In my childhood years, I remember summers as long, hot and humid lazy days where boredom inspired creativity—building forts and creating clubhouses with friends, playing make-believe in the fields and jumping off hay bales, or laying in the grass to write a poem, draw a picture, read a book or just look up at the sky. I loved all that unstructured time to dream and be a kid.
If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ll already be familiar with my yearly reflections and the setting of intentions for the year ahead. In one form or another, it’s a thoughtful, meditative process I’ve repeated each year for the better part of thirty-five years, since I received my first red leather-bound diary at…
Five years ago today, I married the person I admire most in this world. One day, I will write down our love story. But for today, there are photographs. Photographs of the day we committed ourselves to each other, surrounded by our family and dear friends who sent us into our life together with so…
I became a mother for the first time one month before my 41st birthday. I don’t know if my experience as an ‘older’ mother is much different from someone who becomes a mother at 21 or 31, but I suspect that it is. Partly because I had 41 years to practice selfishly focusing on myself…
The beginning of a year always feels like such a blank slate, doesn’t it? A new notebook, a clean page, ready to be filled with the messy, beautiful, aspirational and mundane details of daily life. I love this time of year, with it’s reflections and gratitudes, planning and goal setting. It suits my personality well–the…
I had planned on writing a longer, more thoughtful Christmas post, wrapping up all of my feelings about this season, this year. But here we are, on the 26th, and I’m scrambling to piece together a few words while Theo takes his afternoon nap.
I can’t wait for Christmas this year! I’m writing this over the Thanksgiving holiday from sunny Arizona, where we are here visiting friends. But as soon as we get home, we’re launching into full Christmas mode. Many of my favorite childhood memories come from Christmases past, and few of them involve presents, except for the…
When it comes to husbands, I hit the jackpot. Elie wakes up every morning with a smile on his face and fills our life with his joyfulness. If God loves a cheerful giver, then God surely cherishes my sweet husband, who gives of his time and talents, his love and his resources, to Theo and…
If you visited our home last year, the floors were probably less than sparkling, the dinners simpler, there was probably a basket of laundry waiting to be folded and put away, and I was likely wearing yoga pants and sporting a ponytail. Elie probably made you a delicious coffee, and I hope you got a…
When I was in labor with Theo, Elie timed my contractions for me on an app we had downloaded to our iPhones–how long they lasted and how far apart they were. At some point, well into labor, our doula suggested that we might not need to time the contractions anymore.
