Last week, I prepared to enter my mother's walk-in closet. Over the past several months, I've been going to her house -- my childhood home -- a couple of times a week, sifting through piles of papers, plastic containers and desk drawers. Discarding trivial things, such as my school bus...

I don't know about you, but my Sundays (and some Saturdays) since September have been filled with football. I have a husband and a son who are fairly smitten with watching overgrown boys run around a field in any type of weather throwing and chasing a ball, and then falling...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's everything cozy -- autumn's chunky sweaters, deep red wine and warm cider, hearty food, a roaring fire and most of all, close family and friends --jammed into one wonderful day.

I cook for days, mostly alone, and with little stress develop a fairly traditional...

My childhood friend Ellen and I were 13 years old when we first concocted our let's-celebrate-our-friendship-every-ten-years scheme. At the time, it seemed as if a decade amounted to some magical, far-off date when we'd reunite after many years with no contact.

We were pre-pubescent teenagers then, swirling around the dance...

The economy. Equal pay for women. What color tie the President and Governor Romney are sporting. There's a lot to focus on during these televised presidential debates.

The sparring can get even more lively if you're adding alcohol into the mix in the form of debate drinking games, which...

Just over three years ago, I wrote a post on Drinking Diaries announcing that my husband and I were going to be alcohol-free on Mondays. It sounds like no big deal -- and it wasn't -- but it was the first time we had made a conscious decision...

On a recent flight that would last seven-and-a-half long hours, I thought hard about whether or not to have a glass of wine with lunch. I liked the idea that the wine could make me drowsy, easing me into a daytime nap, but also wanted to read my book and...

During the summer after my sophomore year in college, I spent six weeks studying and living with a family in the French city of Avignon. Each night at dinner, the father of the family replenished my glass throughout the meal, pouring it from a big jug that he kept on...

I don't drink on Mondays. Sometimes I'd like to, but I've decided that for at least one day during the week, I need to rest my liver from the wine I drink with dinner each of the other six days. (Note: when on vacation, non-drinking Mondays need not apply.)

I'm...

Decades before Miley Cyrus revealed to college-age women everywhere that the hookah, or water pipe, is the latest must-have accessory, I found one prominently placed in my childhood home. I was 15 and had just returned from a summer at sleepaway camp. In my absence, my parents had traveled to...

Last week, my 18-year-old daughter headed down South to Tennessee in a three-car caravan to attend the Bonnaroo music festival. It would be three days of music all day and throughout the night (she talked of one concert that began at 3 a.m.!), sleeping in a tent, eating...

Why must nearly every marketing campaign aimed at women portray them as either stressed-out moms or wanting to lose weight? The latest evidence to hit the shelves is a growing number of female-focused wines and alcoholic beverages being sold at supermarkets and you guessed it, Target. Just in time for...

We all have all our moments/hours/days (years?) of feeling angry. Recently, I've made an effort to raise my irritation threshold, and have worked hard to not let a hard day or stressful event surrounding work, family, dogs, etc. be an excuse for pouring myself a glass of wine. Sometimes it...

On a recent trip to South America, each night that my family sat down to dinner in a restaurant, the waiter immediately handed my husband the wine list. But honestly, we don't need to leave the country to experience the bias that immediately directs a waiter to the man at...

I will never forget when a friend of mine, then on Weight Watchers, told me she was counting wine as her fruit points. "You know," she said trying to justify her decision, "wine is made of grapes, so why not?"

In an effort to lose weight, dieters often lower their...

Hot milk? Maybe. Glass of red wine? Don't think so...

As I get older, it simply gets harder to drink alcohol. The hangover headache, even after a couple of glasses of wine, is not something I can tolerate as well as I did in my college days. Skipping a class...

I've spent many an afternoon driving through the countryside of France -- my mother's homeland -- in a small Peugeot rental car. Together, my mom and I have pulled over alongside a field of sunflowers or a stretch of sandy beach to lay out a picnic where we'd eat and...

It will come as no surprise that drinking lots of alcohol can go hand-in-hand with bad decision making. But up until recently, scientists had yet to come up with a direct cause and effect relationship regarding alcohol and unprotected sex.

In the January issue of the journal Addiction, a new...

A couple of weeks ago, Starbucks -- with 10,700 U.S. stores -- announced that it will be serving wine and beer (and savory snacks) in a handful of locations in Atlanta and Southern California by the end of the year. These locations join plans for several coffee-cum-bar Starbucks...

When I was a sophomore in high school, my brother -- then a high school senior -- planned a big party at our house. Not only did he have my parents' blessing, but they even went out to dinner while he was setting things up in our basement. It was...