Mother’s Day is coming up. It isn’t my favorite holiday. Many people, for a variety of reasons, have complicated feelings about Mother’s Day. Mine stems mainly from the unfortunate fact that my mom died before I became a mom. Navigating motherhood without her, especially at first, was rough. I first wrote about my experience of mothering without a mother in 2015. As I reread this post recently, I thought it would be a good time to share it again in the hopes that it might help someone else feel less alone if they share a similar experience. Here it is… When I was pregnant with my first child, I sat…

Do you ever look at your spouse or partner and think about how lucky you are? Especially now that I’m older and wiser, I know how young and dumb we were when we got married and how easily things could have turned out differently. I was recently reminded, again, how lucky and grateful I am to be sharing this one beautiful life I have with Handy Husband. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, we are at the age where routine colonoscopies are a thing now. Yay? Yay. I had my first one last week. After living with me for almost 25 years, Handy Husband knows all…

Handy Husband and I celebrate 24 years of marriage this week. 24! Time flies when you wake up every day and choose to do life together. That’s what we’ve done. Made that choice every day. Even when it was hard. Especially when it was hard. And I hope there remain many decades for us to choose to do life together. I ran across the most beautiful poem about love recently called Mouthful of Forevers. The first part of the poem doesn’t exactly apply to our love story, as we got married so darn young, but the rest of it tore through my heart in the best way with its poignancy. I’m…

Every school day morning I go outside to wait with each of my kids for their respective school buses to pick them up. They don’t NEED me to wait with them. They are quite old enough to wait outside on their own, but they seem to WANT me to wait with them. So I do. Even when it is below freezing outside. Or raining. Or I’m still in my pajamas. One kid barely talks at all while we wait for the bus. The other kid wants to discuss all the things. Both kids leave for school each morning hearing that they are loved and I’m rooting for them. One of…

Please join me in wishing a very happy birthday to Handy Husband. Today is not his actual birthday, but April is his birth month. What a great month to be born in with all the promise spring holds. I thought it would be easy to write a quick little birthday tribute, but when I sat down to type I didn’t know what to say. The feelings were just too big. Finally, I decided I’d share a story that encapsulates how grateful I am to have the absolute privilege of growing older with him. Recently, on a random Tuesday, Handy Husband woke up, went downstairs, made coffee, and then brought me…

Every once in a while I have something I’d love to share with you, but it doesn’t warrant a full blog post or even fit in with my usual blog post topics. So, I’m rounding them up today and sharing 5 Things I’m Enjoying Now! Let’s do this! Things I’m Enjoying Now: Second Chances at Childhood Rituals Tip of the hat to Harry Potter! Thanks to those books, I’ve been given a second chance at reading to one of my kids at night. My kids both grew out of bedtime stories when they reached middle school age. It’s natural and to be expected, but it still made me a little…

On this Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d share the silly thing Handy Husband and I do that I love so much. Often, Handy Husband and I will both exercise during the lunch hour, but not together. He runs. I walk. We run/walk the same loop on our country road but in opposite directions. We usually pass each other in roughly the same spot. When I see him coming toward me, I automatically get this huge grin on my face. I can’t help it. I’m just excited about what comes next. As soon as he’s approximately 20 or 30-feet away from me, I fling out my arms wide and begin one…

According to my research of several popular wedding sites, air is the 23rd wedding anniversary gift theme. Air. Yes, air. You know where my mind went, right? If you do, then you know I’ve been receiving that “gift” every day for more than two decades. That’s more than enough! I might be married for almost 23 years, but sometimes I have the sense of humor of a 10-year-old boy. So does Handy Husband. That might be why we are a good match. It took a while, but after I was done laughing to myself about this gift theme I moved on to the phase of wondering why? Why did the powers-that-be…