Pink Door House

This week, to write about anything else seems trite. And yet I feel completely unequipped to enter the conversations regarding gun control, a society that normalizes violence, mental health.... So I remained quiet. Saw the girls off to school. Jason to work. Made another cup of coffee and another...and looked at my son. It's virtually impossible to wrap my mind around the fact that the shooter in Las Vegas was a mother's son. Conversations with family and neighbors indicate t

Fall's bounty. Each September the Farmer's Market vendors stack boxes of apples and tomatoes, peaches and peppers. Nothing awakens my pioneering genes like harvest season's steep per pound discount. I really do think it's in my blood. I remember the mysterious nook in my grandmother's basement, with it's huge jars of canned pears from the tree in their backyard. The jewel-colored jams my mom piles into neat rows in her freezer. When we moved to Moses Lake and traded Target fo

Instead of my usual two hour drive east, I'm receiving chemo in the local hospital today. The one where I gave birth to Eli three years ago. In many ways, it all began in this building. The sounds from those memories are out of harmony with the IV drip. Memories of the first time I cried through breastfeeding my newborn son, just three floors above where I'm sitting through treatment. I often wonder whether the threads of his story will ever become untangled from those of my

I read recently that parenting is simultaneously celebrating accomplishments and milestones, while grieving each stage that is left behind. In the fall, London and Quinn will start kindergarten. May brought with it preschool graduation...one step closer to those long days where their giggles fill classroom walls instead of the Pink Door House. Bittersweet. When I was first diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, I read that the average life expectancy was 33 months. The gi

A robin has nested in our back patio eaves. The nest is just out of reach. We see it from underneath. Observing her coming and going. Building and sitting. Sunday morning we noticed her land in the nest with a worm. This is new. When she left again, Jason slipped his camera up there. Sure enough, three brand new hatchlings! I am thrilled that we have this rare glimpse into something so magical. I have been overcome with Mama Bird's raw, instinctive drive to Mother. The opinio