Articles by Debra Legg
Debra Legg is former interactive media editor for modbee.com and a freelance writer, editor and Web content specialist. A graduate of West Virginia University, she’s won awards for reporting and column writing in West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina. Her sons — 9-year-old Big Guy and 7-year-old Boots — provide plenty of fodder for 9 to 5 to 9, which is a nationally syndicated column through McClatchy Tribune Media Services.
This is what happens when you combine two boys, three days of rain and a muddy back yard. Griping about cleaning up is inevitable.
Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.
By all accounts, the LeBlanc family was doing a lot of things right.
Their mortgage payment is $440 a month on a five-bedroom home in Lafayette, La., a figure the likes of which I haven’t seen …
Honestly, it was only three caps of Mr. Bubble. And we have hard water, too.
Copyright 2009 Debra Legg. All rights reserved.
Yes, I trick my kids.
I shamelessly spike marinara with spinach and proudly bill whole-wheat banana muffins as cupcakes. Big Guy won’t touch banana or spinach, but he gobbles both in their covert forms.
I also do …
I knew the zucchini fry recipe had potential when I heard about it back in the fall.
I also knew I had to proceed carefully lest I arouse Big Guy’s suspicions about anything that grows in …
Hey, didn’t the Bowl Championship Series end two weeks ago when Florida beat Oklahoma in Miami?
Then why was it being played again for 40 minutes Thursday in the U.S. House of Representatives?
Because a representative from …
Warning: This recipe is a beast the requires a really big bowl. Think “bordering on wash tub.”
Seriously. I use an eight-quart Tupperware model for mixing, and that’s just about right. It’s not that there are …
Weather warm enough that we shed our jackets on the way home from school last week inspired Big Guy to ask a version of the question flitting through my mind:
“How long until they’re playing baseball …
I am not in favor of children reading “Playboy” online.
I once threw a fit, in fact, when Dad left 4-year-old Big Guy alone with YouTube for only a few seconds. It was long enough for …
From the city council woman bent on herding runaway shopping carts to the senator determined to ensure that his state not go another day without an official dirt, public-policy time wasters long have floated across …
No-bake oatmeal cookies are probably the ideal baking-on-training-wheels recipe.
It’s the first cookie I made by myself after the recipe made the rounds during my pre-teen years. It requires only one pan, no baking sheets and …
I’m as geeky as the next girl but I’ve never understood iPhone infatuation, and the only blackberries I’ve craved are the ones that grow wild in the mountains in the summer.
That could be because I’m …
Seeing every other house on your street sold at a foreclosure auction? That’s so 2008.
This year, you’re hopelessly unhip if you don’t know someone who’s been furloughed. Bonus points if you’ve been furloughed yourself.
The state …
Dear Washington,
This is going to sound strange coming from someone five months into unemployment, whose entire professional career has been in an industry on the verge of imploding and who’s looking for work in a …
Gary Johnson and Rebecca Witt are making it, but barely, on his $8-an-hour job while she uses grants to pay for college in between raising three children.
But because they aren’t married, the state of Michigan …
I’d given up hope of ever making cheesecake again until I found Rosemarie Emro’s excellent Bakin’ Without Eggs cookbook. Not only does the book offer an amazing collection of time-tested egg-free recipes, but it also …
“Mom, who’s that guy whose birthday we celebrate?”
“Jesus?”
“No,” Big Guy responded, exasperated at Mom’s density. “The one whose birthday’s coming up and I get a day off from school. The one who went to heaven.”
“Oh! …
Not my original work, but an important message today and every day.
I have a dream, too, Dr. King. It’s a lot like yours.
We’re all getting closer.
A funny thing happened along the way to making the bathtub crayons Tara posted at It Feels Like Home.
We got waylaid by a commenter’s “recipe” for easy bath paint. Since easy is good and we …
The magic of Parmesan strikes again.
When Big Guy met last night’s new round of Chex Mix, he was determined to munch around the margins, picking out the Goldfish. Then he spied a spattering of toasty …
It started with an article in British Medical Journal in which an American doctor claimed parents are in the grip of a “nut hysteria” that is fueling irrational fears about allergic reactions to peanuts.
The doctor, …
Most Italian dishes we’ve managed to adapt to egg- and garlic-free without even missing what’s not there.
Marinara sauce is just fine with extra onion, and lasagna turns out wonderfully with just cheese in the filling.
I …
I shall never bake again.
Late last night, I said that as the guys caterwauled around me while I peering into the oven and staring at a cake showing every sign of falling faster than my …
This morning should have been a piece of cake with Big Guy, considering that he was looking forward to gingerbread boys. Plus it was the first morning all week I hadn’t gone 15 minutes too …
Better watch your butt in South Carolina, in more ways than one if a state senator has his way.
Democrat Robert Ford, an African-American who readily admits he’s targeting African-American men, is behind Bill 56. It’s …
This is a favorite dating back to my single-girl hostess with the mostest days. I have no idea where it came from, but I freaked out momentarily a few weeks ago when I couldn’t find …
I have a back-up plan should the job market worsen: selling used furniture. I already have an impressive inventory of unnecessary beds.
And should things really get bad – say, Bank of America flounders after buying …
I don’t know which scared me more the day I swerved my Ford Escort off the freeway just in time to see the engine ignite: The flames shooting from the hood or my stepdad’s predictable …
There’s often a reason why Big Guy does the seemingly quirky things he does. A reason that makes sense only in his 5-year-old brain, but a reason nonetheless.
I usually don’t question, because if it’s genuinely ...
Parties in the park seem to be the rage around here of late – a rage that will be over by the time Big Guy’s birthday rolls around in 103-degree July – and today’s was ...
Oh my goodness!! I am (ashamedly) a thirty-something with Boots’ tendencies toward finger-jabbing and angry accusations...
