Everything about Thanksgiving reminds me of someone… The pile of recipes in my recipe book, written by my best friends from college; a recipe for curry sauce I first ate at a friend’s house 20 years ago; family recipes from my mom and mother-in-law… Making stuffing and hearing my mom’s voice telling me to, “Yes, melt a whole stick” of butter in the pan, bucking my low-fat diet of the 1990s. Pies…and how my mom would give each of us a little scrap of leftover dough to roll out, spread with butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. I would roll
Read moreHome ownership came with a lot of life lessons, especially concerning our septic system. As a kid, I’d always grown up with the convenience of sewer lines…you flush the toilet, and it all disappears. It turns out that septic systems require a bit more attention. Unfortunately, I didn’t discover this until four years into home ownership, when our septic lines started failing, leaking sewage into a nearby stream. It wasn’t good. I don’t remember the name of the man who taught me how to take care of my septic system, but I remember one thing: He was passionate about them.
Read moreAt the top of Glacier Point Road, I gazed down at Yosemite Valley, 2,000 feet directly below and thought, “Gosh, if my car could just fly, I’d be down there in 30 seconds.” Instead, it took 1.25 hours to navigate the mountain roads down to Yosemite Valley, behind a long line of tourist traffic. Similarly, on my morning commute, I slowed my car down to a painful 25 miles per hour to exit the highway, thinking, “if my car could just jump off the bridge, I wouldn’t be so bored, with all of this slowing down nonsense…” But I drove the clover
Read more“Where do you work?” This simple question has a way of turning into a serious discussion, when you work for a nonprofit organization. “I work for an organization that fights the sex trade in Cambodia,” the woman said to me. Just like that, the small talk was over, because how do you say something trite like, “How interesting!” when you realize that someone is taking their very best talents and applying it to helping…truly helping…helpless people? She told me American businessmen go to Cambodia to have sex with children. When the founder of her organization first went to Cambodia, a
Read moreI sprained my ankle in Memphis, which meant my life in Tennessee began with a large black boot on my left foot. As I hobbled around our house, trying to unpack, I lifted a box of bubble wrapped dinner plates from a box, and was suddenly struck by a searing pain in my lower back that felt like I was being stabbed by a knife. The horrible, guttural scream that erupted from my body brought my family running to my side, one grabbing the stack of plates from my hands, the others trying to move me to the couch. I
Read more“Your life is not your own.” The first time I heard that statement echoing in my head was in 2015. I had a new baby, two kids I was homeschooling, and I was helping my husband run our small business during the busiest season of its existence. As I tried to balance working with teaching and running my home, it seemed like my life never stopped. I felt like a circus performer, constantly turning to the next act, keeping the balls spinning, trying to keep everyone happy, and all of the details accounted for. I felt like I was failing
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Faith, Joy, More Posts, Work
Life started out with great, big dreams… When I was a teenager, I dreamt of being an anchor person for the Today Show. A small-town girl, I longed to live in New York City: a place full of nightlife, action and the endless possibility of being “discovered” and made instantly famous. That dream came to a halt my freshman year in college when I worked at my college TV station. I found myself surrounded by cranky, stressed-out people who agonized to produce a newscast every night at six, only to have to do it again, and again, and again…a never
Read moreI used to say I didn’t have a single entrepreneurial bone in my body. I was brought into business ownership when I married Rich…a guy with extreme independence, unique talent and big dreams. I fought incapacitating anxiety as we bade our small-but-consistent paychecks goodbye to launch our first business. I was 25 years old, starting a business with my (fairly) new husband, in a male-dominated industry, in a small California town where we essentially knew nobody. It was lonely, and scary, and I spent way too much time alone with my husband and three cats, creating websites for photographers using
Read moreIt’s inevitable. Despite the copious amounts of Airborne I have injested in the last five days, my body has succumbed to a cold. It’s a nagging, dragging sort of cold that leaves me wanting to do nothing other than sleep. Except I’m a mom…and everyone knows motherhood doesn’t stop, just because you’re sick! And I am sick. Still, work must be done, dinner needs to be made; the dishes need to be washed; and kids need to be read to, and kissed goodnight, when all I want to do is go to sleep. I’m partly writing this blog post to
Read moreIf you are an over-achiever who thrives on affirmation and acknowledgement of a job well done, then this article is for you. You probably were up late folding the last two loads of laundry; or working on a project (like a blog post); or planning out your next day’s meals… You may be a person who makes so many lists that you need a list to organize your lists. You are quick to take on new responsibilities, especially when you can see clearly how to make something better or easier. And you are probably very, very tired. You probably don’t
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