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 …
Alex and I only have five pieces of furniture in our house that were never owned by someone else. 1) Couch 2) Loveseat 3) Our mattress 4) New mattress we just bought for a kids room 5) The bar stools that sit at our kitchen bar That’s it. Everything else has been pre-owned. The dining … Continue reading
I still remember the phone call that I made to my parents in the Spring of 2006. “Mom? Dad? I think I want to go to Syria over Spring Break.” My church was taking a “fact finding” trip and they needed people to go meet with the missionaries there and then come back and get … Continue reading
Let me be clear. The first time I made this, it turned into a solid in the bottle and so you would have to squeeze it for about 3 minutes and then it exploded like a cannon out of the bottle and splashed every surface, including your face, within a five mile radius. My kitchen … Continue reading
I’ve been perusing my old xanga site, where I blogged all through college and the beginning of my marriage. How fun it is to have a record of my thoughts going all the way back to high school (where all my friends blogged at diaryland). I was reading some stories that I had written about … Continue reading
Every year, Alex and I trade off doing a surprise trip for our anniversary. Last year, Alex took me to San Antonio; the year before that, I dragged him up to Oklahoma. Would you like to know what we did today? We bought $80 worth of socks and underwear at American Apparel and then we … Continue reading
When we went to Colorado, my friend Kara graciously agreed to stay at our house. As I was typing up a list of things for her to know, I realized just how granola we’ve become. That list included little gems such as: – The liquid dish soap is homemade. You have to shake it or … Continue reading
Ya’ll. Seriously. Adoption is hard. HARD. DIFFICULT. FRUSTRATING. Makes you want to pull your hair out. Makes you want to cry all the time. Is always always always on your mind. Here’s some updates on our two concurrent adoptions. This process has all but slowed to a slow drip. The state offices that deal with … Continue reading
The following is an excerpt from Rocky Mountain National Park for Dummies Chief’s Head As you take the long, scenic drive up Trail Ridge drive in the Rocky Mountain National Park, you’ll no doubt have a chance to experience the splendor that is Chief’s Head, the park’s 3rd largest peak. After Long’s Peak and Mount … Continue reading
Before we really get into the actual Seven Woes, where Jesus really hands it to the religious leaders, we need to explore who the Pharisees are first. For your reading pleasure, I give you Matthew 23:1-12 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ … Continue reading
Now that the second adoption cat is out of the bag, I can tell you that Alex and I have been running around the Metroplex like crazy people trying to fulfill all of the adoption requirements AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE. We’re hoping to be licensed (ready to ask about kids) by mid-to-late August. I’m … Continue reading
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