I had the honor of speaking at the Type-A Mom Conference in Asheville, North Carolina last weekend. I had such a great time, I really did. If you’re considering conferences in your future, this is an excellent choice, yes, even if you are SO not Type-A, like moi. The sessions were informative, enriching and inspiring, the location was beautiful and the size and flow of the conference itself were just perfect. A big thank you to Kelby for all the hard work making this gig happen. Lady, it was so good. ~~~~~I thought I’d take a moment to tell you what Type A moms are like.In an effort to keep you informed. Ahem… Type-A moms are: always connected… Arianne and creating… Allie and energetic… Danielle and fantastic… Katherine Megan Sara Sophia Ashleigh and willing to eat fancy desserts with me… maple vanilla cake at French Broad Chocolate Lounge (I ate every last bite) […]
I am from the wooded countryside, Little Debbie snacks and Grandma’s homemade toast with cinnamon and sugar. I am from a gray split level with a basketball hoop and a crunchy gravel driveway. I am from The Cosby Show and The Smurfs. Dad and Grandma – two weeks ago (Kensington school) I am from lilacs and sunflowers, oaks and pines and crawly things. I am from where the lakes begin and Runestone country. I am from lefse and lutefisk, but I never eat the smelly lutefisk. I am from cribbage players and golfers, ice cream lovers and hot dish makers. I am from Colleen and Dale and Helen and Glenn. I am from humor with loud bursts of laughter and long naps in the recliner. I am from work hard and overcome and trials that make you stronger. Mom’s childhood home I am from pull yourself together and you always belong. I am […]
I’m pretty sure that one of the strangest experiences a mother can have is to spend some nights in a hotel room alone. Strange and good and surreal and lonely and wonderful. That’s how it is for me anyway, especially since I’m traveling so much lately. I sat here last night in the silence, in Asheville, North Carolina and felt all of these opposite clashing emotions and of course they were, each of these feelings, tinged with a hint of guilt. Guilt is always the glitter on a mother’s art project, it seems. (Unless we work really hard at not feeling guilty, but that’s pretty difficult to do when we’re already exhausted.) (Amen?) (AMEN.) I’m convinced that one thing we mothers have got to try is living more and thinking less. Recently I heard it said that if you want to change how you think you have to live yourself there. It sounds […]
Sabrina and Kelly Last weekend I got to hang out with Sabrina and Kelly, two friends I don’t get to see enough now that we moved. I miss these girls. They are each so freaking fantastic in every way, they truly are. Every day I’m just in awe of the women in my life. Just saying. We went to a local art fair and snatched up some handmade goodies. And some mini donuts. I took just this one photo and then my camera battery said zzzzzz. Sometimes my camera is so lazy. Anyway. I’m leaving tomorrow morning, bright and early, for my trip to North Carolina to speak on a panel at the Type A Mom Conference. I need to do laundry and pack and do a whole lot of other Very Important life things like paperwork and the paying of the bills. I was aware of this to-do list both Monday and […]
Miles had a paintbrush but no paint, and he painted anyway. He moved that little hand back and forth and back and forth, imagining blue for his playhouse. He was the only one that knew exactly how it was turning out. He had the whole big picture up in his adorable noggin. He always does. He sees it all, that boy of mine. He was working very hard. I watched him while his brother watched him and it was such a perfect fall day and I can’t believe they’re mine. There are things a mom just can’t describe. These feelings we have for them, they are just too personally rich, too much at the center of us to be pulled out. Maybe that’s good. We honor the intimacy of family that way, even while we touch on universal truths and nod our heads in recognition. I hope one day my boys read my […]
First glimpse (isn’t glimpse a weird word?) (Gu-limp-sah)Dining Lighting (and orange curtains and gray paint) About one hundred years ago, I started a new “series” here on the EO called One Room at a Time. The idea was to show you a before and after photo as we finish updating each room of our not-so-new-to-us-anymore house. I said that we were doing one room every weekend. (I have no idea why I would say such a completely ridiculous and unfeasible thing.) We’ve been plugging away slowly but surely (and sporadically) on The House of EO, yo. So…I haven’t completely forgotten about the One Room at a Time thing. It’s just that we have yet to entirely finish even one room since the office. If we were artists that paint, let’s just say that we’d be the type of painters that draw something out and start to fill in the green of the grass […]
It seems like they were just babies. Now they’re building a play house in the backyard and I don’t know how that can be. They are exactly who they are for exact reasons. One hides often and the other throws things a lot. They balance each other out and are just exactly perfect exactly how they are. They are good friends, our boys. Every mother wants her children to stay friends for their lifetimes. I’m no exception. I hope they will always put their heads together to find answers and stand up for each other. We all need someone who is always on our side. There are so many exciting things happening for us these days. Our family is in an entirely different place than we were even one year ago. And even with all the changes and so much on our family platter, Ryan and I can still so often be heard […]
