a storyteller worth remembering.

she was a writing hero of mine.

i saw heartburn — a movie she wrote
based upon a novel she wrote
based upon her failed marriage to
watergate reporter carl bernstein —
in 1986, & i fell in love.

i fell in love with nora ephron.

[& meryl streep, but who isn't
in love with meryl streep?]



i scoured half-price bookstores searching for
out-of-print collections of her essays.

for a big-haired, curvy girl from texas,
trying to be taken seriously as a woman & a writer,
nora was the real deal:
a witty, wiry, jewish new yorker,
a first-wave feminist who also apparently
wanted a husband, children & a home with a fresh coat of paint.

& when i had read & re-read her earlier essay collections —
crazy salad, scribble scribble, wallflower at the orgy —
i thought i was in as deep as i possibly could be.

& then she wrote when harry met sally ... .

oy, vey.

& so it's with a truly heavy heart
i eulogize nora ephron, hero writer.

she was a humorist,
a journalist,
an essayist,
a novelist,
a playwright,
an oscar-nominated screenwriter,
a filmmaker,
a three-time wife
& a two-time mom.

nora ephron was born on may 19, 1941,
on the upper west side of manhattan.
she was the eldest of an all-girl quartet —
delia, amy & hallie her younger sisters.

all four became writers.

they came by it honestly, being the daughters
of hollywood screenwriters henry & phoebe,
who together penned the scripts of movies like
carousel & there's no business like show business,
among others.

[eventually, they wrote a screenplay based upon
nora during her college years;
take her, she's mine starred the extremely unlikely
casting choice of sandra dee as the nora-like lead.]

nora was only 4yo when her family moved to california.
she graduated from beverly hills high school,
& returned eastward to go to the all-women college of wellesley,
where she began writing for the school newspaper.

in the summer of 1961, she served as an intern
in the kennedy white house . . . later in life,
she feigned disappointment at being the only intern
president kennedy never chatted up.

nora graduated in 1962, & moved to nyc to become a journalist.
she became a mail girl at newsweek.
during the '62 newspaper strike, she contributed to a parody
of the new york post & the paper's publisher,
dorothy schiff, was impressed enough to hire her for realz.
nora stayed at the post for five years,
covering stories like the beatles' british invasion, &
a pair of seals at the coney island aquarium who refused to mate.

in the late 1960s, nora turned to magazine journalism,
writing keen, candid essays for the likes of esquire & new york.

she married & divorced prolific author dan greenburg.

in 1976, she married bernstein, who helped her career dually:
first, his discontent with the screenplay for
all the president's men led to him & nora trying to rework it —
her first experience with screenwriting; &
second, the couple's devastating divorce
led to nora's bestselling novel & eventual third film, heartburn.

nora developed her first original screenplay with friend alice arlen.
it was silkwood. picked up by award-winning director mike nichols,
it became the 1983 film starring award-winning actress meryl streep.

three years later, nora, nichols & streep reunited for heartburn.

three years later, rob reiner directed when harry met sally ... ,
a huge hit which established nora's gift for
romantic comedies & happy endings.

three years later, nora decided to try directing —
because, according to nora, she knew how powerless screenwriters are,
& she knew hollywood wasn't too interested in
making movies by or about women.

nora's directorial debut was this is my life,
a screenplay written with her sister delia,
based upon the novel by meg wolitzer.
it was sort of a flop.

but her next two films — sleepless in seattle
& you've got mail — both starring tom hanks & meg ryan,
were HUGE.

nora went on to write & direct several more hits,
including michael ['96], bewitched [2005] & her final film,
julie & julia [2009] — which also starred her now longtime gal pal, meryl.

nora received three oscar nominations
for best screenplay with silkwood, harry+sally &
sleepless. she also successfully returned to essay-writing
with the collections i feel bad about my neck & i remember nothing.
& she became an enthusiastic blogger for the huffington post.

in-between all that career, nora married italian author nick pileggi
— this third time, in 1987, the charm. [nick + nora? perfect!]

several years ago, she was diagnosed with a pre-leukemia condition
called myelodysplastic syndrome, but didn't reveal it publicly.

nora ephron died at 71yo of complications from the condition.
she leaves behind her husband, two sons by bernstein, & her sisters.

& me, an aspiring writer & woman in mourning
over the loss of a profoundly inspiring one.


here's a little quintessential ephron for your enjoyment —
nora speaking @ the 2004 american film institute
lifetime achievement award presentation for meryl streep:




image source: washington post.

nine@forty.

june 23rd is the 40th anniversary of title ix,
the equal opportunity in education act —
landmark legislation that helped even up
the playing field for american girls.

