There needs to be a setting on my Fitbit for “walking through the snow in coveralls.” Regular steps seem wholly inadequate for the trudge that takes me between the house and the barns each morning… More
Angel cake
A piece I wrote for shelovesmagazine.
Schmida was an immigrant. Jewish. German. A Holocaust survivor. She spoke Yiddish and fed the neighborhood children alongside her own (the way mothers everywhere do.) When one of those children asked her to teach him, she willingly and enthusiastically handed down a recipe that he would later use to win the baking competition at the county fair. A recipe he would later hand down to me. —Cherity Cook
As Cherity makes a special birthday cake for her dad, she can’t help but remember how much immigration has been mixed into our stories.
The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.
You know that moment?
The one that comes when you are trying desperately to be professional?
To pass for a calm, cool, collected businessperson? Perhaps while you’re at a bank, finishing a nearing six-figure aircraft deal, providing closing instructions to a banker on behalf of your client?
And then the wild duckling that you have hidden in your cleavage starts peeping?
Don’t you just hate that? Continue reading “The one about the duckling I hid in my cleavage.”
Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.
I spent part of this evening cleaning up around the house.
As usual, I couldn’t really stay on task. I wandered. Washing sheets from one room. Picking up in another. I clean like an ADHD squirrel, bouncing from room to room, lacking cohesion and getting distracted by each new corner. I once set out to dust my bedroom and wound up reorganizing the entire contents of my walk-in hallway closet instead. The bedroom went undusted. The closet turned out wonderfully, and I’m still not sure how that happened.
All of this to say, I didn’t set out to throw away wedding memorabilia today, but somewhere in the process of cleaning up my guest room, I stumbled upon my one-time treasures and decided that it was time that they stop taking up space…in my home and in my life. Unity candles are a lovely metaphor, and you never expect to see the day come that you toss them aside, but their meaning is lessened once the pair they unified sever all the ties the flame represented. I took out the ceremonial objects and unceremoniously dumped them into my trash outside next to the dirty cat litter. Continue reading “Why I Paid an Artist to Cut My Wedding Dress into Pieces.”
Take Me Home Country Roads
My commute to the office usually takes about twenty-five minutes. It’s two-lane, country driving the entire way along one of the Illinois’ River Roads. My landmarks as I drive are a railroad crossing, a bald eagle nest, and a couple of roadside picnic benches. There usually isn’t much traffic, but you do have to watch for deer. Especially during the rut.
This time of year, I watch for turtles. So far, I’ve stopped and given a crossing assist to five of them, parking along the roadside with my hazards flashing. (Only one peed on me…but that’s a different story.) Continue reading “Take Me Home Country Roads”
On Shearing and Doing Hard Things
This is me.
This is me on an almost 90 degree day, after shearing nine of my llamas over the course of about two hours.
This is me sweaty and exhausted. Covered in tiny bits of wool. Thoroughly uncomfortable
And thrilled that my animals were cool again. Continue reading “On Shearing and Doing Hard Things”
Spring
I just found hay in my hair, a memento from the time I spent in the horse field this afternoon lying on my back in what remained of a round bale. It’s sixty degrees. Just a few days ago, there was snow on the ground. Spring is like that here.
Unpredictable.
Fickle.
Unruly.
(Not unlike my hair now that I think about it.) Continue reading “Spring”
Letting “Good Enough” be Good Enough: The stalls won’t always be clean…and that’s ok
I’ve started this blog post three times. Each time, Amelia, one of my three dogs, shoves her nose under my elbow and nudges my arm, asking for attention. Each time, my fingers lose their space on the keyboard; I backspace and start over. One of those times, my puppy, Rose, joins in, but in her poor “puppy” form, she makes the mistake of grabbing my hand in her mouth (albeit gently), resulting in a reprimand.
They give up, bored, and curl up on their beds across the room. I’m granted a moment to myself, and I keep typing. Continue reading “Letting “Good Enough” be Good Enough: The stalls won’t always be clean…and that’s ok”
Befores and Afters
I read a book once that pointed out that life tends to divide itself into befores and afters.
It’s true, when you think about it. Some are obvious milestones: Before high school. After high school. Before college. After college. Before and after your first job. Births. Deaths. We, all of us, all our lives, are just a mess of befores and afters and how they changed us from one version of ourselves to the next. We have ceremonies to celebrate or mourn the changes. Matriculation. Funerals. Christenings.
Marriages.
Divorces.
Sometimes, even though one day you’re a person of before and the next day a person of after, it feels like little has changed. Some befores and afters fade into one another like the colors of the sunset meld from one to the next, and suddenly the sky has gone from blue to orange to purple without you noticing. The easy changes are like that. You don’t realize things are changing until they have, and then, before you know it, you’ve made your way from a before to an after.
Other changes fall like a sledgehammer. No matter the slope into it, no matter the warning or preparation, the change will always be abrupt.
Like death.
Hopefully followed by rebirth. Continue reading “Befores and Afters”
Living the Dream
I forgot to step tall over the hot wire.
I felt my rubber muck boot catch the bottom wire of the horse fence. My ankle caught the strand that I had strung there this summer. My knees hit the snow. The five gallon bucket I had been filling at the spigot fell forward out of my hands and spilled into the stark, white snow, soaking my hands through my gloves, emptying in a mockery of the small task I was trying to accomplish.
I was wearing too many layers to injure myself in the fall: my legs were insulated against their snowy landing spot by two pairs of pants and a pair of heavy duty coveralls. Rather, the -15 degree windchill made the possibility of frostbite through my wet gloves my most pressing concern. I stood up slowly–the only possible way to stand in coveralls–and, swearing at the wind or the weather or my own clumsiness, began to refill the bucket. Ponies need water. It is my job to make sure they have it, whether the process for getting it is pleasant or not. Continue reading “Living the Dream”
On Dating.
Swipe Right.
“So, what are you looking for?”
It’s a straightforward enough question really, and one that comes up a lot when you foray into the world of online dating, but it’s one that I sometimes have a hard time answering.
What am I looking for…?
The truth is, it’s hard to know what you’re looking for in a place that you’ve found yourself by accident. Continue reading “On Dating.”
