This week I had the amazing opportunity to go to the new National Museum of African American History and Culture with my 8-year-old’s 3rd and 4th grade class. It was a powerful experience in many ways and brought many emotions to the surface for all of us—sadness, pain, anger, joy, and hope. After touring the…
I don’t know about you guys but my to do list is killing me these days! It just doesn’t seem to be getting any shorter no matter how many things I cross off. Sometimes I think that there is a little gremlin who sneaks out in the middle of the night to add tasks to…
I don’t know about any of you but on Tuesday night, in the midst of my anxiety about the unknown, I resorted to stress eating. Crackers, chocolate chips, and dried mango were my foods of choice. And here’s the thing: in the past I would have hated myself for doing it. I would have negotiated…
We are on the edge of the holiday abyss. That time of year when there is so much happening and so much to do that we can easily lose track of our own self-care. Ironically, it is the time of year when we most need to be feeding ourselves well in order to fight off…
On Tuesday night I went to see the new movie Embrace which is an incredibly powerful documentary about the struggles that so many of us face around body image. It discussed the ways in which women are sent messages that their bodies are not good enough and the cycles of self-loathing and shame that build…
This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we…
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love the coming together of family (whether actual or adopted), the sharing of foods, and the practice of expressing gratitude. Since marrying into a Brazilian family I have also loved seeing the different cultural interpretations that families bring to the table—tropical fruits in place of cranberry sauce,…
Warning: This story contains injury, floods, smoke detectors, yelling and tears. And no pizza. Last week was a rough one at our house. My husband had major deadlines that resulted in his working late every night, including one almost-all-nighter (he got 2 hours of sleep, can we just call that an all-nighter at our age?),…
Every August my boys and I head out to Colorado to stay with my parents for a few weeks. It is a very special time of year for us. We have very little planned or scheduled, we go on hikes, we ride horses, and we eat amazing food, much of which comes straight from the…
For years my favorite movie of all time was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I loved the idea that you could steal a day away like that. That you could have a day where there were no rules or obligations, just fun. Then, in the spring of my senior year of high school, I got “spring fever”…