• Family - RemoteDance - Throwback - Travel

    10 Years Ago

    January 23, 2026 - By 

    The current social media trend is to share flashback photos from 2016. Looking through my photo albums from ten years ago, it’s kind of crazy to see what a wild ride it’s been. My blog was on hiatus – in fact, I wouldn’t re-start it until our official move away from Arizona in 2017. Since I don’t have a lot of entries documenting those years, I thought it would be fun to re-visit them in a series of posts. For this introduction, I will remind you all of the Great European Family Adventure, which took place in 2016. It can…

  • Family - Parenting - Throwback

    Create Your Cozy

    December 10, 2025 - By 

    The “old people’s social media site” recently shared with me a photo from 10 years ago. This Christmas setup was 4 houses ago, in Arizona. What a trip (literally, and figuratively) to think how many fireplaces we’ve hung stockings from. How many trees we’ve decorated and situated in how many different floor plans, and how many holidays filled with joy that we’ve been blessed with. After that house there was the farmhouse in Iowa (the fireplace is just outside the frame): And then there was the Kansas City house: And now, Wisconsin. Which, arguably, is the coziest and most perfectly…

  • Family - Marriage - Parenting

    Never Say Never

    April 8, 2025 - By 

    Sometimes the most surprising blessings come from unexpected places. When we moved to Iowa, we thought we were finding our forever home. When we moved to Kansas City, we hoped, yet again, we were finding our forever home. And here we are, for the umpteenth millionth time in our lives, moving again. The decision to make a move is never straightforward. It is always bittersweet. There are tears and heartache but also hope and anticipation. It is a time of so many emotions, so many things to coordinate, and so much physical and mental energy. But, if I could be…

  • Family - Parenting

    Soft Kitty

    September 16, 2024 - By 

    Almost every night, I sing my children a bedtime song. But there is more to this story. The first thing you should know: I’m an awful singer. I can’t carry a tune no matter how hard I try. For this reason, I rarely sing for anyone other than myself. The second thing you should know: because of the first thing, I don’t generally enjoy singing “for an audience” for an extended period of time. I’m too self-conscious to have fun with it. BUT. Then I had my first baby and he needed a bedtime song. I put a lot of…

  • Family - Marriage - Parenting

    Our Story

    March 14, 2024 - By 

    We met at work in 2006. After I agreed to go on a first date with you to another state where I would meet your entire family and stay at your mom’s house and run around the farm in a dress and heels on our way to said date so you could help your dad smoke a badger out of the barn (also my first time meeting your dad) (WHEW) I guess something must have gone right because here we are. We’ve lived in small houses, in bigger houses, with roommates, without them, in apartments, and – for a time…

  • Family

    Refrigerator. Cat.

    November 23, 2023 - By 

    We are spending this Thanksgiving with family in Iowa, at our new house on the lake. We drove up Tuesday afternoon, once the kids were released from school, and it was cold, dark, and late when we pulled in. We unloaded our stuff and went straight to bed. Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early (also, I may have forgotten to turn off my weekday alarm) and set about getting our grocery shopping and other miscellaneous pre-Thanksgiving errands done. I returned from a mid-afternoon supply run to find the household in a panic. The basement refrigerator had suddenly stopped…

  • Family - Throwback

    Same Beach, 20 years later

    October 16, 2023 - By 

    Sometimes life is WILD. From 2001-2003 I lived in Davis, California, attending the university there. My close friend, roommate, and co-worker was a gal we’ll call Jennifer. We graduated, she moved to Portland, Oregon, and I moved down to Los Angeles. Eventually, I got a career that wasn’t waiting tables and I moved to Washington state. In 2004, Jennifer was getting married. We’d kept in touch and I was honored to be in her wedding, which would take place on the Oregon Coast at her fiancée’s uncle’s house. So I packed my bag, printed out my MapQuest directions to the…

  • Family - Parenting

    A Visit to the Library with Small Children

    September 26, 2023 - By 

    One of the reasons I choose to record moments of my daily life is because they can so quickly be lost to the annals of time. Even if you remember the overall gist of what happened, it’s the small details you forget. And the best stories happen in the details. Our memories may be faulty but the things we write down will never be forgotten. This particular library visit is one that happened almost seven years ago, when my oldest was a toddler and my youngest was just over a year old. I stumbled upon it tonight, and -well –…

  • Family - Parenting

    The Importance of Being Bored

    June 19, 2023 - By 

    “I’m bored. What can I do? I’m soooooooo booorrrrrreeeed.” I have distinct memories of whining this very sentence to my parents for many years of my childhood. The response was usually along the lines of “go play outside” or “go read a book” or “go ride a bike” or, the ‘ole standby classic “YOU figure out something to do.” However, something is different when my children whine this at me these days, and the reason is: technology. Because of the options that are available to them versus the options available to me 30 years ago. With technology, there exists a…

  • Family

    When it Rains (and rains and rains)

    April 21, 2023 - By 

    The theme of this April has been rain. Akin to that old saying, “when it rains, it pours.” And also, that other one about April Showers so whomever is out there I’M WAITING FOR THE MAY FLOWERS ANY DAY NOW. It has been pouring rain in my life both figuratively and literally for the last week. This past Sunday, while on a rainy Florida Vacation, my husband and I watched the much acclaimed movie “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” A movie summary on Wikipedia describes it as such: Evelyn Quan Wang is a middle-aged Chinese American immigrant who runs a laundromat with…