by Shannon Popkin | Feb 19, 2013 | Disagreement, Humility, Kids' Perspective, Parenting
When Lindsay was about two, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. We had been driving quite a while, and both Ken and I were cranky. After we were seated, we began to argue with each other about who-knows-what. We were in the middle of a move to a new city, so it...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 14, 2013 | Holidays, Love, Marriage, Women
I asked a friend yesterday what she was planning for Valentine’s Day (I was fishing for ideas to steal), and she said (in essence), “Are you nuts? I don’t do Valentine’s Day.” I had just come from another gathering of friends, and they...
by Shannon Popkin | Feb 13, 2013 | Discipline, Mistakes, Parenting
A repost from 2009. Cole thinks this story is very funny now. :)My family was all within earshot when Ken said, “Shannon, we’ve got to be consistent with disciplining Cade for talking back. Should he sit in the corner for five minutes?” After we...
by Shannon Popkin | Jan 31, 2013 | Hospitality, Leadership, Marriage, Sin
ddiSpoiler alert: You might want to read part 1 and part 2 before you read on… I was a bit like Cinderella before the ball, humming little songs and dancing dreamily about my kitchen–the same kitchen that would soon be expanding by the magic wand of extra...
by Shannon Popkin | Jan 28, 2013 | Communication, Differences, Marriage, Roles, Women
We Control Girls have this tactic called persistence. The more we bring something up, the closer we get to the tipping point–where our husbands abdicate their preferences to keep their sanity. I used this tactic on Ken by initiating regular...
by Shannon Popkin | Jan 25, 2013 | Humility, Leadership, Marriage, Sin
Five or six years ago, I began complaining about our kitchen to my husband. I said that it was too small. You could only fit a tiny round table in the eating area, and there wasn’t nearly enough room if we wanted to have a big group of people over for dinner....