Category: motherhood

  • love note no.9: dear fourth born.

    Dear fourth born, It was your ninth birthday on Saturday. Each year on your birthday, you always want to move.  You are a Leo summer baby. This birthday was a little rough because we had just moved out.  Your first birthday post-moving. We were camping so we all did what you wanted to do.  We…

  • a birthday + a 100 day project.

    Today is my 38th birthday and I am ready to blog again.  There I said it.  I put it out there to all of you.  Now I am accountable.  Now I am about to get my creative ON. And I am ready because of two miracles that happened today which I will get to later…

  • waxing nostalgic…friend or foe?

    We bought snap peas at the farmer’s market this morning.  My youngest daughter calls out to me and says, “Mama, I found 7 peas in a pod! It’s our family!” She urges me to take a pic and I smile trying to hold back the tears. From my last post, you must have gathered it’s…

  • how my dreams came true.

    Do you know what that moment feels like when you realize that all your dreams have come true? I had this moment this morning when I went downstairs and saw this: An empty house and my daughter studying for her first university exam. (In fact, she is writing it now as I write this post.) Before…

  • a lesson in permission.

    My sweet child turned 18 a few weeks ago.  EIGHTEEN. Whoa. This post is about what she has taught me about boundaries and permission.  (I know that every child is different but I want to share what I have learned about parenting this teen.) Back in December, my oldest daughter came home from her art gallery…

  • the art of the unsettled life.

    I don’t like that word – unsettled.  But that’s all I have felt this month which is why I haven’t written here in awhile.  I have about a dozen drafts of stories about my trip but my mind keeps jumping too far ahead into the future to really be here to reflect on our awesome…

  • a lesson in life support.

    My husband went on a 10-day surfing trip to the pacific coast of Costa Rica.  We stayed behind in the Caribe Sur.  He had never been away from us for more than a week. The 10 days without him felt like I was on my retreat again. I know you may be wondering what that…

  • full moon |full circle

    Part two of “thoughts on my retreat experience” will be coming up later this week.  For reasons I will explain later, I am participating in an exercise where I can’t talk about the past for the next three days.  This is a difficult exercise and I am sure I am going to reference the past…

  • a countdown to 2016. part five.

    We are getting ready to leave in less than a month. In less than a month, we will be leaving our home for two months.  This will be the longest amount of time that we will be away from this house.  When we spoke with the house sitter today about our plans and our expectations, he…

  • a countdown to 2016. part four.

    This is probably one of the most important lessons that I try to keep in the forefront of my mind when things happen outside my control. And as a mother of five, a lot of things happen outside of my control. A couple of days ago, one child hurt another child’s feelings by vandalizing an…