I'm not good at endings. Someone please tell me I'm not alone in this. When I've left jobs, I've always preferred the quiet transfer to the loud bluster of a last day luncheon. When moving vans have pulled up to our homes, I'm usually no where to be found, busying myself with something unrelated. When my husband was still deploying, I was ready to kick him out with days to go before his flight (I can assure you this one was a self-preservation tool; deployments are heartbreaking and . . .
On Rhythms & Margins: Pruning
You'll want to cut the biggest branch right to the ground, my mother told me matter-of-factly. We had just moved into our new home last spring and my parents were walking the yard, taking inventory of the mature landscape. They stopped at a large lilac bush, growing as high as the gutters next to my garage. Blooms were bountiful but up high, like every perfumed purple cluster was reaching for the sun. While I stood giddy over a hardy shrub that had already reached maturity just outside my . . .
Rhythms & Margins Series: New Roles
I come through the back door from an evening walk to find the kids noshing on shrimp alfredo. We wake early and preheat the oven for homemade bread. As the sun rises on a Saturday, puffy beignets are pulled out of hot oil and dusted with powdered sugar. My man, the chef. Courtesy of quarantine. Our lives have surely shifted over the last year. You may have once done the grocery shopping, but now your partner orders and picks up. Your spouse may have paid the monthly bills, but you took . . .
Wrapping Up: Final Thoughts on a Contentment Challenge
More than once, I've thought how absolutely perfect it is to be finishing my 90-day Contentment Challenge during the most gorgeous week of the year. Everything is in bloom in Virginia. The days are getting warmer but not hot. The grass is greening up but doesn't need to be cut just yet. There is more sun on my face and more Vitamin D soaking into my body. The winter doldrums have lifted in our house. We feel. . . content. In a few days, my 3-month commitment to resist spending for my . . .
Write a Rule of Life
Yesterday, my ten-year-old son and I finished reading the book Where the Red Fern Grows. Obviously there were tears. Side note that the book serves as a 1961 reminder of all the things you're NOT supposed to say to a child who has experienced loss, though a classic nonetheless. I had been reading it aloud to Henry for a few weeks and upon finishing, the thought came that I don't ever not want to be reading to or with my kids. What we're reading now is one of the sweetest markers of childhood and . . .
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