Here's a pertinent question for the holiday season: do you prefer to shop at locally-owned stores rather than big box stores or online? If so, are you willing to pay a higher price to do so? We lucked out in that our new town, Corvallis, has a great downtown and is plush with locally-owned stores....
Thinking
Making Hard Parenting Choices (i.e. Preparing for Another Big Change)
Although we're finally settling into a new rhythm and set of routines, we're preparing for some significant changes come January. Because we haven't had enough life-shattering change in the last few months...
Naming What's Hard: Melancholy, Regret, and Tears at Target
I cried at Target yesterday. I was standing just a few feet from the customer service lane, where a helpful employee was working on my situation. It had been a successful resupply run, and my cart was full of enough diapers, wipes, toilet paper, and coffee filters to last a couple months: I wouldn't have...
What Have You Been Thinking About Lately?
I don't need to mention how long it's been since I posted or how badly I feel about that—I'm sure those things are obvious. I've had lots of ideas for posts and zero time to write them out: we were in England for a week, visiting family; two days after we returned, we hosted family...
On Being a Little Less Overwhelmed
My last post was a confessional about how overwhelmed I've been feeling, in light of a new baby and an imminent international move (and, um, writing—or not writing—this blog). Since publishing that post, we've made some pretty big steps: shown our apartment to a couple possible tenants, signed a lease on a rental in Corvallis,...
Do You Write in Books?
I love a brand new book. I love the unbroken spine, the sharp corners, the fresh smell. I love knowing that I'm the first person to open the book and turn each page. I remember in high school, when our English teacher would hand out the next reading assignment, I'd always hope to get the best copy. I'd...
Let's Talk About the Moon
For some reason, I've got it stuck in my head that I'm going to teach my kids, from the very beginning, about the stages of the moon. I think it would be so cool to hear a tiny human voice say, "Look mama! A waning crescent moon!" With that in mind, any time we see the...
Four Fun Words
I love words. In high school, my English class was roundly chastised by our teacher for not being intellectually curious enough to look up words we didn't know (while reading Crime and Punishment—I sort of felt getting through that tome was task enough without having to stop every page or two to look up new words!). Since that day,...
Celebrating the Winter Solstice
Today is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. This morning the sun rose at 8:43am, and it will set this afternoon at 2:46pm. We won't see any of that, though, because the sun's entire path across the sky is obscured by clouds. Today feels dark and closed-in, and I've felt an overwhelming tiredness that...
Do You Use the Oxford Comma?
I love grammar. In elementary school, I loved having English homework and doing all the exercises, paying attention to exactly where apostrophes and commas go and how, exactly, to use a semi-colon. (And I use too many of them, according to my search engine optimization plugin.) Which means, of course, that I love the Oxford comma.