My Substack

My family put up the Christmas tree this past Sunday. I noticed, as I do every year, that my Christmas tree ornaments are the very definition of eclectic. While the mother in me loves best the ornaments my children have made, with their clumsy motor…

When we decided it was time to put an addition on our home (my “line in the sand”), my husband called his friend who works in construction. He couldn’t do it, he told us, but he knew who could. He gave my husband a name and number. “No web…

I bought this painting for my six-year-old daughter earlier this month at a local art show. She picked it out because she likes pink and purple and the Sara Bareilles song, “Brave.” I want her to be brave. I want to be brave, too. Yet much of what…

This past Monday morning, I talked to my son Max’s third grade class. It came after a weekend of binging on social media and reading article after article about the state of the world and the country. I was not in the best place to talk about why I…

Dear Dad, Man, you look handsome and bad-ass in this picture. (Note to impressionable teens: this was 1952 and the tobacco companies were deceiving everyone about smoking: go watch The Insider.) Anyway, you smoked your cigarettes and made your…