When we first moved to Dallas, we made some colorful friends who were actors at Scarborough Renaissance Festival- King Henry and a Contessa, to be exact. During October, the Scarborough Fair grounds become a spooky maze of haunted houses, Scary-oke, expensive food vendors, and a throng of tweens looking to snuggle up to their crush …
Tuesday, 7/11/2023, Nashville Airport 2:08 pm I wasn’t anxious about this until we popped open the back of my sister’s van. It’s not the actual flying that concerns me. The Baby is almost chronically un-anxious, as in, he is not anxious even when he probably should be, like when he tries to drown himself by …
January 23, 2023 Dear Mr. Sedaris, My son, {The Baby}, came screeching into the world via an emergency c-section at 26 weeks- a two-pound potato whose vital organs needed lots of assistance to keep him alive. I met him for the first time four months later, when his birthmother invited me to visit the Neonatal …
I remember talking about atheism and agnosticism in my world religions class in high school. In my little conservative corner of West Texas, we didn’t spend much time talking about the godless heathens, but I remember the description of Clockmaker god, who designed the world, perfectly calibrated all of it’s gears and dials, and then …
Let me preface the beginning of this series with a few things: I’m gonna take weekends off for my “writing every day” goal in November. I can do this because I’m a grown ass woman and I want to. I want to explicitly acknowledge that I have AMAZING parents who did the best with what …
Last August, my little family met my parents in Estes Park. We have done this trip every couple of years since I was a kid. We stay in cabins and hike and explore and breathe in the fresh mountain air. COVID made things a little different, but we were just happy to escape Dallas for …
Well, today the Wise family said hello to a new bed and goodbye to two of The Baby’s teeth. A few months ago, we started the laborious process of getting a SleepSafe bed approved through The Baby’s insurance because his crib had become unsafe. He was able to stand up in it and when he …
The Baby turned five this week. It’s crazy. All of those five years tend to blur together. After all, time flies when you’re drowning in medical chaos (just kidding…kind of). On the night of his birthday, our dinner conversation centered around remembering all of his firsts- the first time he sat up, the first solid …
(You can listen to an audio version of this post here.) I went to David’s Bridal today to purchase a bridesmaid’s dress for a friend’s wedding next summer. She had a dress already picked out in the system so they pulled her profile up and I followed the very nice saleslady to the racks laden …
(I realize this is very lengthy so I have strategically placed pictures of smiling animals throughout the piece so that you can mark your place if you need to take a break and come back to it. At my sister’s suggestion, I’ve also made an audio version of this blog. You can download/stream it by …
I grew up in West Texas- land of wide-open spaces, sky high teen pregnancy rates, and a colorblind racial ideology that masks racism instead of confronting it. In colorblind ideology, it is impolite to talk about someone’s race. I remember hearing a story about a friend who was trying to tell her son which store …
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, …
“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 …
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 …
This might be the weirdest baby announcement ever. Our family grew by one this week (and no, I don’t mean chickens, fish, or dogs). We became parents to the sweetest little baby with the longest eye lashes and blue eyes and a sassy left hand. We were planning on adopting again in 2016, but this, … Continue reading
All you need to know about doing your own photos
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At dawn {Jesus} appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the … Continue reading
I don’t really like descriptive words that end in “y”, so I would never use the word ‘flirty’ to describe myself. Also, I’ve literally snot-bubbled in front of cool kids and trapped my acid farts in the car of a boy that I liked so…I would never use the word “flirty” to describe myself, even … Continue reading
My family went and played wiffle ball last night. While my son (heretofore referred to as The Kid) was up to bat, Alex pitched and I played outfield. One of The Kid’s hits was a fly ball. He popped it directly in the sky, where it flew right towards me. As it hurled towards my … Continue reading
Truth: I would not have wanted to parent my father when he was a child. He was a complete mess. As a toddler, he climbed over the fence and started to walk towards the circus. As a teenager, he rolled the car out of the garage and took it on a joy ride. He replaced … Continue reading
(I wrote this last year but it never got posted last so I’m now sharing the saga and subsequent rescue out of the closet office.) I had a meeting a few weeks ago with my executive director (the big enchilada at our non-profit). It was about my office space at our satellite campus, where I just spend … Continue reading
To the beautiful women of DISC– I have a confession. I think I’m addicted to you. God planted you firmly in the soil of my heart quite some time ago, but every time I get to spend an afternoon with you, the roots of my love for you extend a little deeper. There is something … Continue reading
When Alex and I first moved to Dallas 7 years ago, we had a hard time getting plugged in to a church. We looked at all sorts of churches- mega, house churches, traditional, contemporary. It was quite overwhelming because Dallas just has so many churches. One of the churches that we visited during this time was called … Continue reading
I have a confession. A confession that will probably inflame friends on both sides of the ocean-sized aisle that separates the left from the right in America right now. Sometimes, I listen to Rush Limbaugh. I listen to him because he is, in a word, ridiculous. I cannot imagine that a personality that pompous is … Continue reading
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