Category: family

  • A Mother’s Purpose

    A Mother’s Purpose

    I started on this journey twenty-four years ago, plus a few months. With the birth of my first child, I knew my life had been inalterably changed, and it was wonderful. What I never thought about, through the years of having four children grow from babies to active children to teens and then into adulthood,…

  • No Flowers

    No Flowers

    I had intended to do a post on the wildflowers I photographed this weekend, and how much fun I had over the course of Saturday and Sunday, taking part in the Nature Challenge. And then I had to clean the house, edit and submit a story due by tonight, start on a big project that…

  • Spring Cleaning

    Spring Cleaning

    ‘Tis the season when the sap rises, flowers bloom, and this woman’s thoughts turn to the state of the house. In my case ‘AAAAHHHH!11!! I can’t find anything!’ is a good summary of those thoughts.  Today, then, was the start of spring cleaning. Rather than turn the entire house inside-out over the course of a…

  • Cranky Pants

    Cranky Pants

    I’ve got my cranky pants on the way. Not, you’ll note, on. See, I’ve gained a fair amount of weight this last year, and while that’s a problem, it’s not the problem here. I’m working on the weight – or more specifically, on the regaining muscle and flexibility. That’s an ongoing battle I’ll be dealing…

  • Saturday Supper

    Saturday Supper

    Food is love.  When we moved to Texas a couple of years ago now, part of the motivation was coming into a community of friends that felt like family and were close enough to sit down and eat with from time to time. The group of folks who would become known as the North Texas…

  • Musing on Motherhood

    Musing on Motherhood

    I’ve been a mother for a little over twenty-four years, now. I say a little over, as I gave birth to my first child just about twenty-four years ago at the time of the post, and I was certainly a mother even before she arrived into the cold January of a New England winter. My…

  • Wing wing… hewwo?

    Wing wing… hewwo?

    The Little Man made dinner tonight. Well. He had some help. The problem isn’t that he can’t cook. Rather the opposite. He’s an ambitious cook with a fair amount of training, not just from me, but taking cooking classes. He lacks the experience to know where his limits are, so he’ll bite off more than…

  • Filed Under Funny

    Filed Under Funny

    You know you’re a grown-up when you get excited about filing cabinets.  When we were in Ohio, I had two very heavy and nice filing cabinets, wood, executive level quality. Man, they weighed a ton! And I had a four-drawer steel filing cabinet. One that predated WWII and was made of a thickness of steel…

  • Travelling With an AI

    Travelling With an AI

    A guest post from Marion M. As a military brat, I’ve been the kid on some of those interminable road trips, and have hauled my own along on a few all-day treks as well. Travel games are a thing… and this is a very creative one! You can find part one of my unorthodox ways…

  • Family Table

    Family Table

    One of the sweet things about the last couple of days was the excitement from the Little Man over having family dinner last night. He insisted that since we were so close to having the table in the dining area, we’d wait on dinner until we were able to sit down around the table together…

  • Motherhood

    Motherhood

    Reflecting on being a mother, these last 23 years, as Mother’s Day passed quietly yesterday. It’s far too much to unpack at in one sitting, those two decades-plus, and I have other things pressing on my time and attention. Which is, I suppose, a summary of motherhood in itself. It’s a constant war for my…

  • Home for a Day

    Home for a Day

    Today we came home.  There was champagne, and housewarming gifts – like that chair, thank you Jim Curtis!  There were friends, and a dog and a cat, and a very excited Little Man.  Toasting the house, and showing off all the fun little features.  And finally, for a brief sweet moment in the hectic day,…