37 simple words —

no person in the united states shall, on the basis of sex,
be excluded from participation in,
be denied the benefits of, or
be subjected to discrimination under
any education program or activity
receiving federal financial assistance —

that opened up a whole new world of opportunities
for girls across america, from athletics
[female participation has risen over 1,000%]
to science, technology, engineering & math.

espn.com is featuring a section of its site
dedicated to this auspicious anniversary,
including an interesting article called
"nine before their time," profiling some
outstanding american women athletes who achieved their
impressive accomplishments long before title nine was around.

here are three whom i found particularly fascinating:

:: babe didrikson zaharias.
a fellow texan, babe was born mildred ella in port arthur in 1911.
she was an all-american basketball player,
a two-time olympic track & field gold medalist,
& a golf champion who won 82 tournaments &
helped found the lpga.

she also played organized baseball & softball,
was an expert diver, bowler & roller-skater,
a competitive pocket billiards player,
a recording singer & harmonica player,
& an excellent seamstress who sewed most of her own clothes.

babe was employed directly following high school
as a secretary for the employers casualty insurance company;
the firm really hired her for her athletic abilities —
they wanted her to lead their basketball team to victory,
which she did with the 1931 amateur athletic union championship.

representing her company at the 1932 aau championships,
babe was a team of one, competing on her own in eight of ten events.
she won five of the eight events & tied for a sixth,
meanwhile setting five world records in the javelin throw,
high jump, 80-meter hurdles & baseball throw, all in an afternoon.

babe won the championship for her firm single-handedly.

following her two gold & one silver medals won at the
1932 los angeles olympics, babe took up golf.
by 1950, she had won every golf title available —
including 17 straight women's amateur victories,
a record which still stands today.

babe didrikson zaharias died of colon cancer in 1956 at the age of 45.

:: conchita cintron.
"la diosa de oro," they called her. "the golden goddess,"
for her shining blonde hair. born in 1922, conchita grew up in lima, peru,
& debuted as a bullfighter at 13yo. at 17yo,
she was gored in the thigh & refused treatment until she
finished off her foe. which she did, then collapsed.

but the dramatic pinnacle of her career came in spain in 1949.
women there weren't permitted to fight the bull on foot;
they had to fight on horseback, then let a man finish off the foe.
conchita requested permission from the spanish president to dismount;
he denied her. so she seized her male replacement's sword,
marched into the ring, & as the charging bull approached,
she flung the sword aside & simply grazed the animal's
shoulders with her fingers. she was arrested [& later pardoned],
but the crowd loved her.

she fought only once more, retiring from bullfighting at 27yo.
she spent the remainder of her life writing her memoirs,
serving as the portuguese correspondent for several
latin-american newspapers, & successfully breeding portuguese pointers.
conchita cintron died of a heart attack in 2009 at the age of 86.

:: althea gibson.
known as "the jackie robinson of tennis," althea gibson
broke the sport's color barrier, beginning with her historic debut
at the 1950 u.s. championships. she went on to become
the first black player to compete — & eventually, win — at
wimbledon, to win the french open & to become the u.s. national champ.

between 1956 & 1958, althea won five grand slam events.
she retired from tennis with 56 career victories,
only to go on to break the color barrier in golf.
in 1964, althea debuted with the lpga & played on the tour
until 1971. in retirement, althea penned her autobiography,
dabbled in singing & acting, & worked in several public-service positions.
althea gibson died of circulatory collapse in 2003 at the age of 76.

cosmo wha??!?!?

cosmopolitan magazine's website,
cosmopolitan.com,
recently published an article that
was not a quiz,
was not about pleasing men,
& contained no sexual references.

yes, that's what i said —
NO sexual references.

in fact, the article was, dare i say,
feminist, extolling virtues of women mostly
unrelated to our physical appearance or sexual prowess.

needless to say, it has me rethinking that whole
'old dogs/new tricks' adage.

anyway, the article is titled "12 things women do
better than men," & the information in it was based upon
actual studies & surveys conducted by
actual smarty-pants academic types.

a few of my favorite tidbits:

:: women are cleaner —
a san diego state university study
found that men's workspaces have 10 - 20% more bacteria
than women's, because — drumroll, please —
women are more hygienic than men. shocking.

