handcraftedadventure Four books this month, and I didn’t set out to pick a theme. Somewhere around the third one, I realized they were all pushing against the same idea: that you’re supposed to know exactly where you’re going before you start. I’ve spent enough of my life thinking I needed to figure things out first. These … Read more
When we moved into this house last year, the back of the yard was basically a honeysuckle forest, a dense wall of green stretching across the hillside. We couldn’t even walk through it to get to the dogs if they wandered back there, and all that thick growth was ideal tick habitat. With two dogs … Read more
I’ve stayed with things longer than I should have simply because I’d already put so much time into them. Years ago, I decided to try selling some of the things I made at craft fairs. I spent weeks making inventory and getting everything ready for the first one. I hated it. Not making things. I … Read more
Some days it isn’t the big decisions that wear you out. It’s all the little ones. What’s for dinner? Should we go somewhere this weekend or stay home? Do I answer one more email or call it a day? None of those decisions are especially important. Yet by the end of the day, they can … Read more
Looking back, July felt like a month of doing things a little afraid, a little unprepared, and going anyway. We took our first Amtrak trip and weren’t sure how any of it would go.Tom sent a message to a band we’ve loved for years and didn’t expect anything back.I wrote about two of the hardest … Read more
It’s the last week of July. I just looked at the calendar and realized we’re four days from August. I seem to have this realization every year. Summer always feels longer when it’s ahead of you than when you’re living it. We’ve had a good summer. We took the train to Chicago, went to a … Read more
We’d never taken Amtrak before. We weren’t sure how the logistics would work, whether we’d regret not driving, or if getting around Chicago without a car would be a hassle. By the time we got home, we were already talking about doing it again. Tom and I, Andi and Elsie — four of us on … Read more
Last Tuesday wasn’t the day I planned. Work ran long. I came home tired. The workout I’d mapped out wasn’t going to happen. A few months ago I probably would have skipped it entirely. I’d tell myself I’d do it tomorrow instead. Instead I did a shorter version. And then something hit me. I don’t … Read more
What are you training for? It’s a question I’ve been thinking about differently lately. I don’t exercise because I enjoy every workout. Some of them I enjoy. Most of them I just do. I exercise because I want to keep saying yes. What “Yes” Actually Means Yes to hiking through a national park without having … Read more
The first trauma I was called into, I was afraid. I wasn’t afraid I’d fail. I’d simply never been in a room like that before. Fear doesn’t mean you can’t do it. I know that now. I didn’t know it then. A man who had been shot, bullet lodged in his T-spine. When I got … Read more