The first sofa we had was purchased before we were married. We had been dating for well over a year and I helped him pick it out at a “real” furniture store. It was a light khaki colored canvas sofa, loveseat, and ottoman set. Oversized and soft, it enveloped us as we sat on it […]
Late November, I hit a wall. A panic attack out of nowhere led me to spend a week in bed recuperating, watching Hallmark channel movies to the point where there was nothing else in my YouTube feed. (I know, they’re terrible, but everything works out in the end. It’s so comforting). The attack forced me […]
I lived in Central Asia for a few years, and I loved it! But the weather was cold (think Southern Siberia); the winters were long; I never became fluent in Russian by any means; and there were aspects of the culture I never understood. In fact, I remember feeling incredibly angry and frustrated with myself […]
Five years ago, the fabric of my family’s life started unravelling. In September 2012, I left a full-time contract to homeschool our daughters, and, like the overachiever I was, I thought that launching our new adventure with a month-long, multi-modal traverse across Canada would be fun and educational. Hardly. Winter set in quickly and our […]
In 2010, I went from never being a mother, to a mom of two toddlers in a span of a day. It has and remains, all these years later, one of the most horrifically beautiful adventures of my life. Journeying to motherhood was fraught from the beginning. I have known since I was 16 that […]
“Turn left. At a quarter of a mile turn right.” When my husband and I get in the car at our home in the Chicago area to visit relatives in Missouri, we plug in our GPS device and get directions for every turn. And turn we do, left and right and left again…until we get […]
One of the main reasons I stay at my church is also one of the things I dislike most about it. This is it: it’s a large institution. I go to a biggish Presbyterian church. A “Presbyterian” church is literally a church governed by “presbyters”—Greek for elders, or leaders. That’s one of the big reasons […]