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 …
I’ve known Emily since we were in diapers, literally. Our parents were best friends so we grew up together. If I had a second sister, she would be it. I don’t remember cooking with her when we were kids. In fact, the only time I remember consuming anything when she was around was that time … Continue reading
Day 5 This day was a whirlwind of activity and I’m, quite frankly, running out of steam (and so are you, probably) so I’m just going to break it down into a bullet list: Library of Congress tour- Wow! I’m so glad that we did this. The Library of Congress is a BEAUTIFUL building. It’s … Continue reading
Day 4 We woke up bright and early to go on our tour of the Capitol. We had to meet at our U.S. Congressperson’s office. Pete Sessions office looked like the Texas Flag threw up- seriously Texas themed everything. We took a very patriotic picture in his office. Then someone walked us down to the … Continue reading
The time change really threw us off schedule today. We were running an hour behind allll day. We trekked off this morning to find Bike and Roll DC, which is where I had reserved two Trek Comfort bikes (plus kids equipment) for us. I didn’t know what the “kids equipment” entailed but I noted strongly … Continue reading
We limped over to the Metro to ride to the Eastern Market. Alex’s knee pits were on fire and I was walking on blisters to meet my friend, Emily, who’s lived in DC for about 4 years. After looking around at the market, we walked towards the Capitol and met up with a friend of Em’s. … Continue reading
We just got back from a Spring Break jaunt to our nation’s Capitol. I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I blog about the hours of preparation that we did and how excited I was about going? Well, because my dad told me to never write about your travels on the internet, just in case … Continue reading
Let’s imagine that I decide that I cannot tolerate Alex sticking his pointy elbow in my eyeball while we share a full size bed. Don’t believe me that it’s true? Here’s a haiku from a very old post to prove it: ABOUT SHARING A FULL SIZE BED North Korea invades Peace treaty not an option Sharp elbow attacks. -Alex It’s no … Continue reading
My friend Rebekah was the one who really got me thinking about eating healthy food. She’s done a fabulous job at finding recipes that are delicious and nutritious and she graciously made me veggie burgers and healthy waffles while I exercised my taste buds on things I had never eaten before. One of the things … Continue reading
Dear Party-goers- I think I partied a little too hard last night. Alex accidentally forgot that I love to eat trash, so he thought nothing of putting out an entire bag full of spaghetti on the back porch. While you were talking about love, I was gorging myself on the classic Italian dish, complete with garlic bread. … Continue reading
(Remember how I’m in school? You probably don’t because I never talk about it because all my studying is done in the mornings before work while the rest of you bing-bongs are working your 9-5s.) Dear Academia, I successfully completed last semester’s course and registered for this semester’s. Last semester, the class was centered around … Continue reading
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