Motherhood

I lost my temper yesterday, and I had extreme mom guilt last night. To be honest, I'm a pretty patient person, and I don't lose my cool very often. Almost never, actually. Being an older mom helps with patience, I think. I know I'm generally a more patient person at 43 than I was a […]

This is the second recipe in a four-part series of posts inspired by a meal Elie and I shared in northern Israel in 2012. Six years later, the details of the meal remain sharp in my memory. Here was the first recipe in the series.

If I ever get a chance to publish a cookbook, these are the kinds of recipes you would find there. Fairly simple, not too fussy, vegetable-heavy, but homey and delicious. Healthy in a nourishing, real foods kind of way. Comfort food, but not the mac-and-cheese kind of comfort food (not that there's anything wrong with […]

The Pacific Northwest is covered in a haze of smoke right now, which seems to be a new reality for late summer weather. The loss of lives and homes are heartbreaking, and the environmental implications and impact are alarming. For people with asthma or health conditions, it's harmful. For us, it's just a nuisance. And […]

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 […]

Two years and five months, to be exact. Two years and five months of cuddling and singing and reading and playing and cheering on our sweet little baby into a walking, talking toddler with a mind and personality and voice of his own.

One day last fall, I was sitting in the kitchen, looking around the first floor of our house at baskets of LEGOS and blocks and drawers overflowing with trucks and tractors. I thought, "We need a playroom." We have lots of storage on our main floor, but at the end of the day, it always […]

My word for this year is ACTION. Because sometimes it's easy to get caught up in dreams and planning and the day-to-day activities of life and never actually take action. In the past, I've had a hard time posting regularly because I needed every post to be perfect. And that's why I have so many […]

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 […]