Hello, 2016!

We rang in the New Year up at my mom’s cabin in northern Minnesota as we so often do. It was cozy—just D, the girls, my mom and step-dad and me. We cooked and ate and read and did puzzles (in an obsessive way that was somehow still relaxing). The girls and D skated in…

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thankful

I would be lying if I said that the last few months (or year) has been an easy one for me. It hasn’t. I’m still in that place of not-knowing, of guessing and experimenting with food, supplements, exercise—anything. Still, I’m trying to be grateful for good days. I have a new acupuncturist, and she’s fabulous. That…

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showing up

I’ve started a number of blog posts over the last couple of weeks. Each time, before I could finish the post, things with my health would change and I’d abandon it half-written. A week ago I was feeling better—not perfect, but better. I could lift a basket of laundry, put the full Brita back into the…

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update

Thanks so much for all your thoughts and good vibes last week. Surgery went well (though geez, I would have happily stayed the night in the hospital. There’s nothing like being rushed home completely drugged up, nauseated and in pain.) The first night and day weren’t fun, and heck, the second wasn’t fun either. But…

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dear gallbladder, goodbye.

I know that I am supposed to want to keep all of my organs, and believe me, I do. I’ve tried, I really have. I changed my diet (and then changed it back), I’ve done weekly (often twice a week) acupuncture, I’ve ingested many herbs and enzymes, minerals and fermented foods. I’ve meditated. I’ve cried.…

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fall motherhood & words class

Donny and I spent the last five days painting (or rather emptying, then taping, then painting, then taping more, then painting more, and finally reassembling) our kitchen and my office. It was grueling, but it’s done, and now my office looks like this: And now I’m ready to dive back into writing and also gear…

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noodling

This morning as I headed out the door for a walk, there was a crispness to the air, a hint of fall. I always feel melancholy as summer winds down, and that’s there—the knowledge that another summer is coming to an end, and that fall, then winter are right around the corner. But mixed in…

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summer and taking stock

I’ve been quiet here these last weeks. Part of the reason is that I’ve been busy. In early June we road-tripped to Winnipeg for a couple of days to see the first U.S. Women’s World Cup game, which was incredible and inspiring. The rest of the month was swallowed up with editing and teaching prep,…

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anthology week: the write on mamas' mamas write

I’m happy to have Joanne Hartman, Mary Hill, and Janine Kovac, the editors of Mamas Write: 29 Tales of Truth, Wit and Grit, here for the final post of anthology week. Mamas Write is an anthology that grew out of the Write On Mamas, an amazing group of (mostly) women writers in the Bay Area.…

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anthology week: kasia james' the milk of female kindness

The second motherhood anthology I’m featuring this week is The Milk of Female Kindness: An Anthology of Honest Motherhood, edited by Kasia James. Kasia is the author of many short stories and science fiction novel The Artemis Effect. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with a hydrologist, an ankle biter and a big black cat called…

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