The Mudroom Turns 6!

I started The Mudroom six years ago because there wasn’t enough space for everyone. The collaborative blogs at the time were filled up with “featured” writers who already had a name and a platform and a following. That meant that there were fewer places people, especially women, could submit their writing.  I felt like there […]

What I Want Them to Remember

Their nightstand and bookshelves tell you all you’d need to know. Anne of Green Gables, Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We have Girls Think of Everything, Rosie Revere Engineer, Not One Damsel in Distress. Harriet Tubman. Helen Keller. Sojourner Truth. Marie Curie. These are their heroes. We go through our Bible with care and find all […]

Sound the Bells

Can I not talk about the Enneagram? Please? I’ve taken the test what feels like a hundred times. Each time I have taken it with the guidance of someone who really knows and loves the Enneagram. First I thought I was a 9. That fit for a while until it didn’t. Try again and find […]

Forty Three Steps

I didn’t want to see it again. I was quite happy letting my husband be the one who would let in the occasional handyman, plumber, or real estate agent. But this time, there were no other options, so it was me walking the 43 steps to the third floor of the vintage building where we […]

I’ll Carry You

I told a story last week about how God was teaching me to trust on an ordinary weekday morning watching a swim lesson, but I didn’t give it the ending I wanted. I wanted to say how I knew it would all be okay, how I was ready to jump. I have been following Jesus […]

All You Need to Do Is Jump

Each morning, for the past five weeks, I get my three daughters up at 7am for their swim lessons. Bleary eyed they change into their swimsuits, grab a change of clothes, and eat a protein bar on the thirty-minute drive to the pool where they take lessons. All week they look forward to “Friday Fun […]

Half A Lifetime Ago

  Half a lifetime ago. That’s what I realized as I was driving down the road, sunroof open, on one of the first warm spring days of the year. Before I was a mom, before I was a wife, I was just me. I worked in retail and would find myself driving the 45 minutes […]

The Morning After

Today’s Free Write Friday is a simple reflection from some of our readers on Super Tuesday results. As I collected these, I was encouraged as I witnessed discourse – not fighting, but actual discourse – as they wrestled with results and candidates and beliefs, everyone holding onto hope. I. “Bite your lip and turn on […]

Hope Trumps Death

I held her hand in mine as we walked down the snowy sidewalk. On Sunday we were raking and putting out a spring wreath on the front door, the one with the pastel eggs and moss covered rabbit, but just a few days later the streets were ice and snow as a cold wind blows […]

Free Write Friday: Finding Jesus

Two election cycles ago, I was a different person. Freshly married with a young baby, I lived in a New England town where almost 100% of my friends were made up with people from church and at least 80% of them looked like me. Houses were situated on .66 acres and life felt idyllic. The […]

Free Write Fridays

She was due to come home any minute. Eager to see her I had cookies fresh out of the oven. The candle in the bay window above my kitchen sink burned sweetly and twinkle lights lined the entrance to the mudroom. Her sisters were coloring contentedly at the homework table nearby and her favorite tunes […]

This is a Post About Loss

This is a post about loss. I write this over and over again. Ambling through the labyrinth trying to think of just the right thing to say. I don’t think there is a right thing anymore. If you haven’t become an intimate friend with loss, with the emptiness that comes from the missing, then you […]

Learning to Float

I don’t like going out in boats. There is something about a “recreational” structure floating out in the vast expanse of dark deep water where at any moment a storm could strike, sending me to an untimely death, which makes the idea of a relaxing boat ride nonexistent in my world. The bright orange vest […]

What I Want Them to Remember

Their nightstand and bookshelves tell you all you’d need to know. Anne of Green Gables, Ramona, Laura Ingalls Wilder. We have Girls Think of Everything, Rosie Revere Engineer, Not One Damsel in Distress. Harriet Tubman. Helen Keller. Sojourner Truth. Marie Curie. These are their heroes. We go through our Bible with care and find all […]