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I hate this. Sorry, but I do. Birthdays in our family unsurprisingly hold some extra weight and sadness now, but our two that fall in February are especially hard. Today is my youngest's birthday, cute girl (she's nine today and definitely got her daddy's height - she's already taller than my chin). She has been so excited, and I have wanted to be so excited too, wanted…

Are you keeping up with the recent rapid rate of all of these posts? Feeling slightly overwhelmed? Ready to give up on trying to stay caught up? (Seriously, there is so much in my head - I could easily sit and write at least five other posts, right now...) I have mentioned this before, but writing this blog through the Meal Train platform has been a rather…

I have a lot of thoughts swirling in my brain right now, so I don't know exactly what this post will morph into. (It's often just as much of a surprise to me writing it as it may be to you reading it.) As I have been processing through the different events from a year ago, I have found myself also reflecting on where I was last…

So I think that teenagers are great. I enjoy getting to hear their thoughts about things, seeing what excites them and their enthusiasm for life, the glimpses I get into how they view the world. I love teasing back and forth and laughing with them, or getting to witness their talents developing, watching as they gain independence in different areas. And I am SO grateful for my…

Those have been some heavy, thought-provoking (at least for me) past few posts. Lest you think I merely sit around thinking deep introspective thoughts constantly, I thought I would switch things up a bit with this one. I'm certainly not serious all the time (definitely have my snarky moments). And hey, I can be FUN! (Well, I think I'm fun. Quite possibly others just find me too…

Hmmm, looks like using introspective questions as post titles is becoming a thing... As every single day from January 21 through March 24 is now an anniversary of at least one terrible or traumatic thing, or some kind of "last," or has horrible memories associated with that specific day, I've been thinking lately about what I might have changed from that time a year ago. I mean,…

Something I mentioned several times in missionary letters and journal entries from college was that the past year had been my "best one yet" and how much I was looking forward to what the new year would bring. I wonder, where along the way did I lose that perspective and attitude, the tendency to see each year as just getting better and better? It's really made me…

For the first few months of Kendall's illness I felt very alone, so isolated from others. It wasn't just the physical isolation that was forced upon us because of the pandemic, which was incredibly difficult. It was also knowing that literally no one else had ever gone through what our family was going through. No one else in the world had ever had Kendall's EXACT diagnoses (especially…

We are a family of readers. The librarians at our local library told us we were the first ones they had ever seen actually reach the insanely high limit of (many 100's of) items you are allowed to check out at a time. Weekly library trips were just a part of our routine. My daughter read over 50,000 pages more than the second place winner of a…

This has happened a few times, when I'll have a day (or a week...) I'm feeling particularly unsettled or emotional and I'm not able to immediately pinpoint why, only to then recall what significant thing was happening exactly one year ago that my brain was subconsciously remembering. That was the case today, and explains a lot of the heaviness and extra grief I've been feeling. January 21,…