Lisa Rossignol

I really enjoy giving thoughtful gifts but I have a limited budget and a large family. I want to make sure that I get people things they couldn't or wouldn't get themselves and I also try to be fair and to make sure everyone gets a comparable gift. I also tend to include at least one craft that I make myself. What follows are my 8 favorite gift ideas. I have hyperlinked almost all of the ideas so you can go straight to their site. 1. Hello Kitty coffee cozy : available on Etsy for $12 +shipping. She will give you a price break if you buy in multiples. I included the cozy in a fabric satchel with a Starbuck's gift card. If you can knit-you can buy the pattern one time for $5. She also has My Melody, Keroppi, and a cute pig. 2.   Mustache Necklace:  available on Etsy for $11 + shipping. Don't be fooled, these are still huge this season. She supplies quick service and you can buy multiples and she will likely give you a price break. Her ship also offers Zombie Hello Ki...

Paul and I circa 2000 When I met my husband he was a 23 year old college student working on his Bachelor of Philosophy and was a manager at a local book store. On our first date he wore a graphic grey t-shirt, a pair of khaki slacks and a pair of black and white Pumas. He had a Julius Cesar haircut and slightly bushy sideburns (mini-chops). He was tall and thin; He was perfection and looked like the man I always imagined I would marry. Flash forward 12 years and Paul is now the father of 2, Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a graduate professor a the local acupuncture college and their clinic director. Graphic tees and khakis aren't going to cut it anymore. Circa 2009 when Paul had all but given up on fashion. My husband has always been open to assistance in style and I am so grateful for that. I know men who are defiantly bad dressers and I know women who dress their men up with little to no regard for what the men like. I think this speaks to a mutual trust that Paul and I...

When I was set to marry the man of my dreams I became paralyzed with fear that he would die. I know this sounds irrational, extreme, even crazy! My friend had been widowed in her twenties, another friend had just lost his wife and when I was 16 my brother told me something that stuck with me. My brother's best friend was killed in a motorcycle accident and he told me "you can't love anything too much or you will lose it". It seemed to be true and here was this man who wanted to marry me and I wanted to marry him and this cruel universe was going to tear us apart. If he was a few minutes late from work I would start my plan of calling hospitals to see if he was there (this was all pre-cell phones because we are O.L.D.). Wedding Party, 2004, Mixed Media Finally, a moment of inspiration came to me. I had been taught to work out my demons with art and one of the ways I was taught was to look at artifacts from my culture. I had always looked to my german descendants ...

It occurred to me the other day that most of the blogs and stories I have heard or written are about what it is like to be the mother of a child with special needs or special healthcare needs. It also occurred to me that no one ever asks my husband, Paul, what the experience of Lily's illness and subsequent rehab have been for him. I can't answer for him and perhaps I can get him to do a guest blog about it but I want to take a moment to tell you what my new definition of a real man looks like. My husband is a black belt in a form of Japanese martial arts called Aikido which means that he is strong and disciplined and if need be he could break an arm. Most people don't experience my husband that way. One of my brothers who is a bit of a jock and an ex boxer tried to get Paul in a choke hold one time and learned the hard way about Paul's understated strength and ability. Most people see him as a tall, thin academic (geek) who loves playing the banjo and fiddle, love...

I felt the need to talk a little bit about my dad, as he approaches the amputation of his lower leg on Monday.  I guess I feel like, if you know a little about him, you will love him as I do and you will hold him in your heart and prayers as he loses his battle to keep that leg and begins his new life of rehabilitation. I'm going to tell you, to the best of my knowledge, what I know about him. I'm sorry, Dad, if I get the facts wrong. My dad was born in a small town called New Ulm, Minnesota. The few times I have visited in my life I was struck by how small everything was, including the people. The only way I can describe it is that the yard gnomes all grew up and built a town in the middle of nowhere. He became an accomplished gymnast in his youth and went on to win a gymnastics scholarship to the University of Minnesota. He got injured during a training and had to leave behind the world of competitive gymnastics. Somehow he found his way to Portales, New Mexico to...

I have had the blessing and the curse of being a stay at home mom for nearly three years now. Partially due to our decision to have a second child, a little due to Lily's sometimes complicated medical needs, and largely due to my inability to work in traditional work environments because of my hearing problem I have not had employment since October 29, 2009. I don't know who said "it was the best of times and the worst of times" or if anyone said that but it fits my experience. From the start of motherhood I had so much guilt about going to work. I returned to work 6 weeks after my first daughter was born and was plagued daily with guilt and with a paranoia that "everyone" was judging me for working instead of staying home and that I had somehow failed in life to not be in the position to stay at home. I also had this looming sense that I was going to regret squandering this time with my baby. I felt it doubtful that I would look back 10 years from now and...

