If you haven’t heard, the housing market (for buyers) is pretty terrible. Particularly, for first-time middle-class buyers like ourselves, it seems impossible to find a house that meets our criteria. The story of the day is that you see a house you like on Zillow, you send it to your realtor, you go see it, by the time you get there it has 15 offers on it and when you go check to see how much it sold for it was $40,000 above asking. I keep telling people off in my head and asking them to PLEASE go look where you can afford and leave the houses I can afford for ME. T H A N K Y O U!

There are people who talk, and there are people who do. Aunt Phyllis DID! For the people she loved, she gave, worked, helped, created, cared, researched, went and fought - without second thought and without question. I’m blessed to be one of the people she loved. I’m blessed to have been reassured of that love through her dedicated action for me and my family. She did. ❤️

I’ve been forced to feel like Mary thrice in his season. First, through the anticipation of carrying a new child who’s unknown to you and the world with the potential for so much light and goodness, and feeling unworthy or unequipped to follow through on forming them. Second, the anxiety and fright of a lost (unhealthy, runaway, scared, disappointed) child, there’s no more paralyzing feeling than not knowing what’s going on with your kid. Third, when he came back to life and I remembered the promise of a child who God undoubtedly is with.

I’m usually not a big fan of “chewing the meat and spitting out the bones” because often the meat ain’t even seasoned right itself. But, in this case, if we’re going to do it with Christmas and Easter (and Thanksgiving and Communion and vestments and wedding rings and the days of the week and the months of the year), we can certainly do it for Halloween.

In the black of an almost winter morning, I woke up on my living room floor. Having to remind myself that the cause of sleep outside of our bed was back pain that only a hard floor can relieve, I simultaneously scrambled to make sure I didn’t oversleep. My body woke itself up, as if it was anticipating something. 

You’re a genius, and that’s no exaggeration of the word. I’m unsure if it’s the dictionary reading, the crossword puzzles or the 100 games of solitaire per day, but whatever it is, it’s real. You are intelligent, masterfully articulate, uncommonly decisive and shamelessly authentic.

Unless a man is permanently friendzoned and perfectly okay with that, it is a rare occurrence that a man introduces a woman to another man.