Usually Darkest Before the Dawn

Funny story. Before we had children, I often considered myself a night owl. No matter how hard I’d tried, I never quite graduated into the morning lark category like my husband. I’ve always preferred my late-night hours, usually reading or watching a movie. Once we...

The Bookends of My Days

Today I headed off to the library with my 17 year old leaving my 14 year old home with her dad because we needed to replenish our unschooling nonfiction picture book options. Due to birthday things followed by sickness, it has been at least a month since we’ve gotten...

Laughter Is Gloriously Contagious

As we make our way through the second week of cold viruses here, I am celebrating something that’s truly and wonderfully contagious here, and that’s the laughter our family shares. As my girls ate dinner tonight, I considered how much I am missing our opportunities...

Baby Steps & Small Beginnings

Sometimes, when we try to measure our progress, we can miss how far we’ve come along the path of our journey because baby steps are harder to measure. And yet, they are the true measurement of our resilience and commitment in the face of difficult journeys. As we...

The Cumulative Effect of Relationships

As this week gets underway, I realize my teenagers and I are headed into a Round 2 kind of week; rather than returning to familiar rhythms and routines, the younger teenager is succumbing to whatever virus the older had last week and is finally shaking. Alas, there...