I don't remember the exact moment that I discovered that I heard different than everyone else but I think that it was some time around 12 years old. I do remember that when I sat next to my father when he ate iceberg lettuce I was blinded by panic and rage. A physical response came over me and I stared at him with a look of sheer anger and disgust. The same thing happened whenever my mother would swallow her food or my nieces would slurp soda from a can. It would be many, many years before I would have a name for what I was experiencing. I started to eat most of my meals alone or with people I knew to not be noisy eaters. Desperate for answers and realizing that something was awry with me my mother took my to councilors who prescribed medications or performed hypnosis to no avail. I could never really articulate what I felt or what the problem was but I knew that an absolute problem was most people chewing gum. When I see people chewing gum, even if I can't hear them, I can f...

This morning I read a post by my favorite blogger, Phoebe Holmes , about the emotional landscape that surrounds having a child with a disability. Then, I went to class and heard one of my classmates, who has an adult child with autism, talking about all the things she is in addition to being the mother of a person with disabilities. A light bulb went off in my head.  "That's right!", I thought and decided to share my stroke of insight with you: The Woman You Lose Just like the dreams I had for my child before she had half of her brain removed, I had dreams for myself as a mother and a woman. I longed for the day when my baby would say "Mama" and would walk. I literally had dreams of conversations with Lily while I was pregnant with her and living with a daily dread that this baby was so sick, despite the doctors encouragement that she was fine. I planned to return to work in advertising and looked forward to finding a good day care where she could make frie...

So, I have been told for years that I live on the edge of the zeitgeist and I am tired of not getting any credit for intuitive ideas. So, I am going to tell you what I am obsessed with right now and then we will see if and when any of those come to fruition. I do suspect that some of these will already be common knowledge in other parts and that I am just repeating what I have seen but lets give it a try: 1. I had a dream about short shorts in those pastel floral patterns that we used to wear in the 90's. Think 90's- tight rolled jeans, keds, z cavaricci's (spelling?), cross colors, baggy pants, zulu knots-you name it! 2. Yellow Gold. It is back and it will take back its position in every wedding ring rack in the US. 3. Those wide toed chunky, clunky boots that we wore in early 2000 but they will be in earth tones like brown-black will not be the thing- and they may have like a steel toe with copper instead of steel (again, that yellow, rose gold will be big). 4. Zi...

When I was 24 I had the honor and misfortune of landing a job as a customer service representative at a call center for a local health insurance company. I had left a lucrative but soul robbing job as a recruiter for a private technical college and was unable to find any other jobs that were not sales or recruitment related. After a 17 week training about how insurance works and how to use the company's complicated claims system and computer software I only lasted about four months. The major factor that did me in was being switched from answering calls from New Mexico doctors offices for benefit verification to taking member calls from Texas. You see, what I learned is that health insurance benefits depend largely on the state that you live in. Each state's legislature determines what benefits must be covered, how high deductibles can be and what is not covered. In Texas, the lowest deductible was $2,500 per person compared to NM's minimum of $500. In Texas, Women's ...

So I have really sensitive skin. My niece Erin jokes that she had decided that I am allergic to air. There are times I am inclined to agree! I have had a couple of dermatologists who have told me that I need to use all special products but haven't necessarily told me what products to use. What has happened in the past is the stuff that says "for sensitive skin" usually is the absolute worst. Remember when all of the Herbal Essence and like products came out? I fell for it and all of the skin on my back broke out in a huge rash from which I still have scars. Here are some of the products that have been the best for me: For Hair: DHS Free and Clear Shampoo Free and Clear Shampoo and Conditioner (not the hair gel) Aquanet (I know, right?!) For Skin: Panoxyl Foaming Acne Wash Cetaphil Gentle Cleansing Bar The Body Shop Brazil Nut Body Butter Blue Lizard Regular Sunscreen for my morning facial moisturizer L'Oreal Mousse Foundation and True Match powder N...

              The date: November 4 is not a birthday or a holiday. November 4, 2007 was the day my then six-month-old daughter Lily was diagnosed with Prenatal Stroke, Cortical Visual Impairment, left-sided hemiparesis, and Infantile Spasms. That cool evening, the hospital doctor on duty had the formidable task of wheeling in a laptop computer to show my eager family the MRI scan that showed the exact extent of what we were facing. Right there, a giant grapefruit sized whole where my baby’s right parietal and temporal lobes should have been. That was the day when the bottom fell out for my husband and I. That was four years ago.                There would be other days like April 14, 2008- the day Lily had what was left of the right half of her brain removed and became seizure free, and December 22, 2009 when three year old Lily took her first steps...

When my daughter Lily became critically ill at 6 months old I had no idea how much help I was going to need. People would say things like "If you need anything let us know" over and over again. I would thank them for their kindness but didn't really ask for help. The problem was twofold. First, I didn't know what I needed. All I knew was my baby was really sick and I didn't want to lose her. I had grown accustom, in this life, to working hard for what I needed and wanted and relied very little on the kindness of others. Second, I didn't know how to ask because of that pride and inexperience with being vulnerable to ask for help. So, here I am attempting to compile a list of things that some people did that were amazing and some ideas that we wish we could have had offered or would have been able to ask for. 1. MONEY : Yes, of course we needed money. In addition to racking up a $4,000 bill the first week of Lily's illness, my husband and I also missed ni...