I have a very nice smartphone, the make of which I can’t even tell you off-hand, except to say it’s a Droid and has the biggest screen possible so I can at least try to read books off it.  Half the time, I use the phone portion for finding phone …

Organic, raw, cow, almond, soy, rice, omega-3 fortified, breast or none?  What kind of milk to you give your kids?  For my mother, the answer was easy:  I was not excused from the table until I drank all my cow milk.  But new data is changing the age-old recommendation that …

I need some advice, stat. Let’s think of today’s column as “Ask Lisa,” only in reverse. Perhaps “Advise Lisa” will stick and become a regular topic here at CatholicMom.com.  J I have a love-hate relationship with my thick, coarse hair. The stylists all tell me I have great hair for …

When my first two kids were in kindergarten and second grade, they stopped playing together.  They started fighting over anything and everything.  My mommy heart missed that beautiful creative play that they had shared as toddlers, playing dress-up and house.  As  a pediatrician, I knew they needed creative play for …

When my mother had her first child my grandmother visited her in the hospital and gave her a wooden spanking paddle.  “Some day you will need this,” she told my mother.  I heard my mother tell this story again and again throughout my childhood to justify her use of corporal …

Every which way I turn, every nook, every cranny in my home I find clothes. Socks here, underwear there, shirts up high, shorts to and fro. It’s the never ending maze of clothes. Dirty, but not in the laundry room. Clean, but not put away. My attempt at simplifying the …

I was recently asked how my large family made ends meet, and did we get by on things like mac & cheese, accepting hand-me downs, and have to spend the majority of our free time doing affordable things like playing card games, renting movies from Red Box and every once …

I used to gloat that my four-year-old would eat salad, but now I have a three-year-old that refuses anything green and is seriously challenging my best pediatric dietary practices.  My four kids, now one, three, six and eight years old, have each presented their own dietary challenges.  Here are my …

Editor’s note: Wow, I want to personally thank Dr. Kathleen for sharing this well-reasoned article on “What NOT to Buy for Your Baby” — this will save me a lot of grief and money when planning for future baby showers! I’d love to hear from our readers in the comments …

Katie Conner, a mom of six, used to dread dinnertime until she started practicing once-a-month cooking (OAMC), a cooking method also known as bulk or freezer cooking that involves setting aside a day or two to cook a month’s worth of meals and then storing them in the freezer. “It …

Coupons!  You love em or hate em!  I’m going on record right now as saying that up until I got hooked on TLC’s Extreme Couponing show, I couldn’t be bothered sitting down with the Sunday paper clipping coupons for items like Cheerios, toothpaste, and canned corn. At present, our economy …

One of the issues of this presidential campaign as well as of the recent Occupy movement is the cost of higher education and the burden of student loans. I’ve heard some people remark that people who complain about the cost of student loans are “whiners” and that they should have …

With the start of another year, many are reflecting on personal and familial habits that may need to be re-examined. For families, the top slot on this list is often the family budget. The budget tends to burst at the seams comes January. December can bring, “It’s little much, but …

At 26, I still find myself having trouble controlling money.  It always feels like it has a power over me.  Money itself can be evil.  Spending money can become additive, but hoarding it can also be taken to the extreme.  There are times when hoarding gets the best of me.  …

What you put in the collection basket says a lot about you and where you are at in your journey. Some of us put in our 10% tithing without a second thought. Some of us put in the few “extra” dollars we may have. Some of us struggle with the …

My sons and I have recently been watching “Extreme Couponing” on TLC. For those of you unfamiliar with the program, it showcases people who have turned using coupons into a career. They save their families thousands of dollars each year via the use of coupons. Most of the episodes we …

A special thanks to reader Lori for pointing me to the great website OwlHaven, where blogger Mary Ostyn shares her perspective on everything from frugal living to family life. Lori also highly recommends Mary’s cookbook Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds …

Are you single and broke, but want to eat well?  My niece lives on her own in Seattle and has asked for help in trying to eat less processed junk.  She does eat a lot of eggs (they’re good for her, cheap and fast), but usually falls back on pasta …

For those who met my new friend Bo Govea on Catholic Moments Podcast #149 and heard about his great system 102030Go.com, you may want to check out Bo’s first blog post which talks about getting started with the system.  I found the following comment very insightful: Positive Immediate and Certain- …

This past Sunday, I had a luminous moment. It wasn’t mine, it was simply mine to witness. Going up to receive the Eucharist, I spied a mother pushing a wheelchair/stroller hybrid with a son I guessed to be about 12, but suffering from cerebral palsy and other complications that rendered …