As you will have noticed, this post did NOT coincide with the last week of advent as planned. I decided that rather than write about joy, I would let myself live in it. Specifically, I decided to have a marvelous time in Minnesota with my family and my friends-who-are-family, and not worry about getting a …
A Delayed Advent Post that is Also A New Year Post About Joy Read More »
My kids are super into advent things, calendars, candles, traditions. Asa calls his 24-days-of-chocolate calendar his “Admin” or, more recently “Admint.” It’s adorable, but yesterday, as I balanced the buying, packing, wrapping, enrolling, filing, attending, editing, feeding, and “just circling back on that cancelled subscription that still keeps showing up on my credit card statements” …
Advent Week 3: Admin Season when You’re Bad at Admin Read More »
The traditional week two of advent is peace, but we had a week all about love, so we went with it. I actually think love should follow hope. Love is the response to hope. That help that my kids were waiting for? The promised help that gave them the strength to keep going? That’s love. …
Greetings! Week one of advent is here! Which means I’ve been half-meditating on hope and half-meditating on what my kids need to have in order to participate in their school’s 12 Days of Christmas celebration in which every school day between now and December 16 is a DRESS UP DAY. I’m not going to do …
Welp, I ended up back where I started. Away from the whims of billionaires and algorithms, on my own little corner of the internet, that I pay for yearly: my website. Welcome! This is where my newsletters will live now, and I have to say, there’s a lot of freedom in being back where I …
Not a lot buzz around the 4th of July this year, eh? (Hear that? I’m practicing my Canadian, just in case) The holiday has trended progressively downward throughout the Trump era and COVID, but this year, especially with the shooting Highland Park, really felt like new low in the patriotic feelings department. Sentiments seem to …
I. Last April I was swatting at a mosquito, and my hand went through the single-pane glass window. The glass cut a jagged “v” into the flesh below my right thumb, deep enough for me to see the bone. My stitches were a work of art. The scar is tidy, perfectly contoured to the laceration, …
As I was sitting at the award ceremony for our second grader yesterday, I felt something not new, but clarified. The grinning, gap-toothed kiddos were walking across the stage, and parents were clapping as usual. I don’t know about other parents, but typically at these events, applauding 70 times gets a little tedious. You loose …
I. In part one we learned about my desire to flee San Antonio every spring, and my old soul memory of being exiled in place. Of course, we know that simply relocating would not be the end of these turbulent springs. Restlessness, anxiety, and grief would chase me if I ran. I have to address …
Places and Patterns Here I was again, wanting to run away. At first I thought it was the impending dog’s mouth of summer. It wasn’t. Okay, maybe that’s part of it. The prolonged, belligerent heat of South Texas is so alienating to me. But I am a grown ass woman with an air conditioner so …