new year


  • An intentional 2021

    An intentional 2021

    This past year was a wild one, everyone knows that. It wasn’t exactly the worst or hardest year I’ve ever experienced – our family has been through much tougher stuff. However this was unique in that it was a difficult, strange, and overwhelming year for EVERYONE to different degrees. The collective anxiety and tension over…


  • Music, painting, and alcohol

    Music, painting, and alcohol

    The last couple months of 2019 were both joyful and frantic. I had a surprising volume of pet portrait painting orders for Christmas which was all a new business to me, so I just buckled down and spent my evenings and weekends cranking them out in time for the holidays. It was exciting and scary…


  • 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…


  • 2010 Recap

    1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Family vacation with Skyler, including, riding in a Bentley. Ran my best pace in a race. Negotiated down the price of a car, all by myself! 2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Halfway.…


  • Accountability 2010

    Like everyone else, it’s always part of my New Year Resolution to “get back in shape” or “lose weight” or “exercise more.” The problem with these resolutions is they don’t follow good goal-setting rules. They are kind of measurable, but not really. I mean, “get back in shape” – what shape? The shape that fits…


  • 2009 Recap

    It’s that time of year again, so I’ll review 2009 with the following quiz that I posted last year… 1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Ronnie and I raised money and rode the motorcycle together in Bikers for Babies. It was awesome and probably one of my most memorable…