Soft Tender-Hearted Moments?

By Nancy A. Dearborn

Are you able to laugh in the face of trials, temptations, and
challenges? Soft Tender-Hearted Moments? is written in Erma
Bombeck style humor touching on universal female experiences
like weight gain/dieting, fears, childbirth, motherhood, parenting, sex,
post-menopause, etc. Through humor, Soft Tender-Hearted Moments? delves
into the human heart and spirit. It will move you to laughter, and maybe
even to tears. Even though Soft Tender-Hearted Moments? is a humor book,
it also contains some jewels of truth that the author has learned along lifes
journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469191492

Nancy A. Dearborn

Nancy Dearborn is an accomplished author with over 250 published articles, stories, and poems. She has written for magazines, newspapers, anthologies, and the Internet. Many of her published pieces include humor as well as advice. She enjoys writing as well as speaking professionally. She is the former leader of two writers groups. Her awards include grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to attend out-of-state conferences, a Highlights Scholarship to attend Chautauqua, and she won second and third place in two separate poetry contests. Nancy is the mother of twin daughters and has two granddaughters.

Book preview

Soft

Tender-Hearted

Moments?

Nancy A. Dearborn

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy A. Dearborn.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

114060

Contents

After All, What is a Few Extra Pounds?

Something Seriously Wrong

The Beginning of Motherhood

Head of the Hose?

A Little Love

So Much for Tender Moments

There’s Nothing Quite Like Family

Needed—One Professional Diagnosis

Whose Homework is it Anyway?

Lack of a Libido

How Are You Going to Teach Her Anything?

The Problem with Mom

Ready for Work

Dishes and Laundry Duty

Not Squeaky Clean, Just Squeaking By

Camping—Always a Learning Experience

Traveling Alone

Whose Rules?

Quality Time

A Good Guess

Missed Note

No Time at All

Difficulty Dieting

Is Hearing Believing?

Intelligent Conversation

Where Are All the Good, Slightly Older Single Men?

The Best and Worst of Times—A Challenging Year

How Hot Flashes Save Time and Money

Just Call Me Job-ette

Polite Grandchild

One Last Item

All Ears

Adventures with Lily

Less Than the Ideal Hospital Patient

A Good Read?

Depression Medication

Back to School

Tantalizing Temptation

Soft-Tender Hearted Moments?

is dedicated to my father, Roland Luchsinger,

who taught me the value of humor at a young age.

Soft-Tender Hearted Moments?

is also dedicated to my twin daughters,

Valerie and Christine, who, besides my father,

have made my life rich and complete beyond measure.

All three of them have been huge blessings in my life.

Publication Credits

The Best and Worst of Times. Mature Living. August 2009, p. 34-35.

Camping—Always a Learning Experience. The Great Outdoors. September 2000, p. 2.

Dishes and Laundry Duty. Family Digest.

Head of the Hose? Parent Life, July 2009, p. 7.

How Hot Flashes Are Saving Time and Money. Ozarks Senior Living. April 2003, p. 14. (Please note that this was originally published in a slightly different format.)

A Little Love. Christian Parenting Today—Life in Our House. March/April 1995, p. 44.

Not Squeaky Clean, Just Squeaking By. Single-Parent Family—Jelly on the Fridge." May 2000. p. 22.

The Problem With Mom. The Woman’s Journal. October 1994.

So Much for Tender Moments. Single-Parent Family—Jelly on the Fridge." Oct. 1999. p. 7.

Tantalizing Temptation. Mature Living. August 2010, p 34-35.

Whose Homework is it Anyway? Women’s Harpoon. April 1994.

After All, What is a Few Extra Pounds?

One day my husband looked at me and said, I don’t think you’re getting enough exercise. It looks to me like you’ve put on some weight.

I know I’ve put on weight, I admitted, but I’m waiting until I gain ten more pounds. That way I’ll be able to see the progress I’m making when I start to diet.

Why is it that you can gain five pounds and no one even notices, but put on fifteen or twenty pounds and you get some serous attention?

Besides, I continued, I do exercise three times a day. In the morning I get out of bed. At lunchtime I fight with our dull, kitchen scissors to cut open the wrapper on my candy bar. And at night I lower myself back into bed again. And I have lost weight, I argued. I can’t help it if it keeps finding me again like a honing pigeon returned to roost on my thighs.

That night my husband came home from the store with an exercise tape. I knew I was out of shape when I became winded just pushing the power button on the VCR. I rested on the couch for a half hour before I started playing the tape.

The first thing the aerobics instructor said was, Make sure your stomach is flat for the exercises. I laughed to myself. My stomach hadn’t been flat since before the Vietnam War. It looked like a bowl of jelly.

Then the energized, aerobics nut proclaimed, Take it down.

Take what down? I wondered as I stared wide-eyed at the TV screen.

Five minutes into the video, my husband caught