The dishwasher hums in the background. It’s nearly midnight. For the first time in a while, the words are bubbling up and demanding to be put on paper.
We are all on pins and needles. March 12th was the day that my eldest daughter’s top college choice mailed out their notification letters. Batch admissions, they [...]

My mom and I are sitting in her house, which used to be her mother’s house. We are reminiscing and both thought of this blog post I wrote years ago. Enjoy!
May 6, 2003 – The Road to Hell is Paved with Cardboard Boxes
I bet you are wondering just what it in all of those cardboard [...]

Shortly after I posted my to-do list yesterday, I remembered what I’d forgotten. In the middle of the night, while the to-do lists composed themselves in my head, it suddenly seemed important to go through my clothes in the storage bins to see what I could pass on to Goodwill.
That’s when I realized – I [...]

Happy Birthday, my lovely daughter! I am so proud of you!

I celebrated Easter with my family, hosted in my home. A delicious meal of honey-baked ham, honey-baked turkey, cheesy potatoes, assorted vegetables, strawberries, and chocolate crinkle cookies baked by my eldest daughter. Yum.
Then a partial game of Monopoly with my daughters, my mom and my mother-in-law, mercifully cut short when my kids [...]

I held my first daughter for the first time. She was born at 3:56 pm on November 13th. The birth was so difficult that I didn’t get to hold her until the next morning.

Meet Johann Philipp Palm, one of my ancestors.
Johann was born on December 18, 1766 in Schorndorf, Germany. He was a bookseller and publisher, a husband to Anna and father of two daughters and a son.
In 1806, he published and sold a pamphlet, Deutschland in seiner tiefsten Erniedrigung (Germany in its [...]

Grief sneaks up on me. I can be washing my face in the evening or reading the comics at breakfast and suddenly I am crying. The tears come quickly and fiercely. I have trouble catching my breath. I feel myself start to tremble and shake. As it builds, I feel [...]

Happy 4th Anniversary of your 29th Birthday, my slurpee!
love,shameless

Happy Birthday to my butterfly!
My youngest daughter turns 13 today. I am now the mother of two teenagers.

I finally had a chance to scan the photos I wrote about the other day.
Here is the first photo. This one is of Benny, my grandfather, before the war. The back of the photo says “Shell Beach” which I believe was in California. This would have been some time in 1943. Benny [...]

Well now, it’s been a pretty intense week or so, hasn’t it.
Perhaps it is time to lighten things up. It is summer, after all. The girls are finally done with school. This is the first summer in two years that I don’t have to work full-time at the office. I have [...]

Today is my Grandpa’s birthday. He would have been 85 years old.
Yesterday was a difficult day. It didn’t help that I watched the D-Day special on the History Channel in the morning. I recorded it to watch later with my daughters. I want them to see what happened, and the [...]

This photo has always been one of my favorites of my Grandma and Grandpa and my oldest daughter, who is now nearly 16 years old.
When I was still caught up with my anger at my Grandpa for what he was saying about Grandma and for not buying a headstone for her grave, I [...]

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

The dancer featured in these photos is doing what is called a fancy dance. The video was taken with my digital camera, so I apologize for the poor quality.
I have been going to powwows with my mom and my sister for twelve years. I enjoy seeing the dancers return each year and watching [...]

We all seem to overestimate our ability to adapt to changing circumstances. At least until something actually changes, that is, and then we realize how stiff we’ve become.
Lily is reminding me of how I felt when my oldest daughter was a newborn. Out of my element, exhausted, overwhelmed. The constant nursing, [...]

And to think that I was afraid Lily was too small. She is tiny, weighing a little more than a pound. She just doesn’t act small.
She chases Jezzie around the living room and plays with her. She grabs her toys, growls and shakes them. She barks when she gets frustrated. [...]