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 …
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 no relationship at all!)) Then I read … Continue reading
My little teeny tiny sister turned 20 years old yesterday. That’s right. I have the world’s coolest sister. She a taller, leggier, tanner, more athletic, less freckled version of me (ah, but I am still older!) and now she is not a teenager anymore. I thought I would celebrate her birthday by remembering a few … Continue reading
A couple of months ago, I was suddenly approached by a woman on my way out of my local library. She asked me if I could give her a ride to the bus station. True to my nature, I began my usual been-approached-by-a-stranger-and-don’t-know-what-to-do hemming and hawing. “Errr….well….umm….” In response to this, she said, “I’m not a serial … Continue reading
I recently had an adorable 6 year old student whose family moved into our transitional housing program at Genesis. I was asking him about his new digs and he was telling me all about how many bedrooms and how many beds and their new couch and then he said, “And the bathroom…it is SO beautiful.” … Continue reading
For about the past 4 years, I’ve been battling a pretty severe bout of cynicism about the church. I’ve had days where, were it possible, I would have punched the collective church in the face and not felt guilty about it. You’ve probably noticed, as a good number of my posts are about what the … Continue reading
(I wrote about 12 different intros to this, trying to be witty so I could catch your attention. But the truth is, this isn’t a thought that calls for witticism or humor. Take it or leave it.) I have really enjoyed working at a women’s shelter. Domestic violence is a seedy section of society that … Continue reading
Picking dishes for Alex and I was kind of fun. It was infinitely less complicated than picking, say, silverware (which Alex demanded be properly “balanced”. He tested forks by holding them between his thumb and his forefinger and bouncing it. I didn’t really understand the whole process, but it worked.) For our plates, we wanted dishes that … Continue reading
The summers at Genesis are every kid’s dream. We usually end up getting a fair amount of funding for summer festivities and so we choc the schedule full of movies and restaurants and museums and zoos and bounce houses. The funny thing is that after a while, the kids get so used to all the … Continue reading
I don’t remember being exceptionally quirky in high school. I mostly tried to get good grades and be friends with people. I didn’t have time for quirks…..which is why it’s unusual that on my 18th birthday, I decided to go and renew my driver’s license wearing an 80s prom dress. Let’s see the picture, shall … Continue reading
Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is [His] faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for Him.” Lamentations 3:22-24 Fade to Grey by Jars of Clay No, it’s not hard to know … Continue reading
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