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Mud at Strouds Run

May 2, 2019 – 12:46 pm

A couple weeks ago my sister and I saw Patty Griffin perform at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, Ohio. We both have long loved Patty Griffin and the ticket was my early birthday present to her. Lucy Wainwright Roche opened for Patty, and we loved her music – and humor – too. We stayed at a cute […]

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Sweet Old World

June 28, 2018 – 9:48 pm

(There are links throughout, a purple that looks like green (apologies). These are just a few of the songs Marty loved.) I’m having a tough day. In the early years, my father-in-law Marty was often critical of my work. But as time went on, he became one of my biggest cheerleaders. “You should write about that,” […]

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Baby B

February 4, 2018 – 3:14 pm

When you have twins, the first baby to come out is Baby A or, in our family, Owen. The second baby to come out is Baby B—James. At 4 lbs., 15 oz., Owen was almost twice the size of James at birth. Owen was released from the NICU first. He slept through the night first. […]

Posted in All | Tagged basketball, James, Owen, twins | Comments (2)

The Love in Trying

January 20, 2018 – 12:18 am

  It’s difficult to write about, not even parenting, but being when your children are older, which is largely why this space now sits quietly stagnant for so long. Can vagueness and truthfulness co-exist? Perhaps. Parenting in the age of social media is terribly complex. I love the record-keeping aspect of it, the connections made and kept […]

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To all the mamas and papas of little ones:

May 30, 2017 – 7:30 pm

Someday you will drop your boys off at the ball field for practice. And your daughter will get on her bike and ride the surrounding quarter-mile paved loop over and over. And you might walk the same paved loop, untethered. Or read The New Yorker. Or simply sit on the bench with your eyes closed […]

Posted in All | Tagged parenthood | Comments (0)

On the Strange Delight of a Rainbow Chalk Drawing

April 10, 2017 – 12:44 am

I recently bought sidewalk chalk and Sophie recently drew a rainbow, highly pigmented (pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink) with white puffy clouds on each end, which is not a true meteorological phenomenon but one that has lived on children’s papers (or, at least, strangely on my papers as a child and Sophie’s as […]

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On the Brink of the School-aged Years

August 5, 2016 – 1:24 pm

Two things happened yesterday that helped clarify an uneasiness I’ve felt all summer. • I took the kids to the zoo with only a small backpack filled with three water bottles and a few essentials. We’ve been handling zoo trips this way for quite some time. But this visit, zipping around strollers filled with children […]

Posted in All | Tagged growing up, James, older, Owen, school, Sophie | Comments (2)

Choosing Compassion In a Culture of Fear

March 10, 2016 – 9:57 am

A couple years ago, as I was loading Sophie into the van after a morning of half-day kindergarten, two men approached me. Their car had run out of gas on 27 and they wondered if I would give them a ride to a gas station. I believe most people are good and kind. I give […]

Posted in All | Tagged Albert Einstein, compassion, culture of fear, Joe, parenting, strangers, This I Believe | Comments (0)

Mia

February 16, 2016 – 10:53 pm

It’s difficult to tell the story of Mia without telling the story of us. Her years marked so many of our big moments, which, I guess, any 14-year chunk of time will do. Mia came into our lives in 2001. Andy was taking classes at OSU and living with friends. I had just started a […]

Posted in All | Tagged cat, death, Mia, pet | Comments (0)

I Know That You Know (And When You Know That I Know, Still There Will Be Magic)

December 9, 2015 – 5:59 pm

I love this season of innocence. Even when it’s not so jolly. This weekend we cut down our Christmas tree and I was reminded of the look on Owen’s face in a picture I took last December, a picture I now love. I was reminded of how hard things were mid-December, last year. How un-jolly […]

