If you’re just joining me, go back and read part 1 here and part 2 here. Relearn Where I am now is that I’ve boiled down my issue with my faith not to Jesus Himself, but to the greater issues within The Church. And the biggest problem I have is this: who are we to say… Continue reading On Faith, Part 3: The Relearning

If you missed Part 1- click here to read first! Unlearn Fast forward: After college, I married the cutest, sweetest boy on a Saturday afternoon in the exact red-carpeted, stained-glass church in which we had gotten to know each other. Our former youth pastor performed the ceremony and everyone thought we were a little crazy… Continue reading On Faith, Part 2: The Unlearning

The hard part about growing up is that the truths you’ve always held close begin to unravel a bit. I think this is why nostalgia is such a powerful feeling; we long for the days when things were simpler, when we didn’t have to worry about a mortgage or about how many grams of sugar… Continue reading On Faith, Part 1: The Learning

I’ve decided to switch up this blog a little bit, and write more reading-response-type essays where I share my thoughts about books I read that have a big impact on me. These will mostly be nonfiction books (I’ll still share the fiction I love, too!), and I’d love for you to share your thoughts with… Continue reading Heartland and Poverty in the United States

Last month, I read a great book on parenting called How to Be a Happier Parent: Raising a Family, Having a Life, and Loving (Almost) Every Minute by K.J. Dell’Antonia. I first heard her speak on my all-time fave podcast, Sorta Awesome, and I knew I wanted to read her book as soon as I… Continue reading Finding Contentedness and Shifting Perspective

If you ever want to feel super about your parenting skills, take your kids to the zoo on a Saturday. In January. On the only nice day of the entire month. At noon. Two years ago, I would have looked at this situation entirely differently than I did last weekend. See, when we had one… Continue reading Solidarity is Greater Than Comparison

I think I said this first bit last year, but it’s worth repeating: I met him on a stinky church van. It was stinky in the literal sense; some guy had eaten Long John Silvers for lunch and didn’t finish, so there was actual, maybe not real, seafood sitting under the seat quickly approaching its… Continue reading On Marriage: 11 Things I Know to be True After 11 Years

Every single time I go to wake up the baby (who, let’s be real, isn’t really a baby anymore), he looks up at me and says, “Mom? Dad? Sissy? Coco (the dog)?” It’s like he’s taking some kind of toddler inventory of the house. He wants to know who’s here and that everyone’s in their… Continue reading What I Learned in 2018

2018 was a great reading year for me. A lot of factors played into this: we finally sleep trained the baby and he takes 2-3 hour naps every day, my daughter is in full-time school and LOVING it, and I really cut back on TV (I kind of don't miss it that much, who knew?) I finished… Continue reading The Best Books I Read in 2018

The music plays, the kids circle. I groan, mostly because these are five year-olds and I just know someone’s going to cry. Now, though, most are laughing, some are eyeing the chairs nervously, hoping to get one when the music stops. My daughter skips and flips her blonde ponytail and smiles at the girl behind… Continue reading Yeah, I Felt Like That, Too