The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

Sometimes, when something really important or heart touching happens, Kathy sends me flowers. I love them.

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“Nothing in my life had ever prepared me to become that dreaded, hateful figure in someone else’s life: a step mom. And yet here I was marrying Robert and as a result becoming Patrick’s step mom. The concept frightened me to no end. What if Patrick would grow to hate me and want to blow [...]

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“Don’t take life for granted, celebrate it, enjoy it. Don’t waste any time on foolish negativity. Every second or minute wasted is time gone forever, we can never get it back. Every minute wasted is precious time gone forever. Each of us only have a limited number of those precious minutes left on this earth. [...]

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“. . . even imperfection sparkles when the light hits it right.” — tortious

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We were sitting on the couch at Kathy’s house, curtains drawn in the afternoon, watching Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables is my favorite movie of all time, and Kathy had said she wanted to see it. Sam the dog was there, and he made himself comfortable. Jack, the youngest, came home from [...]

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By Katherine Shirek Doughtie
One of the very hardest things Jill and I ever had to negotiate were our “boundaries” — which is rapidly becoming an overused word to define just about everything that annoys us about another person. Boundaries are those indefinable barriers between people that are only visible when they are crossed. [...]

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Kathy’s post about communication started me thinking about what my own tips on communication would be. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

If you want to use labels to describe people, use positive ones that emphasize the current relationship. I like the phrase “the kids’ mom” better than “my husband’s ex-wife”, for example. [...]

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Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith are my stepfamily heroes. And apparently they inspired Bruce Willis to become friends with Ashton Kutcher:
“He said, ‘Dude, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to get the kids and all the spouses or the girlfriend together. You’ve got to show your kids it’s okay.’ It was like a [...]

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“[Y]our mother is your pulse to the world. Your mother is your everything. How can I truly appreciate and love Trey without embracing his mother?”– Jada Pinkett Smith on her relationship with Will Smith’s oldest son, Trey, and Trey’s mom (read more)

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Han Solo in the freezer

Han Solo closeup (that’s the butter dish lid he’s frozen in)
For a while, I was finding funny dramatic little scenes like these set up around the house every few months. These pictures are a few years old, but I love them.

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