The Wink

Sticks and Stones

I can barely manage the questioning looks the girls give me sometimes, so I cannot even begin to fathom what it would be like to be a public figure subject to international, round-the-clock scrutiny. And let’s be honest, public scrutiny grows ever closer to a modern day witch hunt. Should political figures be questioned about [...]

Our Time

I unplugged this weekend. No Twitter. No Facebook. No email. No texting. Virtually no tv. I have a third-trimester-like-instinct to nest. I cannot stop my mind from thinking about preparing the house for warm weather, organizing the girls’ clothes, determining what we’ll be growing in the garden this year. Even more than addressing our home, there [...]

Who’s that girl?

Ever since a boy in Avery’s pre-k class destroyed, or at least put a major chink, in her love of navy blue and superheroes, I’ve been incredibly mindful of how I manage self. How exactly does one raise daughters without letting the pendulum of self swing too far to one side or the other? I [...]

Durable Ribbons

Every once in a while I hesitate about a post. I learned a long time ago that some things, even though they are a part of my life, are not mine to tell. Still,  I’m pretty honest here, though there is an increasing awareness of how proprietary some of this is getting as the girls [...]

Empty Box

My 20th high school reunion was last month. Facebook makes things like reunions so different, for our tenth there was some communication, but not the photo-laced threads of remember when and can’t wait until. This time around, there were so many new faces popping up. We’ve aged, or we haven’t. We’ve married people we knew, [...]

Grooves of routine

Making the rounds, waking the girls, adding socks to outfits and tokens to backpacks reminds me of my childhood. I remember special things—Christmas concerts, spring morning field trips, last games of tag at sundown. I can almost smell the damp Eugene soil and hear the laughter of my childhood friends. It is exquisite to revisit [...]

Fix You*

It hit me shortly after dinner, a fast-moving veil enveloping my head and turning heavy and dark instantly, accompanied by a throbbing that sent piercing daggers of pain to my left ear and behind my right eye. A cold. I was annoyed, but if the last month has taught me anything itis that sometimes giving [...]

Think we’ll be happy?

We were standing in the backyard, as we readied to spend our first night in our new house. The reality of the road to our new start sobered us. We finally faced something we’d never dared to admit. I’d been pregnant with Ave when we first decided to sell, it sold a few months shy [...]