Blog
Writing. Real. Encouragement.
There is No Such Thing As Balance… But There is a Whole Lot of Grace.
There is a myth that many - if not most - of us have bought into, hook, line and sinker. We spend money on courses and ebooks, spend time listening to podcasts and video recordings, and spend energy frantically searching for proof that this myth can in fact be true in...
Mother’s Day for the ‘Other Mothers’
There are parents without carseats, diapers or pacifiers. Mothers who do not have bedtime rituals or middle of the night feedings. Mothers without hand-stamped necklaces or birthstone rings. Parents who no longer have children. These are the other mothers – the ones...
From the Archives: ‘On Lessons from Twelve Weeks with Three’
I wrote this post for (in)courage twelve weeks after the birth of my youngest, which put me at mothering three kids under age 5 (they were 4, 16 months, and brand new.) That was over a year ago now and they're clocking in at 5, 2 and solidly 1, but many of these...
State of Days & Heart
You know, like a State of the Union address? Consider this my State of Days and Heart. 🙂 It's been five weeks since the last words were spoken in this space. In that time, our family has: Celebrated my Sam's fifth birthday with a Green Eggs and Ham gathering of...
Christmas Will Come
The boxes are piled shoulder-high throughout the basement, full of every single earthly possession we have. In the next three weeks there will be four preschool/church Christmas programs, my son will turn 5, a writing deadline will pass, Christmas Day will come and...
The Only Way to Stay Above Water
It's here. The first day of December. It hasn't started to snow here in Minnesota yet, but I'm holding out hope for a white Christmas just the same and I made it snow on my blog. So there, weather. Today is a BIG day. It's the first of December. I'm over at...
Major House Update!! {+ Other Fun Stuff}
We did it. Seventeen months after initially listing our house, we moved into a new one of our very own. It has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, two fireplaces and two living areas, a formal dining room and a three-season porch, and five very happy people living...
On a Blanket with what Really, Really Matters
Last week our youngest child turned one. Her first year has been one of transition, change and interruption. It's been late nights and early mornings, dust and dishes, moving boxes and figuring out a new normal. Which kind of never came, besides regular crazy turning...
Introducing… my First Hold-in-Your-Hands Book!
Two years ago I wrote a book. I wrote A Moment of Christmas for the weary woman being crushed under the weight of Pinterest-pressure. The woman so exhausted she hasn’t read anything for herself in months or more. The woman desperate for connection with her own soul,...
What We Can Do When Evil is Easier to See
Twenty-seven years later, Jacob Wetterling has been found. The horrific details have been dredged out and pushed into the light, and collectively we begin again the grieving process of a boy most of us never met, but whom all of us mourned. He changed our Minnesotan...
When Making Oatmeal is a Stream in Your Desert
Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty...
One for the Books
It's been a month for the books, friends. My calendar said July was going to roar in with a great 'whooooosh' and swoop out just as quickly, but bobbing along in its tide has still been a surprise. We spent our annual weekend at family camp and as usual, it was...