Well, I’m homeschooling. Reluctantly. This morning as I set the girls up for day one of their distance learning, all one did was ask if we had a ruler anywhere and I started to feel clammy up under my bra. Anyone who knows me knows I love my...
Well, So far so good. Mostly. Quarantine Day 4, and nothing too major to report. No broken bones, or rabid dogs stranding us on the tops of our cars. No having to boil brown foamy creek water; And, as far as my initial Walking Dead imaginations were...
Man, It’s hard to be a mom right now. As if the daily shaping of humans into upstanding citizens wasn’t enough… As if the Jr. High clothing crises, and seventh grade math homework, and figuring out what foods they’ll all eat while actually sitting...
I will never forget the way her eyes looked when I told her we needed to talk. My daughter Tessa, in the seventh grade, glanced up at me, and then immediately back at the floor. I led her outside to the chairs on the lawn and waited for her to...
By day 4 of unrelenting high fevers for two of my daughters I had started to crack. My husband had been sick, too, and, as he adheres very closely to the Man Sickness Code, I had written him off as a partner all week. His role was simply to hand me...
It’s never been much of a secret that my husband is not the best at giving gifts. I’ve already told the story of our first anniversary when, still fresh with romantic expectation, I opened my gift from him to find what lay inside was a Target garden...
Several years ago, on this Valentine’s week at the mom’s group that I attended, one of the mothers stood up and reminded us all to dig deep and try, as the day came near, to remember not to set our expectations too high. To not focus on the things...
Last week both of my middle schoolers came down with the flu. For a solid week they ran fevers, and did nothing more than watch TV and use even more cups than usual. On Tuesday when my husband announced from the bed that he felt like he was coming...
I told my kids we were going on a walk in the woods this weekend. In my mind I saw them lit perfectly by the golden hour, set free with smiles way up ahead on a gently winding trail. I pictured them bent over, sweetly smiling at bugs crawling on...
I stood in the check-out line three people deep. Only one checker again. The line behind me was growing, and the woman in front of me looked backwards and sighed as the woman at the register still stayed questioning something on her receipt. You...