Every fall, as the weather shows the first signs of getting cooler, I become a little bit manic. Because Alabama falls are so magical. And so fleeting. Because if it’s cool today, it’s gonna be 90 degrees tomorrow. Then it’s gonna go straight to 40 degrees and – oops! You missed fall. And also, I […]
On Independent Study.
Ali has a lot of free time compared to most children her age. She’s nearly nine and in the third grade, which is prime time to be besieged with the first loads of homework. But since we homeschool, she escapes this fate. I am never one to tell people that they should homeschool, nor do […]
On Medical Leave. {And Ask Me Anything}
My eyes hurt. A lot. I’m sure it has nothing to do with posing for this picture. No really. They’ve been hurting longer than that but that picture certainly wasn’t the cure. They have been bothering me for a week and a half, and I finally forced myself to go to the eye doctor to […]
Little Ditty about Charles and Kathleen.
Meet Charles and Kathleen. They live in bowl wrapped in a Kid’s Menu. Luxurious by snail standards. Charles was the second new member of our household (pictured on the stick-like object). He joined our family in the early summer, when he was found washed up on the sidewalk after a recent downpour. The adoption of […]
The Life and Times of Busy the Bee.
Eli is my seven-year-old nephew. Eli is a fantastic kid, mind-blowing in intellect and often infuriating in adventure. He is intensely curious about the world around him and has very little impulse control. As such, there is nothing I adore more than hearing my sister-in-law Lindsay’s rundowns of his daily pursuits. Last week, those episodes […]
Infusion-Induced Insanity.
On our last few hotel stays, Chris and I have discovered a magical commodity that hotels sometimes offer: fruit infused water. Displayed beautifully in a large dispenser with multi-colored fruits, three recent hotels have had it in the lobby, with those lovely little clear plastic cups that make everything taste better. One hotel even made […]
The Adventures of Creep and Crack.
Up until the point in question in our home renovations, our contractor has sent out the most impressive sets of workmen, scoring Class A (or even better) on The Creep Scale. The Creep Scale, a scientific document based on surveys of ones of housewives. Class A*: This person is a stranger in your home, but […]
Under Lock and Key.
Ali spent an entire Saturday morning planning and creating an extraordinarily intricate blanket fort. Like Fort Knox itself, her construction boasted of all of the necessary building components to create the highest security possible – chairs, every blanket in the house, random objects like hammocks and toys to fill in the gaps left by the […]
The Snotty Truth: a Tonsillectomy Recovery.
I am an Adult Tonsillectomy Survivor. I know, I know – you’re probably as tired of hearing about my tonsillectomy as you are my running. I get it. But I wrote about my surgery day and never got back to writing about the recovery. Because of this gross oversight (and yes it is definitely gross in all […]
On Fighting Weather Fears.
In April, we experienced some pretty strong and unexpected straight-line winds in our neighborhood. Ali and I actually saw the storm in all its intensity, which was over by the time we ran down to the basement. But the memory has stuck with Ali. She’s an unemotional and severely logical kid, which is extraordinarily nice […]