Posted in All | Tagged believe, christmas, happiness, James, magic, Owen, parenting, reality, santa, Sophie | Comments (0)
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     My mom has made many Christmas bags over the years — she and my dad wrap all their presents in them to reduce waste. Some of her bags feature little surprises like this — that’s me, Katy and Kyle, 1980-something.  My sister and Tom hosted a beautiful and delicious Thanksgiving. I’m sad to leave! Thankful for family, sweet sweet potatoes, hikes, wine, warm fires, early birthday celebrations, plays, and new and old faces willing to seek seashells hidden around the house with the kids.   This world can be so cruel. And our actions ... my worry lines deepen daily. A trick I use to keep myself from crawling into bed and refusing to come out (which I’ve tried, with little success) is to remind myself of something my mom once told me: Soldiers, she once read, were sent a recording of children laughing — nothing more, just happy squeals. And it helped them all. It’s genius, really. Who doesn’t like the sound of children laughing? I like to think about all the little things we humans share in common. Take fire, for example. It draws people in, for survival in the early days, yes, but still, the next time you’re close to (purposeful) fire, watch how people are attracted to it, as if we are nothing more than moths drunk on the flames. And although many may ignore it, no one curses a beautiful sunset. Each of us has a least one smell that brings on a good memory. Everyone loves zoo babies. And finally reaching that itch that needs scratching. And the joy of embracing someone they love. We all have a song that gives us goosebumps. And a cat video that makes us laugh. And something that makes us cry, privately. We all share in the goodness of drinking something cold when parched, taking our shoes off after a long day and wrapping ourselves in a blanket when cold. Each of us finds connection in eye contact resulting in unspoken conversation, witnessing a sweet reunion at the train station or airport, and in niceties — waving someone on, a sincere apology, holding open a door. There is privilege in my words, yes, and I know I experience the world quite differently from someone who is, for example, autistic (but I know there are shared experiences there as well). And please don’t mistake this for a “we should all just get along” post. Because some of y’all have beliefs I will fight until the day I die. But this Thanksgiving, especially this Thanksgiving, I’m grateful that we as humans have some things that bind us. For it is there I find hope that we may one day find ourselves on a better path for all humanity. Think this is a stretch? Ask yourself this: Have you ever met anyone who doesn’t like having a back scratcher when they have a hard-to-reach itch? No.  Io was home alone a long time today. He found toilet paper rolls (and a shoe, a watch, a package, two books, a large ice scraper, socks ...). And copious amounts of glitter. If you use your imagination really hard, it’s like glittery snow, all over the first floor of our house. But it’s not glittery snow. It’s all the toilet paper rolls from both baths torn into tiny bits and ACTUAL GLITTER all over the rugs and hardwood and furniture and given that the candle sticks are askew and glittery at one point he must have been ON THE DINING ROOM TABLE in a self-induced frenzied dance of glitter spreading in every creak and crevice of our house. Me, two weeks ago: “He’s such a good puppy! He’s hardly chewed anything!” 🧻✨  Lost electronics for the night, spelling lists with all those tricky silent k’s and b’s, a patchwork dinner of stir-fried rice and veggies and odd chicken and naan (all lazily pulled from the freezer), angry yelling (regretful), a clogged drain, a curse word and then another, a tiny, soft splinter, a (sad) no, a sierra of laundry, and this guy, who stinks. Hoping tonight’s winds blow all these bad vibes away along with the leaves. Grateful to have tomorrow.  Snow meant three separate requests for hot chocolate today, requests I was already on top of thanks to my mama intuition and a grocery run the night before. Most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing during these intense mothering years, especially with the big things, but 11 years in I can finally say I’ve mastered (a few) little things. I’m counting on those adding up in my favor in the long run. ❄️  Snowy Night, by Mary Oliver “Last night, an owl in the blue dark tossed an indeterminate number of carefully shaped sounds into the world, in which, a quarter of a mile away, I happened to be standing. I couldn’t tell which one it was – the barred or the great-horned ship of the air – it was that distant. But, anyway, aren’t there moments that are better than knowing something, and sweeter? Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness. I suppose if this were someone else’s story they would have insisted on knowing whatever is knowable – would have hurried over the fields to name it – the owl, I mean. But it’s mine, this poem of the night, and I just stood there, listening and holding out my hands to the soft glitter falling through the air. I love this world, but not for its answers. And I wish good luck to the owl, whatever its name – and I wish great welcome to the snow, whatever its severe and comfortless and beautiful meaning.”  It’s hard work waiting for the kids to come home from school and play.  Today is my dad’s 65th birthday. All summer long he fills our kitchen (and others’ and the food bank’s) with his garden bounty. Almost every time the boys ask him to play baseball (even if it’s the third time of the day) he says yes. I can’t count the times he’s lent me his truck (and time and hands) to help me move things or pick up my crazy Craigslist finds. He dedicates a ton of time to our Unitarian church (just last week he spent the night there while the church offered shelter from the cold). “No problem” is his response to everything (even if he’s silently rescheduling things to make it work). All summer long he plays baseball with the Cincinnati Dragons and listens/watches the Reds play (and still finds time to watch our kids play). I’m so grateful to have him in my life and today was such a good day. Happy birthday, Dad. ⚾️  Friday night II ❤️  Friday night ❤️  I got a new phone (and I adore the camera, thanks again for your help, @jjmenk !) but I’m changing carriers (to Tello, it’s so inexpensive, check them out!) and apparently my phone number is “porting in” which “can take up to 5 business days” (maybe this is why it’s so cheap) so email me if you need me. Also, Sophie looks way too old in this picture!  Today was a good day.  Every great once in awhile it’s good to test the solidity of your marriage by moving a large piece of furniture, such as a couch with a bed tucked away inside of it and a chaise lounge attached to it. #WeAreStillSpeaking #INeedToUpMyWeightsAtBarre  Happy Halloween! We had two Reds players, a zombie and a black cat this year. Io (you can see him in our front door in one pic) ran away from the door anytime someone knocked wearing a mask.  Sophie went to the other side of town with friends, and the boys wanted to go all on their own, wearing a batting glove on one hand and a baseball glove on the other to keep warm. Everyone refused their winter coats bc they’re ridiculous. And I’m over that argument. So I let them be. The boys collected their candy in their baseball bags.  It was windy and cold but no rain!  Last-minute trip to Neltner’s last week on a gorgeous weekday after school.  Skateboard: 1, Sophie: 0. Thankfully it’s just a buckle fracture so no cast! Ignore the messy house. I have another kid with a fever and another one who had to write an apology letter to our neighbor re his baseball and their car (hopefully there’s no damage). It’s been a (Mon)day!  My grandma’s backyard, fall. We purposefully came after lunch so she wouldn’t feel obliged to cook. So she had dinner ready. Days like today will always be some of my favorites.  6th grade Halloween Dance tonight! These two have been neighbors/friends for years now and I swear it was just yesterday they were making fairy gardens in our backyards. Time! Slow down! Also, as I watched the middle school principal act as crossing guard, smiling, while kids from all directions walked toward the school giddy and all sorts of loud, I was once again reminded how lucky we are to have folks who not only work and engage with this between-things age group, but enjoy it. 🧟‍♂️❤️  My cousin @emfiz317 is such a talented crocheter. On chilly mornings my kiddos always fight over blankets and quilts in our old, drafty house, so last year I asked Emily if I could buy a blanket from her. I picked out the wool colors and she came up with this beautiful stitch pattern and we love it so — especially now that the weather has turned. If you’re ever in want or need of something crocheted, contact her! She does amazing work!
    TAP
  • Favorite Essays

    Choosing Compassion in a Culture of Fear

    Seeking the Bigness in the Everyday

    The Love in Trying

    The View from Up High

    Season of Innocence

    The Huffington Post guest post: Apologies to the Parents I Judged Four Years Ago, a TIME's top 10 opinion piece in 2012

    Simple

    Changing Love

  • Things I Love

  • Links I Love

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