What do you get for a woman who has everything? Or perhaps more accurately, who often doesn’t know what she needs because she’s too busy advocating for grandkids at hospitals, cleaning dishes, ironing Band concert clothes, or cleaning under the fridge? Well, she likes rocks. I was purchasing recycling bags at our local city hall …
“What was I thinking?” I thought as I stared forlornly into the mirror. I should have known better than to impulsively stop at the hair salon directly adjacent to the Tom Thumb, still clutching my bag of avocados. I was hoping for a cute haircut before I left on my 10th anniversary weekend trip. Instead, …
I was a mere 21 years old when I got married. My uncle officiated our wedding. Before the wedding, my then-fiancee, now-husband, Alex, and I drove down to Corpus to do some premarital counseling sessions and stay with my aunt and uncle. After one of these sessions, Alex and I got ready to leave and …
A few weeks ago, we went to a Down Syndrome Guild picnic at a local amusement park- the kind with the rides that are scary cause they’re real old and the only thing they really do is make you feel a little sick. We’ve done a handful of Guild events but I tend to struggle …
I went to a vigil in Balch Springs for Jordan Edwards last week. It was everything you would want a vigil to be- beautiful and sad and moving and comforting. Like most, I was horrified by Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice’s deaths. I have been deeply affected before by deaths caused by police brutality, but …
Last week, I finished my second year of teaching ESL to adults. I shepherded a group of 23 Spanish-speaking women through our green textbook. Together, we lamented that the English language has 42 exceptions to every grammar rule. Together, we braved the cruel, cruel world of the past tense and prepositions of time. One of … Continue reading
The Kid recently went to a church lock-in. He loved it, of course. I’m fairly certain that he didn’t sleep at all and ate shit and probably played too many videogames. He informed me that they played a game called Sardines and I was hit with a flashback of epic proportions from my own youth … Continue reading
If you’ve ever been in a choir, you’ve had the experience where the choir stop singing perhaps for a pregnant pause, and you belt a note out in the silence. Usually you realize it pretty quickly, and you stop before many people can realize it. That feels a little bit like faith deconstruction. I had … Continue reading
We just moved. Same city, just a little further South. We added a fourth bedroom and it got The Kid into the schools that he wanted to be in (i.e. more POC kids). By just moved, I mean that our garage is filled to the gills with furniture and boxes. There’s nothing new about that, … Continue reading
I just got back from San Francisco. I went to (hides face) a Christian conference. I found myself hesitant to tell people that it was a Christian conference because of the connotations of that. My sense is that many Christian conferences are lame attempts at pep rallies for God, the adult version of church camp, … Continue reading
In elementary school, I once bought a silver one-piece bathing suit. It fit my round little body like most bathings suits do and the first time I wore it, no joke, I thought I looked like hot shit. I still remember the moment at the indoor pool at the local university where my family was … Continue reading
We recently got back from Austin. I have a grandmother and an aunt that live that that the boys hadn’t seen in a while so I, with the help of my parents who are becoming professional babysitters in their retirement, schlepped the boys, including a giant oxygen concentrator, a gargantuan CPAP machine on a stand … Continue reading
