I was 25 when my grandmother passed away. My mom, my aunt and I were beside her bed at the time. We poured our love over her like water and she swam away from us on the current of that ocean. It was August of that year and only 16 months after my grandfather had …
Peanut Butter Cookies
It’s always been a bit of a family oddity that I like to cook. My Gram was not the kind of grandma who baked cookies and knitted afghans - she pitched on a fast-pitch softball team until she was almost 60 and she was 67 the summer we spent on Lake Summit where she taught …
Tacos. Always Tacos.
Parenting Lifehack: one easy way to teach your homebound toddler new vocabulary words is ask them if they’d like it. For example, to teach the word juice, say: do you want some juice? Toddler will turn, burn holes in your extremities with their laser glare and scream, “NO JUICE!” They will then immediately turn around …
Karma
People say a lot of things when you have identical twins, but one thing I get asked a lot is if I ever mix the boys up. The short answer is no, but really that’s not entirely true. I’ve never looked at them and mistaken one for another (to me, they look very different) but …
Circle the Wagons
I am blessed to have several people in my life that are friends who’ve become family. The oldest of these relationships is my incredible sister-friend Jen. Jenny and I met because our grandparents lived next to each other in military housing close to 75 years ago. Our grandparents became best friends, their kids became best …
Houses
It’s 11pm and I’m lying in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Again. Ugh, I hate this insomnia nonsense. I’m practically narcoleptic in the daytime - I think I fell asleep at a red light the other day - but at night it’s just pointless. This has been an issue for me for years. And …
Muck Buddies
Today marks one month since my mom left. I still can’t believe it’s real some days. I’ve picked up the phone to call her so many times, only to hear it ring and feel the sudden remembrance crush me like one of those falling pianos in an old Looney Tunes episode. It just doesn’t seem …
Winning
I couldn’t take the house anymore so the big kids and I went on a walk - or, as I sold it to them, an Exploration. They went on bikes or scooters and I was on foot. Noodle said he felt bad that I didn’t have a bike, but he didn’t realize it was all …
Value Added Services
I’ve been lying here thinking about value today. What makes something valuable? What makes a person valuable? What makes a day valuable? Who makes those decisions and sets the valuations? Are they dynamic or static calculations? Maybe it seems like an odd thing to ponder on a Thursday afternoon. But the fact is, I thought …
Code Speak
Slow down, they keep saying. As if there’s any alternative, any other possible way of moving. The shutters on the windows of the world have closed one by one until it’s just you and your family and your crazy-making brain in 1800 square feet for the foreseeable future. Slow down. Enjoy the time. Find a …
My Five Ring Circus 