:: women graduate college more often & more quickly —
not only are more women enrolled in college,
but also more women than men follow through to earn their degrees,
& more women than men do so within five years,
according to the u.s. department of education.

:: women interview better —
a university of western ontario study
found that women deal with the stress of job interviews
better than men; we freak more beforehand, but
do better at the actual event.

:: women are more recession-proof —
about 80% of americans who have lost their jobs since 12.07
are men, according to the u.s. bureau of labor statistics.

:: women invest better —
a study of 100k portfolios showed
women's investment returns outperform men's by about 7%.

:: women live longer —
among the world's centenarians [folks 100+yo],
85% of them are women, says the new england
centenarian study. across the board, women continue
to outlive men by 5 - 10 years.

ok, coming clean: one of the dozen items was
about women "evolving hotter," but it still
didn't directly reference sex . . . & besides,
truth is a viable defense.


image source: ginger rogers, via pirated pinterest. :}

a disco queen worth remembering.

she never cared for being called
“the queen of disco,”
but once begrudgingly confessed,
“it’s nice to be the queen of something.”

she feared being pegged as a one-dimensional performer,
& she was anything but –
winning 5 grammy awards for singing rock, r&b, & dance music,
donna summer sold over 20 million records,
enjoyed 14 top ten singles, &
had 3 consecutive double-disc albums hit #1.

& to be truthful, it was disco that launched her to superstardom.

she was born ladonna adrian gaines
on new year’s eve, 1948, in boston,
one of seven children to a schoolteacher mom
& a butcher/janitor/electrician dad.

originally trained as a gospel singer,
donna grew up singing in church,
& decided early on music was her calling
& would be her career.

she began her professional life
in the late 1960s in europe,
where she performed in a german production
of the rock musical hair.

over the next eight years,
she performed in many other productions,
including godspell & porgy & bess,
& married austrian actor hellmuth sommer.

when they divorced, donna kept the surname, but changed the spelling.

donna recorded a few times, as a solo & with others,
but unsuccessfully – until 1975, when love to love you baby
become an overnight smash, thanks to 17 minutes
of explicit lyrics & simulated orgasms.

donna returned to the u.s. a star of the mirror-ball movement.

she went on to record several disco staples –
many of which she co-wrote –
such as last dance, bad girls, hot stuff, she works hard for the money,
& [my personal favorite] macarthur park.

[it’s difficult to pick a favorite lyric of that bizarro ballad,
but here’s one for the running:
between the parted pages
we were pressed
in love’s hot fevered iron
like a striped pair of pants.]

but fame left donna, like it does so many, empty.
she suffered from depression, tried suicide,
& ultimately sought relief in her singing roots:
by 1979, donna was a born-again christian.

she remarried musician/producer bruce sudano.
they remained married for over 30 years,
with dual homes in nashville, tn & naples, fl.

they wrote songs together, & donna continued
to record & perform – she honored president obama’s
nobel peace prize with a concert in oslo in 2009.

donna summer died may 17th
of lung cancer few knew she was struggling with.
she was 63yo.

she’s survived by her husband,
three daughters & four grandchildren,
a brother & four sisters.



we’ll never have that recipe again . . .

dance with the angels, disco queen.


image source: starpulse.com.

hit&run hula.

my happy place is hawai’i.

not greatly original or unique, i realize,
but whoomp, there it is.

i love all the things people love about it –
the balmy breezes, the warm waters, the natural splendor,
the island-y rhythm, the comfortable clothing, the spam.

but above all, maybe, i love hawai’ian music.
nothing is better than sitting out on a lanai by the sea
with a chilly umbrella drink & a live hawai’ian band.

& a live hawai’ian band is incomplete without a hula dancer,
lovely & smiling as she interprets the music through her body,
moving with such hypnotizing fluidity, she’s like the ocean herself.

so i’ve been a student of hula for almost two years.
i’m still a beginner – more like a rain puddle than the ocean –
but i love it. love love love it.

huge shout-out to my beautiful-inside-&-out instructor,
vivian kaw of island rhythms –
an amazingly talented teacher, & extremely kind, patient & positive
with remedial cases like me.

it’s vivian who introduced me to hit-&-run hula –
it’s like a regular flash mob, only hipper. [hee.]

a little youtube trolling, & i discovered a series
of hit&run hula videos from patrick makuakane
& his halau [school] hula, na lei hulu i ka wekiu [hula that evolves].

