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 …
You guys, I have a serious problem. As I sit here writing this, there are four dead plants in my house. And no, I don’t mean in a closet somewhere. I mean I have four dead plants on display in my house. When you come into my breakfast nook, where I have couches instead of … Continue reading
(This blog, by far, brings me the most hits on my blog. Most of the search terms are related to nudity. If you’re struggling with a pornography addiction and want help, please visit http://www.xxxchurch.com.) I meet with a couple of friends every week to do a Bible study. Often our conversations veer in definitively non-religious … Continue reading
I’m starting a new series over here where I can collect all of the things that have intrigued me via the interwebz for the last few weeks. The title says “bi-weekly” but, uh, don’t hold your breath. Enjoy! – Pathos’s blog post “What Would Jesus Make of “Passion” (Conferences)? Dare I say a thoughtful critique … Continue reading
(Original 2010 xanga post here) Oh,wait. It’s a 12 year old girl. At the beginning of the summer, I decided to start throwing in some nonfiction reading so that I can know some things. (I started out with The Wal-Mart Effect, which was an excellent read and ended my love/hate relationship with Wal-Mart (now, there’s … Continue reading
And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. (Mark 12:30) This was Jesus’s response when a tricky trickster tried to trick him by asking what the greatest commandment was. I’m sure that many of you have probably heard this verse before … Continue reading
Well, we got rid of Netflix. A few weeks ago, I was the subject of a brutal three-inquisitor questioning over why we don’t have cable. I had actually convinced my IT guy for a minute that we didn’t even have internet, but I told him the truth once I felt that he was ready to follow me … Continue reading
Have you heard about the letter hidden by a Chinese factory worker that was found by a woman in Wisconsin who bought some stuff from a Kmart in Oregon? You can imagine that if I found a letter like this: I would drop everything, fly immediately to China, and offer to adopt all of the factory … Continue reading
Well, friends- Nothing exciting has happened this year. Check back with us in 2013. Love, Beth and Alex I’M JUST KIDDING. Gosh, you’re just so gullible. Yesterday, our pastor made us turn to our neighbor and talk about how we would define this past year. It only took me about .2 seconds to come up … Continue reading
I often decide that it would be really funny to ______________ only to find out as I’m doing it that it’s horribly, horribly, “I’m-gonna-die” embarrassing. I don’t know why I do this over and over again but apparently, I just can’t learn. Case in point? Please view my driver’s license for my 18th birthday.Oh, sure. … Continue reading
“This is the message of Christmas: We are never alone.” ~ Taylor Caldwell (1900-1985), English novelist. Continue reading
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