My husband and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary this June, and we’ve decided to try once again to get away together. (We last tried for our 15th anniversary, but my morning sickness with our youngest kept us home.) In twenty years of marriage, we’ve never gone away together. We had no honeymoon, and haven’t even slipped away for a night just the two of us. There were always tiny babies to bring along, or family obligations that we can’t... Read more

I woke up this morning ready for a nap. By 10:00 I was dragging. At sometime around noon I could hardly keep my eyes open. At 2:00 I finally gave into the siren song of plush blankets and fluffy pillows, dozing off for nearly two hours, only to wake up ready for another nap. When I’m not asleep, my body thinks that I need to be. Normal thyroid but low Vitamin D (since corrected after 8 weeks of high dose... Read more

Many of you have asked me for an update on the lawsuits involving a local homeschooling family and their neighbors. (To catch up with the long version of what’s going on, read here.) Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of what’s going on: The Counts Family built a playhouse in their back yard which was approved by the city’s code enforcement and the HOA board. Their neighbors (The Wards) complained about having to hear the noise of the children playing on... Read more

My childhood BFF and her kids came to visit me this week for Spring Break. She’s an engineer married to someone with an engineering/inventor brain, which means there’s always a part of me that wants to see what new parenting hacks they’ve invented. This time it’s one I’m totally stealing, and you might want to too. They have three small children (so far) ages 1, 3, and 5. Kim drives a minivan with the two youngest in the captain’s chairs,... Read more

I gave up all grains, processed sugars, and meat for Lent. I’m Southern, so that basically means that I gave up food. (Y’all have seen the Pioneer Woman cook. Can I get a “Bless your heart” from the Southern girls who are feeling my pain?) I have an unhealthy relationship with eating. Anything sweet, baked, fried, or savory calls out to me. I eat when I’m hungry. I eat when I’m not hungry. I dream about food while I’m in Mass. I’m... Read more

There’s a friend I was once close enough to that I considered her my sister. We are the godparents of each other’s children, and lived in and out of each other’s houses. We walked together through some of the darkest moments of our lives, but that was years ago. She moved one way. We moved somewhere else. We slowly lost touch with each other. We just drifted apart. There was one last friendly phone call with promises to talk again,... Read more

I have a half dozen posts that I have started and stopped over the last few days. My heart isn’t in any of them. It’s in Oklahoma City with our friends who work for Devon Energy. Devon, like a lot of oil companies including the one my husband works for, are hurting with continuous fall of the price of a barrel of oil. Devon, like most other oil companies, is laying people off in massive numbers. Devon just happens to be... Read more

I was having a discussion with my eldest son this evening about God, faith, and the Church. He’s searching for Truth and asking all of the difficult questions that come with being sixteen. The questions are painful as he weighs what he believes, and the kind of man that he hopes to become. We came eventually to my own faith journey, he asked if I had ever questioned my Catholic faith, and was surprised to learn that I had been... Read more