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The Water Was Always Enough (and Apparently, So Are Elves)
When I was little, we didn’t have a pool. Honestly, we barely had running water half the time. And even though water cost money we didn’t always have, my mom would let us “swim” in the bathtub on hot days. A whole ocean packed into a porcelain tub. We thought we were living large. It’s…
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The Mom Mask
Every day starts in silence. I tiptoe into the kitchen like I’m sneaking into a sacred temple, grab my coveted cup of hot coffee, and dump in my fiber and collagen—because at my age, if it doesn’t have a health supplement in it, did I even drink it? Then I “accidentally on purpose” add too…
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THIS YEAR, THANKFULNESS HIT DIFFERENT
Thanksgiving didn’t hit me like a Hallmark moment this year. It snuck up slowly…ike crumbs under a couch cushion or the way little kids show up beside your bed at 5 a.m. whispering “Mom? Mom? Mom?” until you finally open one eye. It started at the cabin. One by one, my people spilled into the…
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The Christmas Joy Heist
There is a very specific kind of magic that lives inside a three-year-old at Christmastime. It’s loud. It’s sparkly. It squeals at random intervals. And in my home, it’s named Harper. This child wakes up every morning in December ready to steal Christmas joy like it’s her full-time job. She pops out of bed squeaking, “IS…
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When Mom Almost Didn’t Make It
No, this isn’t a potty-training story…though it sure started like one. I was deep in task mode, ignoring every signal from my body like a true multitasking pro, when it hit me: run or regret it. So there I was, sprinting through the house like an Olympic hopeful, singing, “Don’t have an accident, don’t have an…
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The Night the Sleigh Stole My Daughter
Some mornings I wake up feeling like I’ve been robbed. Not by burglars… not by raccoons… By Christmas elves. I went to bed exhausted, the normal kind of mid November exhausted where you swear you’re going to “slow down and enjoy the season,” and then immediately start scrubbing dried hot chocolate off the cabinet because…
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Thursday Truth: Liquid Bandage for Life
It started innocent enough…just me and Hailey in the kitchen, making banana pudding the right way. You know, the old-fashioned way, with real pudding, layers of vanilla wafers, and a ceramic dish that’s survived more holidays than my patience. Well, almost survived. Because somewhere between teaching her how to layer the pudding just right and reaching for…
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The Review That Made It Real
When I hit publish on Tyler Never Cried, I thought I’d already lived every emotion that book could drag out of me. Grief, pride, exhaustion, relief, they all had their turn. But nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to seeing that first review. It was just a few sentences. But in them, I saw twenty years of my life…
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The One-Armed, Toothbrushless, Potty-Training Kinda Day
You ever have one of those days that starts with so much promise you could almost hear the inspirational soundtrack behind it? The coffee is hot. The house is quiet. You wake up early, tackle the to-do list, even make pancakes with fruit and sprinkles like some Pinterest-level version of yourself. And then somehow, it…
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The Day That Sucked (And Why We Danced Anyway)
Some days, coffee and Twizzlers aren’t strong enough to fix it. Last night bled into this morning with Harper waking at 3 a.m. from a nightmare about a spider on her head. I was still hunched over my laptop, uploading a book to Ingram, running on fumes. By the time Harper went back to sleep,…
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Crumbs and Chaos 