Portrait Artist Of The Year

We watch too much TV, most of it selected by me, on subscription services my parents would not understand: HULU, Netflix, Prime Video, Peacock. Even those with names they’d recognize would be unrecognizable to them: HBO Max, Disney. We watch on a TV screen so big my dad would definitely be worried about how much […]

The Grief Diaries: Great, it’s the holidays

We survived the holidays. Although, survived is not a word I particularly like. I watched a reel on Instagram this morning of a woman talking about the loss of her son, and how so many people say to her they don’t think they could survive the loss of a child. She said she used to […]

The Grief Diaries: Fall

Andrew liked fall. I don’t have official confirmation, but based on the things he loved, I think I could make the case. As those things, football, the state fair, Halloween, come to life this year, we are reminded both of what he loved and what we’ve lost. Last spring, as the buds began to appear, […]

Howling Cow

I learned about farms much the way most kids do, in the pages of a picture book. My grandparents were Nebraska farmers and my dad grew up on the farm, but I was raised on the streetlight-lined streets of suburban Oklahoma. Sure, we like a good Farmer’s Market and enjoy a nice Farm to Table […]

The Grief Diaries: Part One

Last week, my sister Emilie and I spent a long time wandering the LEGO store at the mall near my home. The store is new, much closer than the one in Raleigh. We were greeted by a store worker who accepted our polite dismissal of assistance without a drop in his smile. An avid LEGO […]

An Annual Lifelong Commitment

We’d been married about two months when I looked in the newspaper for Free-to-Good-Home cats and found Butler, a grey and white tuxedo boy about nine months old, and the best friend a young, often-to-be-alone, far-from-home gal could have hoped for. I needed a pet. I’d always had one. The year we lived in Australia, […]

The Usual Suspects

I’ve reached a complicated age regarding my ability to see. I started wearing glasses in my sophomore year of high school and eventually moved primarily to contact lenses in my mid-20s. As I entered my 40s, I realized that I was having a harder time with reading up close. As a teenager, I remember being […]

I Love a Parade

My alma mater, Moore High School, organized a homecoming parade every fall. Much like any other high school parade you might encounter it included: the homecoming court in convertibles, the band, school clubs, athletic teams, and livestock. Yes, livestock. I was in the parade as part of the gymnastics team. We wore our leotards, oh […]

Windows & Mirrors

The Saturday before my birthday, I took a road trip to Greensboro with my sister, Emilie, who was in town for the weekend. Elisabeth and Rachel jumped in the car with us, and we headed for the Greensboro Science Center, a cool hybrid zoo, aquarium, and museum that is the perfect destination for this challenge: […]

Of Magnets and Memories

I’ve never been much of a collector; it’s hard when you move a lot. As a kid, I didn’t have any obsessive interest or a particular preoccupation that might have been the impetus for a collection.I didn’t encourage my kids to be collectors either. As an adult, I do have enough notebooks and coffee mugs, […]