All week I tried to prepare for speaking to my Minnesota blogging cronies. I tried and tried and felt more and more scattered and then more and more anxious due to the unpreparedness. I got in the elevator on Saturday morning with Minnesota JoY (who saved me in the parking lot by generously giving me the parking fee I neglected to remember to bring) and Matt Logelin and Chris Ann from LoveFeast Table. That was a really good start. I asked Matt if he wasready for his keynote.He said no.I felt better.(Did you notice how I just said that last thing Logelin-style?) (Am clever.)Check out the lovely place we were able to call home all day Saturday. (A big thank you to CoCo for allowing a bunch of Internet Geeks to take over their space.) Yeah, you betcha. I want to work there. The commute would be Uff Da Long, but the huge […]
The point here is to see the beauty in the everyday monotonous things of miraculous significance. I want to highlight those things here, in this space made for me and for you with pictures and words. I need to highlight the beautiful things here. Then at the same time I spill all my angst here because even the pain is somehow mysteriously beautiful. I always hope my heart-words run across your screens and then they travel through you and remind you that your thoughts aren’t lonely and neither are your feelings, no matter what they are. Sometimes it’s really hard to see the beauty through all the pain, isn’t it?Sometimes we’re just holding on and there’s nothing left, no eyes to see because the world or life has shut those eyelids like the slam of an angry door. My whole life, I’ve felt the emotions of others intensely. The shock waves of sorrow […]
Asher is napping and Miles is coloring.The dog is snoring on the couch behind meand there’s a fly sitting on the bottomof the computer screen.It’s been sitting there for minutes and minutes,like it’s not sure what to dolike me. Oh and there he isso now I know.Asher, calling out The words on the pagewill have to waitlike the fly. The view from here pullsand so I go to them.No nap for Asher todayand this is how it is. I do what I can when I can,I write words or sometimes I don’t,because there’s no predictingor planning, really. And it’s very very good,the view from here. ~~~~~ Comments are closed on this post. I think they’re broken anyway.Thank you for visiting me. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
This weekend, I watched No Impact Man. Twice. So many things that Colin Beaven and his wife Michelle said in this documentary were articulated in such a way that they penetrated my head and heart differently than ever before. I started to care more about the environment in a new way, I guess. It’s as if Colin took my thoughts and recycled them, making the end product something more meaningful than the small seeds that were planted within me before. And that was the point. The point wasn’t to be some crazy fringe extremist, a man bent on doing something fanatical to get attention for a book. The point was simply to get people to think. And isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? We’re here to live in such a way that our one-person impact inspires positive change in the lives of other people. The people we’re all connected to in one […]
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself. – MontaigneHer teenage son was trying to pour her booze down the kitchen sink’s drain. She was drunk and desperate and she wrapped her arms around him to pull him away, to save herself from having none. They both fell to the floor, wrestling and tugging and pushing and pulling. He was stealing from her and she was stealing from him. She had carried him and brought him to life and now she felt like she was killing him with herself. The arms that once held the soft weight of his infant body, the hands that gently ran over his newborn skin, had turned on her. She was broken and he was breaking and then she got help. She is sober one and a half years and he is still angry. He sees the monster more than he sees the miracle. Sometimes […]
I am pushing a cart, rushing from aisle to aisle getting milk and nutella and even juice boxes for a fun surprise when I get home. I see him rounding the corner in the frozen food section and my heart lifts. I join him, pulling off to the side with a hearty, Hi you! Hey stranger, how ya been? I’m doing well, how are you? Good. Good. I might get my license back this month. Alright, that’s great! It would be a long winter without one. Well, I do make it to the casino sometimes because there’s a bus. I figure it’s the least I can do. I mean, we stole their land and their buffalo, so now I give them my money. He smiles wider and his eyes do that bright and twinkly thing. A thing they didn’t do when I first met him, the first night he joined my chemical dependency […]
Let’s just get this question out of the way at the beginning, shall we? How is it September 1st already? There. No answer? Me either. It’s inevitable, summer is bound to slip away. She does it every year. She is sneaky and good at hiding. I was thinking it might be fun to look at the brighter side of falling into fall. So. Here are some things that are up and coming in the land of the EO: On September 11th, I’ll be speaking at the first-ever Minnesota Blogger Conference in St. Paul. My session is 45 minutes long and is called “Authentic Blogging: The benefits and risks of sharing your personal life online.” I plan to dance and sing. Kidding. I’m really looking forward to this, friends. I wish you could all be there. Except I don’t, because that would make me nervous and I’m currently not all that nervous. Anyway. The […]
