I say “no” to my children often. “No you can’t eat that.” “Stop hitting your sister.” “Put the iPad away.” The summer stretches in front of me like one long nooooooo toward the horizon that is autumn. With everyone home …
Redefining the F-word
I was nine years old when I tried to starve away my curves. I tried to starve away the parts of me that made me a woman, because maybe then I wouldn’t miss it, this need to feel loved by …
Should My Weight Bother Me?
My truth, my weight doesn’t bother me. It’s not that I’m fat, it’s that it doesn’t bother me. It’s supposed to, right? As an elementary recess aid, I occasionally had to put a kid who had gotten too rough with …
How to Get Out of the House In the Morning Without Losing Your Mother-Loving Mind
Last month I conducted a little experiment. I tried to streamline our getting up and out of the house process to make it somewhat pleasant. You know to keep from screaming at everyone. Because “We’re late!!!” and “Get your shoes …
The Brave Collective
is a table movement. An acknowledgment that some of the best, most life-giving moments happen around a table. For some reason the act of pulling up chairs around a mesa of wood becomes a sacred endeavor. It is in sharing …
5 Ways to Help Avoid Kids Avoid the Gimmees at Christmas
5 Ways to Help Kids Avoid “the Gimmees” at Christmas Christmas, the time of year when it feels like the world is telling us what we need to buy to make us happy. As rational, grown people we know things …
Holiday Cleaning, The Minimalist Approach
Quick cleaning is about all I do throughout the year. Really, is there any other way? Add the parties, concerts, shopping, cooking and general mayhem of the holidays, and time for cleaning is about thirty minutes from midnight to midnight-thirty. …
Three Flavors of Hospitality
Everything I have learned about offering hospitality came from receiving the gift of hospitality from others. There are three ways I like to give and receive hospitality. First, there is “guest of honor” hospitality. This is the more traditional form …
What is Bravery?
I never really considered myself ‘the brave one’. Loud, sure. Spontaneous, at times. Joyful, usually. But brave — not so much. Then I asked myself a hard question – the kind that sticks in your throat even when you say …
What Women (Really) Want
We were newlyweds. I was anorexic. Trent came home one day to find me crying on the couch about the living room—about how off-kilter and ugly it looked with our second-hand furniture—and I hadn’t eaten since the night before. He …