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
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
This month we built a retaining wall. We were both really busy with work. There were dinners with friends, a cardinals game, walks with the dogs, rounds of mini golf, a movie with Tom and Sam, coffee outside before the day started, and a brunch we almost talked ourselves out of. There were nights I … Read more
I spent years accumulating a life, and then I spent years quietly letting pieces of it go — without ever calling it that. I started as a secretary. Moved through accounting, became a controller, and then — gradually, for reasons that made sense at the time — stepped back. Part-time. Assistant work. Full charge bookkeeping. … Read more
Curiosity doesn’t retire. It doesn’t shrink with age or wait for permission. For Polly, it began in a dentist’s office at five years old, flipping through the pages of National Geographic — and it never stopped. What followed was a lifetime of teaching, listening, traveling, and saying yes to what felt just beyond reach – … Read more
What progress looks like in the everyday rarely feels dramatic. Progress doesn’t always look like change.There are no clear milestones.No dramatic before-and-after.No moment where everything suddenly feels different. Instead, progress tends to show up quietly — inside ordinary days that look a lot like the ones before them, even as they’re slowly changing. And that’s … Read more
Choosing direction doesn’t suddenly make life feel clear. It doesn’t organize your days.It doesn’t erase doubt.It doesn’t create an immediate sense of confidence or certainty. What it does is quieter than that. It changes how you move through uncertainty. This is the part that rarely gets talked about — what happens after you stop waiting, … Read more
Reinvention rarely arrives as one dramatic turning point. Most of the time, it starts quietly—an uncomfortable nudge that something in your life no longer fits who you’re becoming. It can show up after big transitions, long stretches of frustration, or simply the realization that you want something different. Ryan Williamson felt that pull after a … Read more
For most of my life, I’ve been making something. I’ve quilted and crocheted, sewn bags and made ornaments, and gotten deep into cake baking during the long stretch of COVID. I’ve doodled, knitted, canned food, baked bread, learned photography, experimented with homemade pasta, and spent an unreasonable amount of time figuring things out in the … Read more
For four years, walking was probably the most consistent habit in our lives. We didn’t start because we’d decided to become people who walked every day. Tom had his second hip replaced in August 2020 and needed to move as part of his recovery. Around the same time, we had Gracie, our Aussie Shepherd–Border Collie … Read more