I grew up in my Southern home on pound cake, cheesecake, layer cakes with frosting, chocolate chip cookies and two kinds of pie: pecan and key lime. We didn’t do fruit pie in our house.* But when I met my husband, and more specifically, ate my first holiday meal with his mom, dad, sister, and … Continue reading No shame in pie
“Hey buddy, remember when you said it would be cool if I became an author?” I glanced at our nine year old son in the rear view mirror. “Yeah,” he said. “What do you think I should write about?” I wondered if he held fiction at the top of the writerly hierarchy and only thought … Continue reading The right to be forgotten (part 1 of 2)
When I sit at my tan desk, in our beige room, with dull buff carpet beneath my chair, I often have a hard time coming up with color words. I google “synonyms for green,” rifle through crayon boxes, and scroll through images of paint chips and artists’ color names, but I am not usually inspired … Continue reading Fistful of words
After a late summer dinner I rested my arms on the table and looked at our 9 year old son. It was 9 pm, he still wore last night’s pajamas, and I realized he hadn’t showered in two or three days. I sighed. My husband and I were tired and wanted the kids in bed … Continue reading Because our son thinks it would be cool
Today, before practice, our 7 year old daughter stood before me on our carpeted floor, one foot fidgeting on the other and her hands clasped in front of her. She looked embarrassed, or worried. I waited. “We have to do butterfly in the meet,” she said. She started swimming yesterday with the Blacksburg Orcas, our … Continue reading Eye on the prize
One morning, when the kids were 5 and 7, and I was standing at the chopping block cutting crusts off sandwiches, I heard our son say to his little sister, “Do you know the ‘D’ word?” He and our daughter slurped cereal at the kitchen table a few feet behind me. I paused imperceptibly, remained … Continue reading Do you know the “F” word?
Butterfly Mind 