Bringing Home the Bacon

My house exploded today. That tends to happen when you combine three excited kids with four tubs of Christmas decorations. But the official start of the season doesn't happen until husband and I and the kids watch Christmas Vacation. There are so many great lines to this movie. But by far our favorite is this exchange: Clark : "So, when did you get the tenement on wheels?" Eddie : "Oh, that uh, that there's an RV. Yeah, yeah, I borrowed it off a buddy of mine. He took my house, I took the RV. It's a good looking vehicle, ain't it?" Clark : "Yeah, it looks so nice parked in the driveway." Eddie : "Yeah, it sure does. But, don't you go falling in love with it now, because, we're taking it with us when we leave here next month." This line is all the more funny to my husband since many members of my family have RVs. We even have an entire weekend-long family reunion where we all stay in RVs (and some tents). I have to conf

Growing up, we always went to my grandmother's for Thanksgiving. Grandma and Grandpa lived two miles away--on the same road. So by the time we could sing Over the River and Through the Woods , we were there. But that didn't stop my father from delivering his annual four-minute lecture. I can still hear it... I don't care what your cousins do ( there were nine of us) I don't want to hear any screaming or see any running. I expect you to behave the entire time. I don't care if your cousins are acting like animals. Do you understand me? It's important to point out here that my cousins were far from animals. They were just kids who were excited to be with their cousins and celebrating a holiday. (You should have HEARD the lecture we got before we saw them at Christmas.) My siblings and I were also very well-behaved children who frequently received compliments from strangers on our public behavior. So why the lecture? The only explanation I can think of is that t

Well, we're finally seeing the results of all the hard work husband has been doing since September to inseminate the pigs... Oh, maybe that didn't come out right. What I mean is that all of the planning and breeding that took place earlier on the farm is starting to pay off with the birth of several litters of pigs. This litter of 13 piglets is two weeks old. The little gilts (females) and boars (males) keep warm on cold Ohio nights under a heat lamp. You can see on the left that they can exit their little warm spot to nurse with the sow but are protected by the fence from accidental squishing by their mother. Hey, if you weighed 500 pounds and had 13 babies underfoot, you might accidentally step on one or two. Remember Miss ? Well, her golden days as a State Fair beauty may be behind her, but she is getting ready to have her first litter of pigs any day now (early December). We'll keep you updated with pictures when the piglets arrive. (Unless it's too cold. I'

I may be dating myself but how many crisis communications presentations have I sat through that praised Tylenol for its handling of the tampering crisis . Well, get ready to update your PowerPoint Crisis Guys, there's a new pain reliever case study in town. And this time, you have to share your story with a million social media wonks who will liven up their versions of the story with screen shots of the Twitter search. Of course, I'm talking about this weekend's Mommy blogger Twitter stampede to condemn Motrin for what many found to be an insulting ad about the pains moms get from " babywearing ." Huh Kevin Dugan said it best: People reading this on Monday are in one of two camps regarding Motrin Moms – in the know or 2.0 slow. I am relatively new to Twitter and just happened to be playing around with it this weekend when I witnessed what can best be described as a "brand-wreck" in process. For me, it started with Peter Shankman and led to Tw

Dear A, We're so excited that soon you and your family will be our neighbors. And by neighbors , we mean that in the country sense that you are located in our part of the county. Not in the cul de sac sense of neighbors who can open their respective bathroom windows and share toothpaste, Just hold the brush out a little farther... But before you move in, there are some local customs you should know about, some social norms (thank you Soc 101) that you should follow. I know you're not the kind of person who would do this anyway, but I want to remind you not to speak ill of anyone outside the private confines of your home until you have memorized the entire genealogy of the community. I am a lifelong resident and I still get kicked under the table by my mother at least once a month for saying something less than gushing about someone whose sister-in-law's neighbor's best friend is sitting in the next booth. There are people living here who are literally related to ev

With apologies to the Rolling Stones ... Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a gal of wealth (I wish) and taste (I hope). Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. Hello, I'm Holly Michael. I started this blog 80+ posts ago to share my experiences straddling the sometimes equally stinky worlds of corporate public relations and farm life. But what's puzzling you is the nature of my game... I started out keeping this blog fairly anonymous, not sure if I wanted search engines finding this site against searches on my name. But a month or so ago I added this link to my LinkedIn page and search engine-wise, the gig was up. I'm proud of what I've shared here and don't see any reason to hide behind pen names (get it, pig pen, pen name, never mind ). So as I stand on the threshold of greatly broadening the reach of this site, I want to remind all you gentle readers of the rules I established for visitors to this blog. And I thought this would be a gre

Conversation with our daughter about the election process: Me: Get your jacket on, so we can go vote. Morgan: I want to wear my swimsuit Me: No, you can't wear your swimsuit to the polls, it is chilly outside. Morgan: But I want to wear it to the boat. I don't want to get my jacket wet. Conversation with our son about the election process: Justin: Who left that message, Mommy? Me: It's from John McCain. Can you believe he called us? Justin: I saw him on TV. If you don't vote for John McCain, you have to vote for that other guy, right? (starts making up a song) John McCain, John McCain, John McCain VOTE; John McCain, John McCain, John McCain VOTE Conversation with our son about the election process: Me: What did you do at school today? Ryan: I voted for Barack Obama. The whole first grade did. He won 30-20. Update from Ryan's grandmother: At school today he asked the teacher who she voted for and she said it was a secret. He responded: Well, then I'm n