Life on the Runn...

 There are many service people in my family, all of whom I love dearly and I am grateful for. These individuals sacrificed their time, safety, and, sometimes, other ambitions in order to serve our country. I know the purpose of this weekend is to honor those service members who never were able to return to their lives and families, who made the ultimate sacrifice. I, however, found myself thinking of one particular serviceman as I was out for a run this holiday weekend, my uncle Paul, and I wanted to take some time to share just how much he means to me. Just the other day, I was asked why I teach, and I said that I love stories. Literature is perhaps the most readily accessible way to learn about ourselves and to explore the world.  As I thought more about it, I realized that my uncle, a true storyteller, likely had a hand in creating that spark in me. When my brother and I were very young, my uncle lived with us. Stories from him and about our time together (an unconventional yet p

Yesterday was the second installment of 'Reading Between the Wines,' the fantastically awesome West Book Club I am a part of. We read the second (but maybe not last?!) book in the Beartown series, Us Against You . As I mentioned in my previous Book Club post, I am hooked on Fredrik Backman; I am only a book or two short of being able to declare that I have read - and enjoyed - all of his published work. Much of our conversation centered on the various dichotomies that exist in Beartown and neighboring Hed: innocence and maturity beyond one's age, hope and despair, femininity and masculinity, truth and lies, plausibility and implausibility.  In short, Backman did it again - he gave us a true-to-life account.  We are all multifaceted.  We all have made choices we regret and have faced challenges we hope do not limit or fully define us.  Life can be messy and hard, but we keep going; we find our community, our team; we work for and because of them. Our time in Beartown,

“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.” — Gilda Radner So much has been said about motherhood, but I don’t know that the right words will ever be strung together to fully encompass the deeply profound feelings you experience each and every day as a parent.   It is unfathomable how very deeply connected you can feel to someone the instant you look at her, the way you stop living for yourself,  and understand   how beautiful and painful the thought, “I would do anything for you,” truly is . For the second year I got to celebrate all of this with a weekend in Door County. Sunshine, fresh air, and endless snuggles made for the most wonderful time.  It should be made perfectly clear that I do not enjoy the thought of any missed time with H, and though  it felt especially wrong due to the nature of the weekend, BR convinced me to take some ‘me’ time. I went for a run each morning (sans str

I cannot think of a more fitting tour title than Beautiful Trauma for many reasons. First, life is messy and difficult but so, so worth it. Secondly, the concert crew I enjoyed Pink with lived the title. Were it not for the fitness club I joined - where things got tense and ultimately toxic - I would never had found this crew, a group of women who embody strength, beauty, and kindness, a group of  women who watched me become and helped shape me into the momma I am today.  People asked us why we stuck it out so long in such an unpleasant environment, and the answer is because when you find a tribe as good as this one, you do anything you can to protect it!   J Bizzle  in the house! Another blessing in my life is the friendship he and I have!