My best friend Nicole is my real-life super hero. My real-life super hero endured sexual abuse from a close family member for most of her childhood. Nicole and I became friends as teenagers, not terribly long after her abuser had chosen to take his own life. She was only 14. Over the years I have watched Nicole bravely and tirelessly…
You can be in countless places in my home state and randomly and without notice shout out “O-H!” at the top of your lungs and people will not look at you strangely or think you’ve gone insane. In fact, they will more-often-than-not respond to you with a smile, and then proceed to excitedly and voluntarily throw their arms up over…
Be who He made you to be. Really, that’s pretty self-explanatory and all that truly needs to be said. But I fully realize that I, personally, need to stop and meditate on that first sentence for more than just a nanosecond, because lately it has been showing up in my life on a regular, noticeable, persistent basis. In fact, it…
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I’m not sure if you would prefer I be honest with you about this project or lie directly to your face. If we’re being perfectly honest, like the flavor of BFF honest that informs you the color of your kitchen is reminiscent of baby crap smeared on your walls or that your deviled eggs could use some improvement; that kind…
Kids want to know they are special and unique. That you see them and love them. They want to know you know and appreciate the little things about them like their favorite colors, animals, objects and activities. Do they like motorcycles or robots? Flowers or birdies? Biking or baseball? Lady bugs or butterflies? Music or dance? Red or blue? Pink…
Just days after completing the last of what seemed like hundreds of projects on our second home remodel (which took us years to complete because we worked on it on weekends, after work, and in between taking care of little ones), and breathing a giant sigh of relief, my husband and I purchased our third home to remodel: The colonial on…
Family traditions are such a beautiful way of passing down the significance of life’s daily events from generation to generation. I have so many sweet memories of my family’s traditions; my mom always worked so hard to keep them alive in our household. One of my favorites is a practice that I still carry on for my children, and I…
