Emergency Preparedness
We were standing in the kitchen one night after the kids had gone to bed. My husband leaned back against the sink and asked, “You wanna tell me why there’s an apocalypse’s worth of bottled water in the trunk of your car?” “It was on sale.” He looked at me. “It was on sale. It […]
The Nuclear Bomb of Personal Change
I turned 40 earlier this month. That same week, NPR ran a story saying studies have shown people don’t anticipate how much they will change in the decade ahead – their opinions, beliefs, personality traits – even when they acknowledge how much they’ve changed in the past. We can’t imagine our future selves as being […]
Empathy
Last week I did this thing – this big thing, which I was anxious about, and had to psych myself up for – and it was hard. I hated it. When it was over, I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief. A few people congratulated me, or said they were proud or impressed. A […]
Do you remember?
Katherine is a teenager in Texas who has been my Twitter friend for almost three years. She is in the final stretch of her Senior year and wrote a fantastic “day in the life” blog post today that you should read if you, like me, are not a teenager. Especially if you (like me) peeled […]
Killer Instinct
We’re at our son’s indoor soccer game, watching him wander around the court as if in search of flowers to pick. So far it’s been a mediocre game: two teams of 2nd & 3rd grade boys and girls, some running after the ball, others standing around or wandering like our son. Occasionally someone kicks the […]
The baby’s not in your thighs, Dear.
I’m seven months pregnant and digging deeper into the storage bin of maternity clothes each week. Today I pulled out “the $12 pants” and thought of this story, written about a week before my second child was born (originally posted on my MySpace blog). Monday, April 16, 2007 My mass and/or girth reached some sort […]
Yet another reason I love my husband
In the car on the way to work this morning, while I was freaking out my lifelong tendency to take on too much (there are new, shiny things I’d like to do), I said, “. . . and I’ll never accomplish anything and we’ll die in abject poverty and shame.” Smoothly and without blinking, my […]
Brunch Days
Someone on TV mentioned “brunch” and my husband and I started reminiscing about the last time we went to brunch, a million years ago when we were newly engaged. His parents were visiting from Chicago and treated us to Sunday brunch at Salty’s on Alki. It was fabulous. “The best part was the mimosas,” I […]
Ask Me What I’m Growing
At work I team-teach a course called Prepare Training.* It’s a great course, I truly enjoy teaching it, and yes, I think you should have it at your workplace.** One of the messages of the course is when bad stuff happens around you, don’t let it inside. If it does get in, then you need […]
Why I Boycott Wal-Mart
This morning amid the lingering #amazonfail discussion on Twitter came the question of whether or not one should boycott Amazon.com. I responded that the only company I can be bothered to boycott is Wal-Mart, which I’ve been doing for about eight years. (One boycott is enough, right? How socially responsible do you expect me to […]