they staged a hit&run hula event
in san francisco on august 15, 2009,
entertaining frisco folks throughout the day
with surprise performances throughout the city –
places like golden gate park, the apple store,
a bay area rapid transit station & a castro district intersection.

here’s my favorite – 10a @ union square:



i left my heart in hawai’i . . .
but until my next return to my happy place,
hula class is a super-fun substitute!!

in austin & interested in hula?
click here for workshop info!


image source: hula moon by nancy hoke.

mother's day.

according to recent studies,
if we paid stay-at-home moms
a salary commensurate with their duties,
then they’d earn $117,000 a year.

meanwhile, mothers out in the workforce
continue to face a more than 20% pay gap,
& working women with children earn another
7 - 14% less than their childless peers.

so while a grocery-store bouquet, bag o’ candy
& some homemade cards are nice once a year
[ok, woefully inadequate – but well-intentioned],
wtf is happening the other 364 days?

i am enough,
but apparently not quite enough
to be compensated appropriately for my contributions –
to the company, to the family, to the world?

representing that crazy hybrid, the work-at-home mama,
please permit me to respond to that bullsh*t with a big old HMPH.

gender inequality is a cultural conundrum
developed over the history of the world.
so, just like the baby weight, it won’t be shed overnight.
or maybe even over our lifetimes.

but, also like the baby weight, it can be shed,
& it begins with baby steps. our baby steps.

here’s an inspiring idea from jennifer siebel,
ceo & founder of missrepresentation.org:

before we give a woman coming into the room the once-over
& before we feel threatened by another woman’s accomplishments,
let’s pause, dig down deep & see where those judgments begin:

the assumption of scarcity & the sense that there isn’t enough for all of us.

reject those thoughts, & rather, celebrate the fact
that we are all in this together –
that one woman’s success is a success for us all.

in accepting these feelings of abundance & connection,
& incorporating them into our lives,
we pave the path for a more just & equitable future for everyone.

dear mamas,
you do enough.
you are enough.

& there is enough –
room, money, opportunity, respect, happiness, success –
for every one of us.

so let’s start acting like it &
begin the change ourselves, for ourselves.

& if you like, then you can
put down the cookie, too, while you’re at it.

happy mother’s day.


image source: cutestlife.com.

you are enough.

truth: i think judging people is wrong,
yet i'm embarrassingly judgmental.

& i don't know why . . .
but i suspect it mostly comes from my own insecurities.

which, while i wholly own them, are cultivated & nurtured
by the media & its merciless promotion of the
myth of the 21st-century superwoman.

as american women, we're up against some pretty harsh cultural beliefs.
like, if you don't have it all & have it all together,
if you're not doing it all & doing it all 'correctly,'
if you're not being everything to everybody while wearing a smile,

then you're f*cking up

& are essentially inadequate
as a woman, a wife, a mother & a professional, because —
& here's the biggest whopper of them all —
there are women who are having & doing & being all that, & a bag of chips.

[but only organic chips made from locally grown potatoes,
picked by legal but disadvantaged immigrants for fair pay,
free of trans fats & endorsed by michelle obama.]

pssst . . . those all-that-+-chips women?
they don't exist.

which is my main issue with the recent controversial
"are you mom enough?" time magazine cover.

it's all about fostering feelings of inadequacy
& competition among women, bullseye-targeting the very area
where we tend to feel the greatest vulnerability: motherhood.

confession #2: when i saw this cover,
i judged.

not the breastfeeding — breastfeeding is great,
i'm the first to support moms being able to breastfeed
whenever & wherever they need to,
& most images of breastfeeding i find sweet & touching.

but . . . declaration tre:
based in large part on my personal experience, i've got some
deep-seated issues with the way breastfeeding is, excuse the expression,
force-fed to women within our society.

breastfeeding for the first year is positioned as
the. best. thing. for. every. child. period.
so women who can't or don't breastfeed their baby,
or who can't or don't do it for a full year,
are implicitly not doing the best thing for their child,
& are therefore less-than as mothers.

that is, less than mothers who do breastfeed for the full first year.
again, a lie that feeds the perception of inadequacy & competition among women.

but back to my cover-judging . . .

not the concept of breastfeeding of a 3yo
nor the concept of attachment parenting.
while i personally don't think i could breastfeed a child
beyond about 18mos with emotional comfort,
or practice attachment parenting
[my husband & i agree, one of the best household rules
we ever established was our 'everybody sleeps in their own bed' decree],
if it works for your family — meaning parents & children alike —
then go for it. it's just not something that i feel would work for me.
& as we all know, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

so, here's what i did judge:

:: the image time chose to use:
model-esque 26yo mom dressed in a cami & skinny jeans,
posed in a defiant stance, seemingly oblivious to her preschooler
son standing awkwardly up on a chair, with a facial expression
of complete discomfort as he suckles while twisting toward the camera.
wtf?

at the top of this post, you can see an alternate shot
from the same photo shoot, of mama & boy in a cradling embrace
as they share a quiet nursing moment.
this, time magazine, is what breastfeeding
& attachment parenting are really about:
nurturing, nourishing, bonding & love.

but that sh*t don't sell magazines.

