Gwen Rockwood: Googling brings easy answers but not necessarily the correct ones
My kids think it's amazing that I was an ancient 18 years old the first time I got a computer and learned to use it. For kids who've been using technology before they were even potty trained, it's har...
October 8, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: If ever we needed change, this fall would be the season
A few days ago, I took the dogs to the back yard and stood on the deck waiting for them to take care of business. For the first time in months, a non-humid breeze swept over me -- light and refreshing...
October 1, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: When life gives you pears, know we don't always pick what we plant
My husband has a thing for green apples, which is why he planted an apple tree in our yard about two years ago. It was a tiny little tree when we bought it, but it finally grew up enough to start putt...
September 24, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: Self-checkouts lead to one mad Memaw
Something is wrong at my mother's favorite grocery store, and she's not going to take it lying down. She may even write a strongly worded letter to the company's headquarters, and I bet it'll be a doo...
September 17, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: Three thoughts does a column make
Sometimes I have an idea for a column that grows to the size of a Saint Bernard or Great Dane and takes up all the space my editors give me.
But sometimes, the ideas come in smaller packages -- the s...
September 10, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: School three ways: Classes going on here, there and everywhere
I've been at this mom gig for 18 years now, and I can tell you from experience that this has been the weirdest back-to-school week I've ever seen. I find myself missing all those years when our bigges...
September 3, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: A stitch in time saves sanity when confined by pandemic
Remember when we were kids and, during the first week of school, the teacher would make us stand in front of the class and talk about what we did during summer break?
Even though I'm not going back t...
August 27, 2020
THE ROCKWOOD FILES: Bathroom breaking point: Mom has a fit of procrasti-cleaning
Yesterday I walked into the bathroom to put away a stack of folded towels. As soon as I put the pile of fresh laundry on the shelf, I felt like I was abandoning my squeaky-clean baby in a dirty bus st...
August 20, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: Nowadays, a negative really is a positive
When I was in my early 20s and working as an assistant in the newsroom of the local paper, the editor tossed me an assignment late one afternoon. Not an assistant assignment. It was a reporting assign...
August 13, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: Grateful mom sees what first jobs teach her teenage sons
During what many would describe as the suckiest summer in recent history, something good happened at our house. Two of our three children have become gainfully employed with their first official jobs....
August 6, 2020
Dignity left on ice when kitchen's dirty secrets revealed
My refrigerator made a fool of me today. This morning, when I came downstairs to the kitchen, it was croaking -- loudly. It sounded like an elderly frog was inside it, sitting in a creaky rocking chai...
July 30, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: First car a reminder of how the world has changed
My first car was a powder blue Volkswagen bug, made sometime in the late 1960s or early '70s. I don't remember the exact year. At the time my dad brought it home, it was 1987, and I was 14 years old w...
July 23, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: Ever-present headphones mute -- and annoy -- mom
You've heard of a missing person's report, right? I may have to file a missing "pieces" report. Because I haven't seen my kids' ears in months. I'm beginning to wonder if they're still there.
Where a...
July 16, 2020
The Rockwood Files: 'Independence Day' seems too soon, too scary
I've been thinking a lot about independence lately. Not just because we celebrated an unusual Fourth of July, minus the annual gathering of friends and neighbors around the backyard grill. It was just...
July 9, 2020
Gwen Rockwood: History offers tiny distractions from a rough reality
Consequential. That's the word that comes to mind when I think about all that has happened these past several months. Everything feels so ... heavy. Even a routine trip to the grocery store feels like...
July 2, 2020