Dear E, You’ve now been twelve for three weeks. It has been a long time since I managed to post about you for your birthday, because funnily enough, it always falls at the busiest time of year. I am determined to write – and finish – this post, so that someday (if you ever read…
Tag: family
New Year’s Questionnaire for 2020: The Year The World Stood Still
It’s always fun to post a piece so late that it’s basically irrelevant… Sigh. (And this piece would still be waiting to be finished if it weren’t for the long dentist appointment the kids and I had last week that gave me an hour in which I couldn’t work on report cards.) At least I…
Some Leftover Gratitude for 2021
Hi, lovelies, Happy New Year! You might have noticed that I was going strong with my gratitude posts for almost all of November, then suddenly posted nothing at all for more than a month. Yep. In case you wondered, it doesn’t mean that I had no gratitude during that time. Quite the contrary, I was…
My American Peeps – Gratitude Day 26
Tonight, I am grateful for my American relatives and friends. Honestly, they are some of the best, funniest, thoughtfulest, interestingest, intelligentest, loveliest people I know. I am so thankful to know them, and for the fact they have so far managed to stay safe and well. I am grateful that they will no longer have…
Family of Word Nerds – Gratitude Day 21
I’m grateful to be able to say that my children have inherited my penchant for interesting vocabulary. AB is relishing the lessons they’ve been doing in her class on adding “juicy details” to one’s writing. Yesterday, E correctly (and metaphorically) used the word “begat” in a sentence. More on their lexical prowess later. For now,…
A Lovely Anniversary – Gratitude Day 8
Today I’m grateful for happy anniversary memories of this day last year – and this whole weekend last year – when my sister Emily married her love. I’m grateful that I got to be there in Seattle (actually nearby Everett) as a witness – facilitated by my now-brother-in-law (thank you! xoxo). And I’m extra-grateful that…
14 Nice Things I’ll Remember About Shutdown
School is upon us. Students, parents, and teachers are, I believe, universally unsettled about back-to-school. Whatever the normal preparations, uncertainties, anxieties, and excitements would be, they’re different and more intense this year. I’ll be honest: after three days of training last week, discussing with my colleagues ways to deal with all the million tiny details…
Dear Friends, it’s May and I miss you.
It’s May Day! (Or Beltane, to the Gaelic and Wiccan traditions.) It’s a day when folks in northern temperate time zones officially cast off the shackles of winter and get the heck outside. It’s that point when we’re supposed to receive the payoff for those April showers and surround ourselves with flowers. It’s time to…
Social Distancing: Indulging my introverted side, FOMO-free
It was for mostly selfish reasons that, when I heard that schools would be closed for an extra two weeks after March break, part of my heart – through the worry – was full of joy. It wasn’t the joy of knowing that the closures are the right thing to do, even though that’s true….
The Dilovely New Year Questionnaire for 2018
So, my lovelies. Happy New Year or something! It’s only January 16th. It’s a super-reasonable moment to post a 2018 questionnaire completed in time increments of 20 minutes or less over the course of three weeks. 1. What did you do in 2018 that you’d never done before? Me, Sean: Hiked Niagara Glen Trails in…