:: the mom's exposure not of her breast, but of her child.

she is an adult consenting to quasi-expose her breast
& her beliefs on the cover of a national magazine
[& subsequently, international media of all sorts].

he is a little boy, unable to consent to having a photo of himself
suckling at his mother's breast on the cover of a national magazine
& available internationally forever [once it's on the internet . . .].

add to that imbalance the fact that this particular mom
has a blog called iamnotthebabysitter.com
where she refers to herself as a narcissist [dingdingding!],
has a photo of both of her sons [ages 3yo & 5yo] breastfeeding
simultaneously [the elder son, incidentally,
was adopted from ethiopia late 2010 . . . ?],
& a knee-slapper post — with photos — of the brothers
discovering — & yes, taste-testing — her edible undies,
& it all adds up to, for me, a mom who put her own self-interest
above & beyond her child's best interests, &
in a way that may prove to be damaging to them.

to be fair, this particular mom also seems like a
genuinely good-hearted person trying to do good in the world —
she advocates strongly for breastfeeding, adoption &
multi-racial families; she volunteers; she even launched
her own nonprofit [the fayye foundation] to help
ethiopia's orphan crisis by supporting health clinics
offering antiretroviral medication & prenatal care, &
by providing orphanages with food, supplies & healthcare access.

i'm not trying to accuse her of being an evil person
or even a bad mom. i just feel she made an extremely poor —
& unfortunately, lasting — parenting choice
with the whole breastfeeding-her preschooler-on-the-cover-of-time thing.

:: the utterly offensive women vs. women headline.

the photo got all the attention,
but the headline, for me, is much more egregious.

"are you mom enough?"
again, wtf?

honestly, i feel this sensationalistic cover is just another grenade
lobbed our way in america's apparent "war on women."
the deeply appalling thing here is how it sets women up
to compare, compete & hate on each other — as mothers.

it is, in a word, shameful.

especially assuming the time team members who put it together,
if not women themselves, then at minimum all had/have mothers of their own.

lisa belkin @ huffingtonpost.com said it perfectly
in her piece "no. i am not mom enough."
so i'll leave the final word of this lengthy post to her,
with a resounding AMEN. [& i want to be her when i grow up] from me:

i am not mom enough to take the bait. ...
to feel inferior, or superior, or defensive, or guilty —
or anything at all, if it means i am
comparing myself to other mothers.

motherhood is — should be — a village,
where we explore each others' choices, learn from them,
respect them, & then go off & make our own.

i refuse to see either a heroine or an extremist
in time's cover photo. i won't condemn her or praise her.
i will not stoop to the level of pretending that
we are so unidimensional that we can be divided by a lifestyle choice.

i am not mom enough.

bear-y cute update.

just a quick update on jewel, ely, minnesota's 3yo black bear
who gave birth to two cubs last january,
much to the delight of the thousands of web-watchers tuned in to her den cam,
via the north american bear center & the wildlife research institute.

mama bear jewel & cubs herbie & fern are all healthy &
spending early summer out & about [it's a balmy 70+F during the days].
the cubs are now 4.5mos, & rather a big ol' bear paw-ful.

from this video [dated 5.12.12], you can see climbing & hanging & swinging
seem to be among their favorite activities, apparently to their mother's weary chagrin.



you can see more videos of jewel's family & other bears being tracked by the wri|nabc
at the bearstudy youtube channel.
or read all about them at the wri's daily updates.


image source: herbie full-throttle, up a tree as usual.

jessica's daily affirmation.

her name is jessica.
& she is a great way to begin a week.
or a day, an hour, even a moment.

she was 4yo when it was recorded.
her dad uploaded the video to youtube in march 2009.
in march 2012, it reached ten-million hits.

today, jessica is 14yo, & ok with being an internet sensation.
good thing, because the hits just keep on coming
for jessica's daily affirmation:



you can do anything good!
yeah! yeah! yeah!

now get out there & be full. of. awesome.
just like jessica.


image source: grumpy girl clothing.

martha, my dear.

i'm not sure whether i've ever mentioned my dear friend martha.
or, as she's become known for people around me now who never knew her,
my friend martha who died.

martha & i became friends in 1981.
i was a freshman, she was a sophomore. at different high schools.
but with a mutual gang of pals.

she was tall, tan, blonde, beautiful,
brilliant, hilarious, creative & kind.
i have no memories of her in which she's not smiling or laughing.

