Featured blogger Diane Neer appears every Saturday.

By the time my Mom was my age, both of her children were well into college and career. I thought she was VERY old at that time. I have now recognized that she was 1) REALLY young and 2) REALLY smart to be done with the teen years by this age.

I deferred motherhood because I wanted a career. Oh, and I didn’t have a husband. I married Hurley at 29. If you ask him why he married me, he’ll say, “Because my Mom liked her better than my other girlfriends.” If you ask me why I married him, I’ll say, “Because I was 29 and he asked.” And if I’m feeling all Jessica Rabbit, I might add, “Because he makes me laugh.” Marriages built on much less shaky ground have fallen apart before reaching the 17 years we have endured celebrated.

Part of the reason our marriage survives is the foxhole mentality that kicks in when you are the parents of adolescents. Haley is 14 and a freshman in high school. Rory is 12 and a 6th grader. Our parenting philosophy is: Whatever doesn’t kill you needs to be dealt with using a strong sense of humor and the judicious removal of cell phone and computer privileges.

I was born in (cold, snowy, did I mention cold?) Central New York, which leaves you with no questions as to why I live here now. Hurley and I married in Miami and then fled to Fort Lauderdale as Hurricane Andrew refugees. We found our way to Fuquay-Varina in 1999 where we started putting down some roots and feeling like we found our Mayberry. After a brief sojourn in Boca Raton, we returned to Fuquay with me shaking my fist and vowing, “As God is my witness, I will only leave Fuquay again in a pine box!”

During this crazy ride of motherhood, I’ve gone from stockings and power suits to sweatshirts and golf skorts. My kids have gone from teething to text messaging. My husband has moved from Friday night beers with the guys to Friday night baseball with the boy. We’ve gone from paying for pediatricians’ new cars to financing our orthodonist’s condo at the beach. Through it all, my family has made me laugh, made me seethe, made me freak out, made me cry and made me proud. And it is with their indulgence (and not a small amount of eye-rolling) that I self-medicate by mainlining wine writing about them.

I hope you will stop back every now and then to see how we are doing. And leave comments!!! A comment every now and then helps to offset the wails of my live-in fashion consultants who critique my daily outfit selection process by saying, "You're wearing THAT?" or giving me the one-two punch of eye-roll and polysyllabic, "Mo-o-o-o-m!"

If you don’t have teenagers yet, I hope I will be giving you fair warning. If you already do, please join me in comment commiseration. If you don’t have kids, I think you’ll find something here for you as well in the form of movie, book and TV reviews. Let the blogging begin!

To read more from Di, visit Live and Let Di.