Personal

This is where you will find posts about all things personal to me. This section includes posts about interesting things I do or make, reflections on everyday life, and everything in between.

  • Personal

    Turning the Page

    It has been about a year since my last post on this blog. 2020 was quite the year. It was a year in which i was so overwhelmed by the events going on around me and the demands of meeting the needs of my loved ones, that I couldn’t bring myself to write. I was so concerned with finding the exact right words to convey something, that even when I did have moments in which I could have been writing – I didn’t allow myself to. Even if no one ever read my words, I approached writing as if I was writing for an audience, and no words I could…

  • Personal

    Yarn Mazes and Snowy Sundays

    The kids decided to start a snowy Sunday off by creating a yarn maze around my entire house. It is always great to see them working so sweetly together, and they put a lot of thought into the creation of their maze. It certainly kept them entertained, so that Cal and I could enjoy a slightly slower start to our morning. It is amazing how busy our family has been since moving to northern New Hampshire. The stereotype that the Northern part of the state has nothing going on could not be further from the truth for us. It was nice to slow down a little bit on Sunday and…

  • Personal

    Happy New Year 2020!

    2019 was a pretty good year for my family and I am looking forward to see what 2020 brings us. The past year brought a lot of growth and smiles, with relatively few tears. Among the many goals that I have for the next year, I want to get organized, lose weight, and create more. In terms of organization, I would like to: create more regular routines that work for my family and help me to be more productive use my planner more consistently for staying on top of everything that I need to do complete weekly home organization projects that have been mostly sitting on the back burner for…

  • Nonfiction,  Personal

    Destination Imagination

    Ryan was excited when he handed me his Destination Imagination sign up form this morning. Destination Imagination is a really great afterschool program where teams of kids choose a challenge (the choices are generally STEM, Art, or Service Related) and work to build a solution to that challenge. In March, they present their solutions at regional tournaments where they are scored on their creativity, workmanship, and teamwork. It is a great opportunity for kids to take the lead, learn to work as a team, and let their creativity fly. Last year was Ryan’s first year participating in Destination Imagination. It is the perfect afterschool activity for him, but it wasn’t…

  • Nonfiction,  Personal,  Places,  Prose

    On Moving to the Mountains

    “The mountains are calling and I must go.” The popular John Muir quote really speaks to the pull of nature and mountains. Living where I do, I see the quote all the time on bumper stickers, decorative logos, and Instagram hashtags. Well, the mountains called, and I moved. Moving to my awesome little mountain town in New Hampshire’s White Mountains was easily the best move that I have ever made for my family. When Ryan was younger, we moved around quite a bit between the demands of college, graduate schools, and just finding the right spot for our family. While moving around wasn’t ideal, it did give us a chance…

  • Nonfiction,  Personal,  Prose

    All About Me – Blogtober

    This year, I am trying a new challenge called Blogtober. It is a challenge among bloggers to post a new blog post every day for the month of October. I only just found out about this challenge this year, and it reminds me a lot of NaNoWriMo in terms of being a great motivator to write daily. Last year, I tried NaNoWriMo and had a great experience. Unfortunately, I completely neglected my blog while I worked on my novel and have been struggling to get back into a blogging rhythm ever since. I am really hoping that Blogtober will help me rediscover my blogging groove. The suggested prompt for today…

  • Personal

    Summer Sunday – Sunday Snapshots

    Ever since we moved to Littleton (over a year ago now!), it feels like we are constantly doing something. For a while, I was great about making sure to take a picture and post about our adventures on this blog. Sometimes, though, it is just so much easier to just enjoy the moment and not worry about documenting or sharing with others. This is the same reason that I used to post massive albums of our family adventures on Facebook, but now only rarely post. I want to spend my life living it – not just documenting it. With that said, I love this blog and what it can be.…

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  • Personal,  Places

    Memorial Day Weekend – Sunday Snapshots

    Spring has sprung and there is so much going on in our little mountain town. It is Memorial Day weekend and our town is packed with people from all over (but having grown up on Cape Cod, the activity here is nothing like the full-scale tourist invasion that Cape Cod will experience this weekend). We have a busy weekend planned, but the most important part of that is just family time. In Friday, Ryan sang at his school’s Memorial Day celebration and then we spent the evening hanging out with good friends. Yesterday, Ryan and I went to our local small town movie theater (Jax Jr) to see the new…

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  • Nonfiction,  Personal,  Prose

    Unblocked

    It has been a crazy couple of months, and sadly I have completely lost my writing routine. I have a long and ever growing list of posts that I want to write for this blog, and yet every time I sit down in front of the computer, I feel completely blocked. I was in a great blogging rhythm right up until I took a break from my blog to participate in National Novel Writing Month in November. Clearly, I should have made more of an effort to to stay current on this blog, because I completely fell out of the habit of posting here – and I really love continually…