roxiticus Desperate Housewives know that I'm not just a blogger and a mom, I'm an investment banker...my husband Rex and I own a small mergers and acquisitions firm in New York City. Whether I'm out and about in the blogosphere, reading someone else's newspaper on the train, or watching TV, I hear investment bankers and the employees of some of the failed banks getting a bad rap. "Why should we bail them out? Look at those bonuses on the books...surely we don't have to pay these... Read Full Story

A few years back (July 2005), Rex read a travel article by Cindy Price in The New York Times about “36 Hours In…Duck, North Carolina.” Ever since, he’s been hoping to take London, Maddie, and me away for a long weekend, and this year, we’ve found the time. In preparation for our trip, I've been posting the things we plan to do — including restaurants and kid stuff — over on Roxy's Best Of... Duck, North Carolina. We're going to be in the Outer Banks for several days, so we needed to plan for... Read Full Story

Ever since Al Gore invented the Internet, there have been guys I've worked with who use company computers to look at naughty pictures, some quite vile. One summer we had such widespread disgusting pop-ups on our office computer that we had to use a program to detect porn and learned that our janitor was doing the dirty on our analysts' desktops instead of cleaning our office in the middle of the night! Even though we had installed a filter, it turns out that the ultimate Internet safety... Read Full Story

The stock market has me thinking about a book I read back in college. Thinner is a 1984 novel by Stephen King, the last novel published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym until the release of The Regulators in 1996 (the initial hardcover release of Thinner even included a fake jacket photo of "Bachman"). Set in 1980s New England, Thinner focuses on an obese lawyer named Billy Halleck, who has recently fought an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter after... Read Full Story

Since Rex, London, Maddie and I all live in the United States, in the lovely Roxiticus Valley, New Jersey, we've never had a problem having our online shopping shipped directly to our home. However, I've heard it through the grapevine from my Malaysian blogosphere buddies that many online stores and eBay sellers do not ship internationally. LadyJava might see a great price for a new handbag online, or Mariuca might win an eBay auction for an elegant new lantern for her balcony, but when my... Read Full Story

I know I've told you before, and I'll tell you again...our family takes Halloween very very seriously. Even before London was a glimmer in our eyes, Rex and I would sit out on the porch of our beach house in Bay Head, New Jersey, on the Sunday before Halloween, and the crowds of ghosts, goblins, princesses, prom queens and football players would gather in front of the shops on Mount Street for the Bay Head Halloween Parade. The year Maddie was born, my niece Candy sewed a homemade pumpkin... Read Full Story

I found this A-Maze-ing aerial view photograph of the corn maze at Ort Farms in Long Valley, NJ, by Joyce Bambach in the Chester Observer-Tribune and it forced me to make a confession to you, dear readers...London, Maddie, Rex and I have never gone into a corn maze. When I see a photo like this one, I get more than a little bit intimidated....visions of Stephen King's "Children of the Corn" dance in my head and I envision the National Guard coming out to search for our family of four... Read Full Story