We spent our Saturday in the open room of the emergency animal hospital, the kind with bright lights and stainless-steel tables arranged so everyone can move quickly when they need to. The girls’ lop-eared bunny, Tatum, lay on the table, her breathing rapid, each small rise...
The lemon tree in our backyard is barely three feet tall, and yet it carries the largest lemons I have ever seen. At least twenty hang from it now, heavy enough to bend the branches almost to the ground. It seems like too much. I...
Emma is curled into the crook of my arm tonight, warm and flushed, finally asleep. Before she drifted off, I kept offering things.Do you want me to get you a smoothie from that place you like?I could make soup.What about crackers? Or an ice pack for...
I’m sitting at the kitchen table to write this week’s blog and outside the window there’s a cloud that looks exactly like a floppy-eared rabbit. My first instinct is to turn and call out to the girls, “Come quick. Look at this.” But I turn back toward...
If someone asked us to sketch a map of the world from memory, most of us would place where we live somewhere near the center. That’s simply how perspective works. The place where our life has unfolded becomes the point everything else is oriented around. I...
I used to believe that, with enough planning, I could fit more than sixty minutes into every hour. Even when I knew a drive reliably took twenty minutes, I convinced myself I could bend time just a little. Maybe today I would get all green...
We return to certain phrases when the world feels unsteady. They come back to us almost automatically, the way a familiar room does when the lights go out. One of those phrases is Mister Rogers’ reminder to look for the helpers. When things feel frightening,...
In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the girls were given a small terrarium with two green frogs inside. They named them Franklin and Lime. The frogs were instantly beloved. The girls built them houses out of Magna-Tiles, made them tiny hats, played nature...
When we repainted our kitchen cabinets, most of what lived inside them had to be moved out of the room. My husband carried stacks of dishes to closet shelves and tucked small appliances out of sight, leaving behind just a few plates and bowls and...
January has a way of making us restless. The year opens up with an immediate ask for more intention, more focus, and more goals. The stores and the screens promise a better life if we meet the year with more effort. I remember my last semester...