wife

Category

April 2, 2018

The Bag

Let’s talk about The Bag. The hand/purse/satchel/work/weekender/lunch/tote/gym bag. The wristlet/cross-body/shoulder/back-pack bag. I have leather and canvas; nylon and vinyl. I have bags with pockets and those without; bags with zippers and open top buckets. I have brown and navy; black, taupe and tan; pink and red. I have a bag for everyday and one for vacations. I have a bag for the beach and one for the mountains. I have a bag that holds the bags. What. Is. The. Deal?...

December 29, 2017

The Space Between

It’s the awkward week between Christmas and New Year’s. The kids are home, my husband took the week off, family and friends have been in and out. Months ago, as my partner was making the call schedule, he asked each of us to list the days we wanted off. I put in my request to have this week free, knowing that several other partners would do the same, and that I probably would end up with at least one call....

December 1, 2017

Organized

I am so organized. You don’t even know…My shirts are arranged in my closet by color; each of my upcoming conferences/trips has its own manilla folder complete with checklists and a pocket for receipts; I keep duplicates of all my toiletries and make up at home and work so I am never at either place without something; I catalog my favorite recipes on Pinterest and spend sleepless nights on call choosing what to make for dinner the next night. I...

November 16, 2017

Joy

When the alarm went off this morning, I tapped the snooze button over and over for an hour. Finally, I made it downstairs for my morning ritual of coffee and devotions. By coincidence, or more likely God’s humor, my personal reading and the church’s automatic email, were both about joy. Soul soothing words, as recently, life has felt a little bitter, a little empty. Jarred by the sudden death of a dear friend’s husband and my welling anger of American...

October 25, 2017

We Can(‘t) Give Up

We just got home from a great family vacation…well, pretty great until the last day when I got mildly sea sick. (Thank you, Jesus, for Dramamine.) Fortunately, the giant ship rocked us very little on our way to Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We got off the boat for a few hours to go through the trinket shopping gauntlet but more impressively to Dunn’s River Falls where we donned our stylish water shoes and climbed up a gorgeous waterfall! It’s a 600 foot...

September 11, 2017

Lucy

Now that the kids are a little older, they can all wipe their own faces and brush their own teeth (mostly), some (with significant harassment) do their own laundry, and they can read their own bedtime stories, I have found a few minutes to read, too. I mean, like, for fun. Like, not journals or textbooks. I recently read JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy and Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash: The 400 Year Untold History of Class in America. I believe our family roots...

July 18, 2017

The Process

Following the invitation to our friends’ lake house for the weekend came one more text…”So glad you guys can come! The big meal is Sunday. But if you want to participate in the cook, y’all should head down on Saturday…” The boys throw on their old t-shirts, grab a cold drink, and head down to the outdoor kitchen. All. Day. The smoker and the grill and the barrel all get warmed up and stoked and prepared; the meat gets a...

May 10, 2017

Dear Memphis,

Dear Memphis, You are not that pretty. Actually, in some places you are kinda dirty. Your river is muddy, everybody thinks you are dangerous, and you are very expensive to fly to. You are famous for BBQ, the Blues, and a King who never really ruled anyone. You have a strange pyramid in the middle of your city, you have a sports team named for an animal that doesn’t live even remotely close to you, and you have a “island”...

April 18, 2017

Weary Soul

Yesterday, I came home from work a little early. I just simply could not. do. it. any. longer. Total exhaustion. I wandered around the house aimlessly, in a fog. While trying to get my younger boys ready for the Cub Scouts Pack meeting, I mumbled my words…or couldn’t find words altogether…they got lost somewhere in my head and I couldn’t get them out of my mouth. “C’mon boys! Put on the…you know…the thing. That…whatever it’s called…” I faded quickly at...

March 31, 2017

A Different Conversation

Last week, Allie, my 14-year-old daughter, and I went to the doctor together. Neither of us are sick. We are preparing to travel out of the country together, so we set up an appointment with a travel medicine physician, to be sure our immunizations are up to date and that we have our malaria prophylaxis covered. I handed the doctor the tattered stack of papers I have been carrying around since medical school, proving I have had my tetanus shots...