"How's the campaign going?"
It's the question I get most often. It's also the question I'm never quite sure how to answer.
Good? ... Great! ... Your guess is as good as mine. ... We'll see May 17th!
The truth - I suppose - all depends on what you're measuring.
This weekend we hosted a Winter ONE-derland party in honor of Felix's first birthday. Considering this child was born during a snow, it seemed like an appropriate theme. Well, the weather had other plans and it was 70 and sunny! I could have hosted the dang party outside!
For my 30th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do. One was to write a historical fiction short story. This is the story and as Ruby keeps calling to me here lately. I thought I'd share it here.
One of Nicholas's New Year's resolutions was to try freezer meals. He'd prepped meals for the week on and off through 2015 and wanted to see how it would work to prepare an entire month's worth. Then, we could just pull a meal from the deep freeze, throw it in the crockpot, and on a busy day dinner would be waiting for us.
It happens every time I fill out a new medical form for one of my boys. Can your child do this? Can your child do that? I go down the list of questions checking one “yes” box after another. I leave the lines to describe any developmental delays or physical issues blank.
As I looked over the form, my eyes welled up with tears and I start to cry. I feel incredible gratitude, but I also feel such sadness. Sadness because I know it was a moment Annie has never gotten to have
Last year, my family experienced a tragedy. At 20 weeks pregnant, I found out the baby I was carrying was no longer alive. It was an incredibly difficult time made easier by family and friends - and even strangers - who reached out and said they understood or they couldn’t understand but that they loved us and were there for us just for the same.
This post is not about those people.
This post is about the people who wanted to seem thoughtful or sympathetic or supportive but who were actually there for themselves - not me or my family.
I call those people tragedy trolls.
I wrote this post a couple of years ago but have been thinking about graciousness a lot lately so thought I'd share it again.
I stumbled upon this quote recently and immediately taped it up on my bathroom mirror. It seemed to perfectly capture how I have been feeling late. I spent so many years trying to gain confidence and learn to stick up for myself that recently I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve overshot my mark. In my efforts to defend myself, do I forget about other people?
“Hi, can I take your order,” said our waitress.
“Hmm, what? I’m sorry?” I say sharply while wrangling my 2 year old and trying to pull the iPod out for the big boy.
“Your order?” she repeats.
Quickly I give her our order, but not quick enough. I saw the little elderly woman eyeballing us and then it happened right as I was about to say “funny face pancake” she abruptly interrupts me, walks over to my youngest, caresses his head {which totally ticked him off} and starts reminiscing about how she had a great, great, great grandfather with red hair. “And oh, I’m sure he got his red hair from his mama.”
I wanted to say, “get your hands off my child and leave us to our funny-face pancake, and by the way I dye my hair.” Instead I smiled, nodded politely and said thank you.
After I tweeted this little scenario, a fellow redhead replied “You’d think a redhead was a bedazzled unicorn or something, people act like they’ve never seen one before.”
Today is National Proposal Day. Due to the fact that Nicholas and I didn’t start our first blog until 2003, the story of Nicholas proposing to me in 2002 is one of the few facets of our lives together that hasn’t found its way on to the internet.
Well, no day like today!
I thought there is no better time than in the depths of caring for our brand new baby and THIRD child to remember how it all began.
Hello ladies and gentlemen,
We’ve come to the part in our program where Sarah needs to let off some serious steam about the ridiculous things people say to pregnant women in their last trimester. Of course, I’m always gracious in the moment after someone uses the word “huge” or “miserable” or - God forbid - “twins” but here among friends there’s going to be a little less grace and a lot more honesty.
(deep breath)
I was 16-years-old, a junior at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky. Born and raised in the small Western Kentucky town, I was the fourth generation of my family to attend Heath. My great-grandparents had skipped out on a basketball game to ride the ferry across the river and get married in Illinois. My great-aunt had been the home economics teacher for years. My mother had been the prom queen.
It was a cold, gray December day, the first after Thanksgiving break in 1997. Not owning a license yet, I rode to school with my friend Beth and her dad. I remember I was wearing my brand new blue fleece from the Gap that my stepdad had given me as a reward for getting all A's that semester.
We were running late, but as we circled the parking lot, I noticed a large group of students standing outside the gym -- mostly upperclassmen, including a boy I had a crush on. One of our classmates ran up to Beth's car and pounded on the window.
"Some guy just started shooting people!" he yelled.
