Hi Reader, I took a picture of myself in my workout clothes last week. I meant it to be a "before" photo, to pull up later when things have changed. I was being optimistic about it. Then I looked at it and felt sad, which was not at all what I had planned. There's this idea that women our age let ourselves go, like we stop caring at some point along the way. That has not been my experience. I've been doing the same things I've always done. My body just changed the terms without telling me,...
6 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last week I told you I would remain consistent, despite my mood or what's happening in my life. This week that's a little harder than I expected. Today I sit at my laptop with a view I have looked at with wonder for the last 45 years. Soon it will be someone else's view. It will always be in my heart, in my memories and dreams, but I somehow can't wrap my head around it. There is too much emotion involved. One thing is certain though. I am leaving this place with so much more than...
13 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, It's been a couple weeks since I've sent my weekly note to you. There's something to be said about routine and consistency. It keeps you motivated and builds momentum. I've fallen out of that routine a bit this summer with good reason. Mix a few major life changes with summer in the pot and here we are. The reason I started writing and creating this blog remains the same. I was inspired by love and loss and always will be. I had a need to write about those experiences and wanted to...
20 days ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, I missed my usual Friday morning with you. I've been away from home dealing with something personal this week, so I'm writing to you a day off schedule. In the middle of all this, my phone rang. It was one of my sons. Something in his world had gone sideways, and I could hear it in his voice right away. Before we hung up, he asked me when I was coming home. That question snapped me out of where my head has been. I think about how much has changed since my boys grew up. The house is...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I have to be honest about something. This has been a hard stretch for me lately. Nothing I'm ready to write a whole post about, just one of those seasons where you're doing the next small thing and hoping it adds up to something. It reminded me of why I made something a while back that I don't think everyone here has seen yet. A while ago I lost my mom and my dog Molly within a short stretch of each other. I didn't know what to do with all of it. Not just the grief, but the all the...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Happy 4th of July weekend to you and yours. This holiday always brings up a certain kind of feeling for me. Fireworks at night with kids in awe of every single one. Ice pops. Fruit salad. The small, specific traditions that somehow become the things you remember most. The moments that feel ordinary while they're happening and then turn into something you'd give anything to have back. That's actually what this week's post is about, even though I wrote it about college drop off....
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Something happened this week that I want to tell you about. I've been having a hard few days, kind of like when life feels like it's moving faster than you're ready for and you're just trying to keep up. I won't go into all of it, but I will say that some seasons have a way of reminding you what really matters, and this has been one of those weeks for me. In the middle of it, I posted something on Instagram about a walk I took in the woods, about being a lifelong people pleaser who...
2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, This morning I had a thought. It came out of nowhere, the way the real ones usually do. I was thinking about lunches and making them for school all those years. Then this morning, I'm making them for work. Somewhere in between the school lunches and work lunches was a lapse of what I thought was a lot of time... that's the blip. That's what I want to talk to you about today. Life doesn't slow down and hand you a moment. It moves fast. Your people come in and out, the rooms are...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader, Something happens this time of year that I don't think we talk about enough. The calendar shifts. Summer starts. Kids come home, or they don't. Plans change. Life rearranges itself again, and you find yourself standing in the middle of it thinking, okay, now what? Nothing is wrong exactly. It's just different. That particular kind of still that settles in after a season ends, or a chapter closes, or the house gets a little bit louder or a little bit emptier than it was before. I...
3 months ago • 2 min read