The Things that Stick With Us.

Every Christmas around this time, I remember and appreciate a girl that I actually don’t remember at all.  It was my first semester in college, I was a measly 17 years old (incidentally, the age my oldest will be in just a few weeks, and who just finished her first dual enrollment class on the […]

Bird Brain.

I was at church, and my phone and Fitbit had SOS alarms going off. Loud, repetitive, chirping, SOS alarms. Clearly they were automatically set up to notify local emergency response crews, as I could hear sirens in the background, growing closer to church. I frantically hurried through the hallways, looking for somewhere to sit down […]

The Bank of Tiny Withdrawals.

In the midst of crazy times, sometimes the little moments stand out as rays of sunshine. The week after we got back from an epic family trip to Montana, Chris’ Dad passed away. He had been diagnosed with cancer several years ago, but this was much more sudden than we had expected. So there was […]

Alabama History, in Clumps.

School is officially out. I mean it has been for a while, but if you haven’t noticed, I’ve been having trouble with the writing lately. Noah made our last day of school signs this year, hence his extra-proud self: Wait no. That’s just his first-and-last day of school expression. And yes, 8th grade is done […]

Mainely Alone: Silence and Beauty.

“This is your fall. You should maximize it.” Chris said those words to me because this would be the first fall in 22 years that we haven’t spent most of our fall Saturdays going to Alabama Football games. (More falls than that for him – since he was 13 – but that’s just my fall […]

The 55 Stages of COVID Grief.

1. When you first hear of other countries’ lockdowns. 2. Reading the new rules that apply to you. Every day. 3. What you think of the rules when you first hear them. 4. Arguing with the new rules. 5. Realizing the rules are happening with or without you. 6. When you find out you’re non-essential. […]

Diary of a Tired Mom – The Please No More Words Edition

It’s been a weird month for me. My subconscious wants to write very badly – I have dreamed about writing blog posts multiple times in the past month. And those dreams have not been limited to when I was asleep. When I got my first dose ever of “the gas” at the dentist, I was […]

Spit and Polish.

My Mom has chickens. And as such, I know way too much about chickens. I know that the rooster shows his love by plucking a ring of feathers off of his favorite hen’s backs while he’s also…on their back. I know that you can buy aprons for favorite hens to protect their poor feathers from being brutally […]

That Time That Butterflies Explained it All.

I was walking along, minding my own business, enjoying the sweltering humidity that is a June-Day-Between-Thunderstorms, when I all of a sudden found myself in a deeply philosophical place. There was a flutter of activity, and I looked about. Butterflies. Blue butterflies. Green Butterflies. Orange Butterflies. Busily flapping about and clearly engaged in an important task. Then I noticed […]

Boom. A Decade.

Last week was my ten year anniversary of writing on this blog. As in, a decade of my life has been lived, and is recorded, on this website. Photo by Jake Marvin It’s really quite mind-blowing – to me, and probably only to me. My first feeling about all that is that I am so […]