Like most people working from home, I have spent the last 13 weeks video conferencing. My vibrant, three-dimensional world has been reduced to grainy images intermittently stilted by poor bandwidth, virtual backgrounds signaling our desire […]
Birds of a Feather
Sense of belonging is a beautiful gift. You owe it to yourself to find that place where you fit at your true self.
Thursday night I got the game ball. It felt so great! In my dubious athletic career, I never got the game ball. I have thrown a game ball. I have […]
My father tore the carpet out of our house a few weeks before my sister’s wedding. The carpet started out the color of sand on a southern beach. After years […]
Our book club recently read the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Less by Andrew Sean Greer. It was a strange and beautiful story. Toward the end, the main character is reflecting on giving up […]
I started my day in kindergarten yesterday. Every day that I get to be in a kindergarten is a great day. First of all, they are adorable. Right there, you […]
It’s 4:15 AM and my REM-induced travels are abruptly ended by my clock radio blaring Miranda Lambert. In silence, I get up, get dressed, and brush my teeth. In the […]
As soon as I shut the door, I knew. I heard the click of the lock and my stomach sank to my feet. I collapsed forward. My forehead hit the […]
Last weekend, my best friend and I recruited a few enthusiastic volunteers (our husbands and one of our dear friends) and we pressed 400 pounds of grape must. I have […]
For the last couple of weekends, I have been shooting my daughter’s senior portraits. It was so special to me that I was able to do this for her- that […]
I remember when we picked him up. After months of looking, we found him at a breeder in Omak. My husband has a knack for tracking down the best pups. […]
The summer before 5th grade, my father took me on a week-long backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. We planned the trip over the spring on our every-other-weekend visits. My […]
When I was a little kid, I felt strangely like two different people. In retrospect, I imagine that other children of divorce felt the same way. But it was the […]
It was a spring, Saturday morning in Georgia. My father must have been away on business because, had he been home, I would never have realized my own true power. […]
Next week, my husband and I will be celebrating 29 years of marriage. As our anniversary rolls around, I find myself thinking back to the year of our wedding. He […]
I thought this post would be easier to write. I realize that no matter how carefully chosen, my words will likely be inadequate. It is ironic since I have entitled […]
Being a mom is a humbling experience. I have learned more from my daughter in the last 18 years than I learned in any classroom. And I have spent 28 […]
Despite sitting at one of those back-bending cafeteria tables, I found myself completed enthralled listening to a coach talk about his athletes this week. He spoke with such heart about […]
If you visit our house, you will get a warm welcome from the four-legged creatures and, of course, the two-legged ones. Buttercup, our two-year-old Boxer (or The Toddler as we […]
On a hot day in July in 1984 in Fairbanks, Alaska, I met the man, for the second time, who would become my husband. I had been baling hay on […]
My dad had a second story apartment in the Casa Del Rey overlooking Broadway. I would visit him on the weekends and we would walk up the street to the […]
I was invited to a birthday party yesterday. I never pass up a birthday party. I would not have missed this one for the world. The grandmother of the little […]
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to hear Manny Scott, one of the original Freedom Writers, speak. If you ever have the chance, don’t miss it. He is an […]
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things was spending the night at my grandparents’ house. They lived in a small house on Queen Anne Hill. Though […]
My daughter is a junior this year. She is our only child. The good Lord blessed us with only one child but, in so doing, He blessed us every single […]
I was two months into my first year in a new school when I found myself hunched over a lunch table in the staff room praying for an earthquake. Not […]
When I was a new teacher, I applied for a job in a small town in northwest Washington. I remember driving into town wearing my most professional skirt suit, firmly […]
As I was driving home from work tonight, Corey Hart’s Never Surrender came on. You probably will only know this song if you were embroiled in teenage angst or young […]
My daughter missed her dentist appointment this week. In general, she is a very responsible teenager. I only bring it up because every time I hear the word dentist, I […]
I was sitting at Finaghty’s Irish Pub the night before we were to celebrate the life of my father. I was with my husband and daughter and surrounded by my […]
Over the course of this week, as we prepare to celebrate my dad’s life, we have all been poring over pictures. And I remember so much of what I forgot. […]
I think at the end of a life, it is the little things you remember most. The seemingly inconsequential moments become indelibly written on our minds and hearts. Oh sure, […]
Last night I went to my favorite Christmas party. I have been attending this party for 26 years, though it has been going on for much longer than that. In […]
I think this is my very favorite picture and that is saying a lot given the sheer volume of my collection. I didn’t take this picture but when I look […]