& i've never had a better friend than she, even now.

she came to the university of texas at austin a year earlier than i.
we lived in the same dormitory for a year once i followed.
from there, our friendship thinned a little,
as i pursued journalism & she medicine.

she returned to dallas for her internship,
i moved to tallahassee for my first big job.
she married her longtime love, rob.
i fell in love with my future husband, hank.

& by some alignment of the stars,
she & rob returned to austin for her residency,
while i returned to austin for my guy.
martha & i rekindled our friendship.

she become a general practitioner,
& she & rob had a daughter, kaleigh.
the three of them were at our wedding. i've got a photo somewhere.

she became pregnant with their second daughter.
she & i shared lunch [kaleigh, too] when she was about six months along;
i've got a clear picture of her in my mind, standing on the sidewalk by the restaurant,
trying to navigate her swollen belly to wrangle 2yo kaleigh,
who was squirming between her legs.

she's laughing in the spring sunshine at her own absurdity as i back my car up & wave goodbye.

two weeks later, she was dead.

she collapsed at her office midday, regained consciousness long enough
to provide rob's cell number, & never awoke again.
her colleagues at the hospital where she had done her residency
worked for four hours trying to revive her. but ultimately, they failed.

she was 31.

they delivered baby tess & put her on life support.
but she had lost too much oxygen during resuscitation efforts.
she was braindead. rob had to sign the order to stop life support,
& held his tiny daughter as she slipped away to join her mama.

then he went home to raise their other daughter, alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

this weekend, kaleigh graduated from high school.
the facebook photo of kaleigh in her royal blue cap & gown,
flanked by rob in his light blue dress shirt, both of them beaming
with well-earned pride & relief, is simultaneously heartwarming & heartbreaking.

rob is an awesome dad, clearly the best choice martha ever could have made,
even had she known she would be leaving him to parent their child all on his own.
& kaleigh is an amazingly perfect blend of the two of them,
smart & funny & sweet & happy, with an easy smile & a unique loveliness about her.

i was invited to a post-graduation get-together at their home.
it was good to see them both [it had been rather a while],
& to reconnect with martha's mom & one of her three sisters.

kaleigh wore a university of colorado boulder tee to tout
her destination next autumn, where she'll be pursuing her design degree.

there were smiles all around, as there are at such celebratory occasions.

but as i began my drive home post-party, i lost it.
i sobbed — for the depth with which i still miss my friend,
for her missing this milestone in her daughter's life,
& for kaleigh missing her mom being there.

& i drove home to my two crazy little blessings, healthy & relatively happy
& frequently annoying as the day is long
[especially the 13yo, who carries martha as her middle name],
& i remembered to send up a prayer of gratitude for today,

when we are all still here together.


martha, summer 1983, about to be a hs sr.

the new january.

ah . . . the melee month of may is over.

for moms of school-age children —
as my dear friend ana says —
may is the new december.
except sans jesus & bing.

it's full of school-year end
exams, field trips, performances, celebrations, gifts, thank-yous . . .
not to mention summer preparations
for camps, trips & the unavoidable "i'm bored" times in-between.

so, i accidentally took the month of may off from the blog.
i've got a ton of posts ready to be written,
but have had no hours ready to be dedicated to blog-post writing.

so eventually, a little past mid-month, i released the intention
[& the self-induced anxiety + guilt] & let. it. go.
to be continued today, june 1st.

ta-da!
[abbreviation of tum-ta-da-da!]

so . . .
hello, june.

hello, summer days.

hello, lightening [not lightning; lighten-ing].

hello, sleeping a little later.

hello, moving a little more.

hello, reading a lot more.

hello, creating a ton more.

hello, mama retreat.

hello, road trip.

hello, birthday karaoke.

hello, serious decluttering.

hello, pool.

hello, popsicles.

hello, fun.

& hello again, blogging + bloggees.

happy we're all here!! :)


image source: honeytree @ etsy.