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 …
{My younger sister went to Thailand to work at an orphanage this summer. You can read about her adventures here. She apparently found a t-shirt salesman who made t-shirts in English. Some of them are hilarious; some make no sense at all. She brought me 4 amazing little gems and I will blog about each of … Continue reading
Sometimes it’s not a stranger who needs saving. Here’s how my Saturday has gone: I, napping in bed, am awoken by a phone call from my husband, who left early in the morning to go bike riding. “I don’t feel so good. I think you need to come pick me up.” “Okay. Where are you?” “I’m on the trail … Continue reading
I don’t know. Maybe it’s my old age or my big city ways, but my sense of personal boundaries has been steadily eroding since I graduated from college and moved to Dallas. Sure, it’s always been the case that if you say to me, “Man, I really hurt my back yesterday”, I will inevitably punch your … Continue reading
{I’m a letter writer. I wrote a letter to that guy who burned the Quran in Florida. I wrote a letter to Chex Mix and told them that they should make a bag of just the squares. I wrote a letter to an evangelist who came to A&M whose website says that we should be … Continue reading
Notes from my notebook (seriously): Summer supplies. the Green Spot. Green Spot. She is up for it. Basically email Jason Land. Triathalon. Angelina. Martha. Play friday. Friday. Friday. Friday. Older kids. We would be happy. Flashed. I don’t everyone. everyone. Anybody could do it. Flashed. Board meeting Sept 20th. Worth it. 1st of August. We … Continue reading
Oh goodness, what a journey this little adventure has been. We’ve been in the duplex since the beginning of June and it took two months to get it looking how it does now (awesome). I had to wait to post pictures so that my sister would be surprised (which she was) when she got home … Continue reading
I made the move to wordpress, because the platform is better there. So… http://www.welderbeth.com ENJOY! Continue reading
Four years ago today, I married my best friend. Since then, we have gone to Tenessee, got a dog, moved into a cool townhome, met lots of neighbors, hosted lots of parties, joined a Bible study, joined a housechurch, quit a housechurch, rapped about our day, dog sat, prayed about doing foster care, discovered dog … Continue reading
(Sidenote: This is my inaugural post on my new wordpress account. I’m trying to import my xanga posts but you basically have to have invented the internet to know how to do it, so don’t hold your breath.) I’ve always had weird these weird (let’s call them) quirks. Lately, I’ve been watching the show “Obsessed” … Continue reading
I had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica during the summer 4 or 5 times while I was in high school/college. Sometimes we would do construction work (read: try to weld two pieces of metal together using wires from an electrical socket or knocking the snot out of a wall with a giant hammer) and … Continue reading
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