A Holiday Pep Talk For You

Hey you. I know you’re out there, bustling with everyday stuff on top of non-everyday stuff. Maybe you’ve just shut down your computer and you’re heading out the lobby for the last time in ’17. Maybe you’re headed out the door to drop the kids off at school or daycare, or maybe not at all

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The Silent and Invisible Life

“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel the silent and invisible life. All it needs from you is that you take care not to trample on it.” -Marilynne Robinson

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My Favorite Kid’s Storage Finds for Every Room

If you visit my home for more than a minute, you’ll know kids live here. There are very often random items strewn about the entryway and living spaces — plastic balls, wooden spatulas, tangible exhibits of the toddler’s current, mysterious obsession with cookware. (I cannot tell you how often I have fished my favorite oven

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Work & Whiplash

I fell into a bit of an impromptu travel season this month – three back-to-back trips with a weekend between. Just enough time to empty the suitcase into the laundry cycle, to re-roll and re-pack once it was refreshed. — I know two things: (1) I love this job. (2) I love this family. I

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Hospitality for Introverts

I am forever wondering if our quest for self-exploration has become burdensome, backwards. Enneagrams, Myers-Briggs – the idea of whittling down our complex personalities to a number and a few letters. Are we placing boundaries where they weren’t intended; living within confines that needn’t be there? While I love nothing better than a tidy definition

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Tech + Kids: Our Rules

Well yes, I am a bit of a Luddite. I know. There are all manners of contradiction in this statement – a blogger opposed to technology? – yet I can’t help but feel as if, often, we’re squandering our time on lesser things in the name of false connectivity. Our attention spans are shorter. Our

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Modern Parenting: To Chore or Not to Chore?

To chore, I say. — Early this spring, Bee began campaigning for a fish. Actually, nine, she says, for swimming together. My hesitations were many. More responsibility for our kids often means more management for us, and with two kids, two dogs, two jobs, we were fresh out of any available management margin. She’d be

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Small Step No. 13: Saying “Yes, But…”

Last weekend, my friend Shannan and I shared our respective stories with the beautiful community of Flourish, and during the Q&A portion, the conversation naturally veered toward boundaries. How do you set them? What are your own? Where do you draw the line? Shannan’s answer was flawless, and it was simply this: we do not

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