life

  • Humanity

    It was sunny and a humid 93 degrees as I was driving along Bannister Road and moving slowly through thick traffic. Stopped at a light, I observed the backyard of a townhouse where a middle-aged man was on his knees in the grass with a not-yet-inflates swimming pool spread before him. He was fiddling with…

  • Poetry is for anxious writers

    Writing is therapeutic for me, but like anything in my life, it’s easy to overthink. When my anxiety is high I get overwhelmed by the idea of writing a blog post. I don’t have the energy to compose and clarify, edit and smooth. So I just don’t do it. Which leads to stifling and bottling…

  • The power of hand soap

    A few weeks ago I got a company-wide email inviting me to volunteer across the street at Children’s Mercy for a Mother’s Day card signing campaign for “Mercy Moms” – whose children are patients at the hospital. I immediately blocked my calendar hoping I could make it. When I got to the office today and…

  • The price we pay for love

    It’s been over a week since we said goodbye to our puppies in an unexpectedly tragic situation. Our home feels empty and eerily quiet and calm. We have never not had at least one dog in our 13 years as a family, and Ronnie and I both had dogs growing up and for the majority…

  • 2017- another chapter

    I’m writing this as I listen through the baby monitor to Skyler singing “Wheels on the Bus” to Layla as she attempts to rock her to sleep for her last afternoon nap of 2017. Their sweet interactions don’t happen often enough, but when they do I am warmed with joy and visions of them as…

  • In the eye of the hurricane

  • Leftovers

    I just finally stopped sweating from a sunset jog/walk around the lake, and now I can’t sleep. This is the problem with working out at night, is it generally gives me a second wind, but maybe I should embrace this so I can also do things like write on this blog or clean up the…

  • Grip Strength

    The days here at the hospital seem to follow a pretty consistent up and down roller coaster pattern, and today has been one of those days. It started out great, with an update from Layla’s nurse that she had made good progress eating from the bottle overnight with minimal puking. Poor girl is trying to learn to…

  • Calm Before the Storm

    May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. –Nelson Mandela My countdown app says “4” days till Layla. And unless she makes an early appearance on her own, we are on the books at Children’s Mercy to get labor started this Monday morning, November 2nd. I spent my last day of work in the…

  • Off Kilter

    Our week did not get off to the start I expected. On Saturday, Skyler broke her glasses. I think those lasted a whole month. I also think they are fixable. Looks like the tiny screw fell out so if we can take them back and get a new screw, they’ll be back in business. How…