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 …
Um, so…er…the vow of silence didn’t go so hot. I know you’re surprised. I could give you a few excuses, like the fact that all I do at my job is answer questions from students, volunteers, and other staff members or that everyone else is stupid. While the vow wasn’t a whopping success, it did … Continue reading
It’s amazing to me that I still feel exactly like this six years later. “For me, life right now is like swinging with your eyes shut. You can feel that you’re moving but you don’ t know where…. at least God is pushing.” (originally posted 3/6/2006) Continue reading
I don’t think I’ve made it any secret that I have trouble controlling my mouth. Sometimes I have a filter and sometimes I let it all hang out. Sometimes I make little girls cry when I scold them in the grocery store and sometimes I accidentally ask my checkout lady if the little boy in … Continue reading
There was alot of crying in my family growing up. Not because we were all abused or sad- just because we had alot of feelings. Specifically, there were tears when we were feeling really happy, scared, angry, sad, touched, ashamed, sentimental, and insane (thus the patented Feemster laugh-cry). The other day Leah called me to … Continue reading
I had a life changing experience on Sunday. I went to a picnic for international UTD students in the middle of a Dallas hurricane. It sounds exciting but all it really means is that I had to put my hand over my potato chips and a brownie flipped off my styrofoam plate and landed upside … Continue reading
I haven’t watched TV since Wednesday morning. Guess what? No one has died…yet. I didn’t realize how entertwined television watching had become with some of my daily tasks. Doing dishes necessitates The Office. Heaven forbid I actually enjoy a bath in silence. Good thing there’s Parks and Rec to entertain me. Without television, I have … Continue reading
My dog is smarter than me. Correction: She is smarter than me AND Alex. Or maybe she just knows how to persevere and wear us down, bit by discouraging bit. I mentioned that we had some trouble crate training her. She would poop in her crate EVERY TIME we put here in there and eventually, we got … Continue reading
You might remember this post here where I ripped America a new one for our obsession with excess at the expense of others. As soon as I hit the post button, I immediately felt like I needed to drive to JC Penney and buy every article of clothing they have there, now that they’ve ditched their elastic … Continue reading
Dear America, It’s time we had a talk. There are lots of things that we could go in to, but we need to discuss your finances. Overspending is an American pasttime. We justify it in the name of “capitalism” and our houses are crammed full of junk that we will never need. If our houses fill … Continue reading
(Two recipes for the price of one! Keep reading) I’ve never been a bean eater. Frankly, most of the beans that I’ve consumed in my lifetime taste like mud. So imagine my surprise when my neighbor Sarah shared with me that she had made brownies, substituting the oil and egg with pureed black beans. I … Continue reading
welderbeth 