For the last five years or so, I’ve completely failed at vacationing. I get grumpy and annoyed. I have stress dreams. I feel guilty about being grumpy and annoyed and having stress dreams when I’m supposed to be enjoying myself and my family. It’s a problem. My husband notes that he spends most of the year stressed and then worries about NOTHING during vacation. I spend most of the year relatively unstressed, and then act like a fiend the whole... Read more
19 years ago today, Scott and I promised one another to love, honor, and cherish until death do us part. 10 years ago today, Scott took me to dinner and proposed that we renew our vows on our 10th anniversary. In the meantime, we’d go back into marriage counseling (for the 5th time) and do everything we could to work on our marriage so that we’d actually want to renew our vows. To put it mildly, our first ten years... Read more
Today I’m incredibly sleep deprived because I’ve spent about 70 hours over the past 5 days making photo albums. Why? Because 2 years ago I bought 5 Photobook America Groupons that expired yesterday. Yes, I bought those Groupons TWO years ago. Sigh. Two years ago yesterday, 5 days before I left for China, Groupon published a deal with Photobook America. For $25, I could get $115 worth of Photobooks. Great deal, right? I knew I’d want an album of our historic... Read more
I have a new recurring nightmare. I’m supposed to teach some large gathering and I’ve neglected to prepare. . . anything. No talks, no snacks, no colleagues who can pinch-hit for me. So I wing it—through sheer force of personality, I offer scintillating thoughts—and know I’m completely failing. Maybe I’m finally growing up–until a couple weeks ago, my recurring nightmare was always academic—that I forgot to attend either a history or math class until the week before finals. Both recurring... Read more
This is the second of a series of reflections I’m writing based on Ann Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic Monthly story Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. Read The Problem with Having It All Back in my 20s, because I had 3 diversity points (female, Asian, young), I was invited to sit on a couple national Christian ministry advisory boards. Affirmative action brought me to the table—I was severely under-qualified compared to fellow board members—but I was glad to be there. After... Read more
This is the first of a series of reflections I’m writing based on Ann Marie Slaughter’s Atlantic Monthly story Why Women Still Can’t Have It All When I was a kid, I read a Parade magazine interview with either Barbara Walters or Margaret Thatcher—can’t remember which one just that she was an older White woman with big hair—who said something like, “You can either have a great marriage and a great relationship with your kids, or a great marriage and a... Read more
“How do you like your grilled cheese? Crispy? Gooey?” It is culinarily pitiful that I had to ask my husband of fourteen years this question tonight. It’s literarily pitiful that the quoted question is now in a blog post. It’s just plain frightening that I make up words. Just work with me here, people. So you’re stuck on the why-were-we-having-fancy-grilled-cheese-for-supper part? It’s complicated. Don’t judge me. Well, you can if you need to. Tell me it’s not a beautiful thing... Read more
OK. I only have an N of 5. But we just finished our 2nd round of college tours, this time in Philadelphia with friends. Our crowd included my 2 girls, a rising junior and freshman, my friend Mona, and her 2 daughters, a rising sophomore and freshman who are also my girls’ oldest friends. We visited University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore and Villanova. After visiting Northwestern and University of Chicago last trip sans friends—let me tell you it’s a lot more... Read more
I’m a hypocrite. As a Biblical feminist who writes, speaks and teaches about women’s equal call to follow Jesus and build the Kingdom of God, I must confess my practical theology breaks down in certain arenas. Like dead things. All my life I’ve had a pathological fear of dead things, probably stemming from my pathological fear of death developed while very young. Unfortunately for me, animals love to drown in our swimming pool. Mice, birds, toads, and even a squirrel,... Read more
“I’m bored,” said my 12 year old son. About 200 times. My kids have been out of school for 2 whole days, and ennui has already swept my family. The last day of school came with a big hurrah—my oldest daughter hosted a pool party with 23 high school friends and then we celebrated my middle daughter’s 8th grade graduation. Then she and her father flew to DC for his board meetings and their tagged on father/daughter 14th birthday getaway,... Read more
What She Said
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