Say it Again
Sometimes I feel sad or desperate or afraid. When it happens, it’s familiar. I know I have felt sad before. And I know I don’t feel sad always, yet I imagine feeling it forever. Apparently, I live here now. That’s what I think.
From what I understand, our natural brain connections are the worst.
Good Questions
I love great questions. They help us know our own minds and help us move. They’re better conversation starters, and they can help us think about the simple and beautiful now.
This Chapter is for Grandma
A tribute to my beautiful grandmother who shines bright in chapter eight of my book, The Thank You Room. She left us Easter morning, 2024. She was many things I hope to be.
Sincerely, Me
I’m thinking of designing notecards. Or just telling you about this delightful Kate Spade version that brings me joy.
3 Surprising Signs of Happiness
There is no standard definition for happiness. We mostly have to judge it by its components. These are three surprising signs that you are fully alive and yourself, which is of course one way to describe happiness.
I Want to be Known for This
“I want to be known for the things I love.” These lyrics from the Taylor Swift song Daylight speak for me as I return to blogging. Here is where I write about the things I love in life, the things that bring me awesome joy.
Can’t Reply; at the Movies
I’m starting a new regular on the blog called ON THIS DAY, and today is the day my son suggested a version of me I always want to be.
Water & Sunlight to the Best in You
What if instead of turning toward the things that don’t feel right (a job I’m in, a piece of writing that won’t take shape), I turn toward the things about which I feel confident? What might happen if my energy goes to the things in my life I want to grow? My hope is that it crowds out all the rest.
How to Write a Book Review if You Feel Like It
Writing book reviews is a great way to support the authors you love. They can be a chore, though. These are ideas for rating and reviewing books to be helpful to other readers - which is the real goal behind any review.
52 Ways to Be the Boss of You
In July 2023, I published a new book, 52 Ways to Be the Boss of You, Your, Mood, and Your Day. This is the story behind the book.
How We Got Here
the mamaversary post
In life, as in my mamaversary posts, I try to avoid surprise and astonishment about the speed with which we change from worn out mothers of toddlers, infants, and little league players to mothers of people who drive. I try not to wonder how we got here. Today, my oldest son is twenty-three, and I’m thinking about exactly how we got here.
A Dream Wedding & Other Sorts of Joy
Apparently, July 2nd was halfway through the year. It seems like a good time to write.
The first half of this year, my family and I were a tad preoccupied because the birthday boy from my annual mamaversary posts had the audacity to GET MARRIED. I managed to spend most of the front side of 2022 just thinking about this, really, planning a shower, arranging a rehearsal dinner, buying gifts, and ordering no fewer than four mother-of-the-groom dresses before one finally made me feel pretty.
I Choose Joy
I don't always choose a word for the year, but when I do I really mean it.
My word this year is JOY, and it's working exactly like you want a word of the year to work. When I think of joy, it renews my focus. It reminds me what I intend for the year. It's practical and it's feelings-based - something required for pretty much everything I do in life.
My Wish for A Million Dreams
I know it's almost a new year because I've been waking up in the wee s'mas with so. many. ideas. Sometimes they hold up in the light of day. Sometimes they don't. The idea in this post could go either way. Let's see.
As you may have read, I booted a ton of angst in 2020 and let go of a really specific dream in the process: Getting a novel on bookshelves someday. It wasn't my only dream. It wasn't my first dream, either. It was just a dream. And maybe I haven't let it go forever. I'll decide that later.
I Don't Know About You but I'm Feeling 22
the mamaversary post
This week I had my annual oncology visit and got the good news I love to hear: #nocancertoday.
After that, it got kind of boring because Dr. P told me about all these errands I need to run. He started talking about what it means to be a survivor, and it was sort of like he whipped out an Inigo mask and said, "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does."
(For the Boys) Thank You for the Delight
Last year, I let go of a goal that no longer seemed important enough, or certain enough, for the strain it caused me to long for it.
The goal was far too specific, really, and relatively few who try will achieve it: I wanted to be a self-sufficient, day-job-free, well-paid and traditionally published author of novels. Unfortunately, after twelve years of trying, it wasn't happening, and the angst of wanting it so much and not knowing how to reach it was, in popular self-help terminology, not working for me.
I Climbed a Mountain in Flip Flops
Seven years after undergoing lung surgery and a rare complication that kept me hospitalized ten days, I climbed a mountain in flip flops despite a long-held believe that I wasn't healthy enough, adventurous enough, or competitive enough to accomplish any such thing - let alone in flip flops. I love being wrong about me.
The Record Playing
There is a record that has played in my mind for as long as I can remember. It questions everything I have, have not, or should have done. Suddenly, in mid-life, the record is quieting.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard
It's one of the 5 Regrets of the Dying: I wish I hadn't worked so hard. I think about it a lot when I go to bed at night or wake up in the morning and look at my days (and thus my life) and wonder, Am I doing this right?
I've always been resistant to the 8-to-5. It leaves so little room for whims or creativity.