I just finished reading Brene Brown’s new book Rising Strong. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, I highly recommend it. The whole book was worth it for me when I read the portion where she talks about the stories or lies we tell ourselves when we get into familiar patterns with people. She tells a story about going for a swim with her husband. She reaches out to him in an emotional bid for Read more […]

I’ve been blogging for about a year, and I’ve been a big blog reader for the last several years. After you read someone’s blog for a while, you feel like you know them. It’s kind of weird, I guess, but I feel like some of these people are my real friends. Well known bloggers like Rachel Held Evans http://www.rachelheldevans.com and Sarah Bessey http://www.sarahbessey.com have been writing their Read more […]

Eight weeks ago we started a bathroom renovation project that was supposed to take about four weeks.  We’re going into week eight, but WE ARE SO CLOSE!!!!! Today I actually moved us back into our bedroom. I am sleeping in my own bed, in my own room, for the first time in over two months. If the renovation gods favor us, tomorrow the vanity tops will be installed and Tuesday the plumber will be Read more […]

One of my blogging friends, Amber Salhus, wrote a post earlier in the week called Why it Takes Courage to Seduce Your Husband. It’s a great read and you can find it here: http://ambersalhus.com/why-it-takes-courage-to-seduce-your-spouse/ Amber is a great writer. She’s witty and has an engaging style of connecting with her readers. The premise of her post seemed to be that as married couples, Read more […]

Yesterday a guy I knew in elementary school posted a picture of our fourth grade class from Elementary School. I’m the one on the second row, second from the right. Our teacher was named Mrs. Florence, and I remember liking her, even though she said II talked too much. I looked at my little nine-year-old face and wished I could sit myself down and tell myself how it would all shake out. We had Read more […]

So last week I was at the beach on vacation with Will and some good friends. While South Carolina was having a time of it with record rainfall, the Gulf coast stayed as beautiful as ever. I ate enough fried seafood to last me a long time and came home Saturday night feeling pretty rotten. My body knows when I put crap in it, and a week at the beach is not where I eat the healthiest. Between the Read more […]

For the second time in two weeks, we will attend a family funeral. My husband’s step-grandmother died in August and her service was a week ago Saturday. She was at least 96 and had lived a rich, full life. This time, it is a cousin who died unexpectedly at 42, which doesn’t seem right. Parents burying a child never seems right. I’ve had the usual flood of emotions surrounding death. Shock, sadness, Read more […]

So there’s this thing called write31days.com where writers are challenged to write every single day during the month of October.  I didn’t sign up for several reasons. First I knew I would still be on vacation October 1st, and second I didn’t think I could actually do it. Then over the last four days I’ve seen my writing friends writing and struggling and moaning and groaning about writing, and Read more […]