an Alaskan cruise at the end of the season
We were home about five days before I booked our next trip. Nothing makes me want to travel more than going on a great trip. After a few days in my own bed and drinking my home coffee (home coffee is always better, I'm sorry), I was thinking about our next adventure. As our girls get closer … [Read More...]
Every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time*…
(*from "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab for Cutie) What I want back is the night when I was eight. When my sister, my cousin, and I spent the night at my grandma’s. When she fed us canned peaches, heavy with syrup, and the sugar made us giddy. Canned peaches became “giggle peaches,” and we … [Read More...]
Arizona + Nevada for spring break…
Finally, we are traveling again. Very early on a Monday morning, we boarded a plane for Phoenix. This was the first time we'd flown together as a family; the girls had both taken trips for their 13th birthdays, but those were solo trips. Thankfully, we all fly well. One kid doesn't like how … [Read More...]
Bruised but still here…
I was unemployed for almost 400 days. Before I was laid off, if someone had told me they had been unemployed that long, I would have thought they were lying or doing something very wrong. Are you really applying to jobs? Are you bad at interviewing? Does your resume have a million typos? Are you … [Read More...]
Unrecognizable…
To say I didn't see it coming is the understatement of the century. I was in the car driving my daughter to her orthodontist appointment; she was getting ready to start high school in a few days, and it was finally time to have her braces removed. It was an exciting day. The afternoon before, … [Read More...]
paint colors, for now…
I get asked a lot about the paint colors in my house. And I always mean to walk out to the garage and look, but then I forget. Or I'm lazy. Or I get distracted. Anyway, it rarely happens. So here's my penance for all the times someone on Instagram asked about a wall color, and I didn't reply: … [Read More...]
Writing about the dead…
Early fall, I stopped borrowing library books for my grandma. She couldn’t follow a story anymore, couldn’t remember what she read from one chapter to the next. Of all the things aging steals, I think this was the hardest for me. My grandma—who only had a tenth grade education—read … [Read More...]
Niagara Falls, Boston, & Acadia National Park…
In honor of the (hopefully) last toll bill I received in the mail this month, I felt it was finally time to write about our fall break trip from last year. We took a road trip in October, made a quick stop at Niagara Falls for the evening, visited Boston on the way to Bar Harbor, Maine, hiked and … [Read More...]
2024 Book Club List…
Finally getting around to sharing our book club's 2024 reading list. Better late than never, eh? This is year seven for our book club that evolved from the early days of The Front Room Studio (more info here). I love what we've become: four women who text about books all the time, attend author … [Read More...]
that’s where I’ve been…
Been thinking about you. Hope everything is well. My friend texted me this week to check-in. I've been quiet off and on the internet. She noticed. I have a handful of similar messages on Instagram, I can see the preview of DMs asking if I'm okay, telling me I'm missed, hoping that I'm … [Read More...]
humble, quiet, and meek…
Last week in Florida, Ellie and I were wandering around a bookstore when a man got really close to me and made a weird comment about my body. I was immediately uncomfortable with how close he got, how familiar he acted toward me. As I continued to browse, I watched him wander around the store … [Read More...]
