My five kids sometimes do the grocery shopping with me. We often use two carts, the oldest boy pushing one and me pushing the other. The second oldest boy checks off items on our list. The youngest two boys trail along, and my baby girl is in my cart. Without fail, another shopper will say,…
Raising kids is relentless work. There’s joy, too—lots of it—but when the sink is piled high with dishes, the infant is teething, the grade schooler keeps singing the same five bars of “Home on the Range,” you’re fighting a stomach bug, and the whole household is running late again, joyful feelings can seem tauntingly elusive….
Some people always see the best in people and situations. Others see only the worst. I label myself a positive realist—I don’t see people and situations as good to the point where I ignore what’s bad, but I try to see the positive. The Void of Loss I was running errands with my family the…
Life throws you curveballs sometimes, and they mess up your plans. Way to start with the obvious, huh? When you get one of these surprises while you’re young and without a husband or children counting on you, you have to worry only about you. When you’re married, you have a partner to share challenges. But…
One of the first big purchases my husband and I made together was an Ikea kitchen table. Its compact square shape fit perfectly in the small eating space of our apartment, and the ambiguous black/brown color meant it would go with everything else we had. Since it could expand to seat six people, I made…
Okay, I’ll admit it: housekeeping is not really my thing. Don’t get me wrong. I like a clean house as much as the next person, but as an author I much prefer to spend time in imaginary worlds rather than the (sometimes) dusty real one. And I’m okay with that. What’s more, so is my…