Went to Wal-mart today and bought eighty dollars worth of crap. Two big packs of molded-plastic turquoise hangars, eighteen for two bucks. I got bath towels, a stack of four cheap ones, thin and quick to dry, for the lake and pool. I bought my four year-old a kickboard and a Kai-Lan video. I found some comfy, stretchy yoga pants, wonderful in their polyesterness; flattering in a deep brown. Fall colors are coming out now, those are my colors. Bought middle child a bright tye-dye t-shirt and picked up my third hose nozzle for the summer, they keep breaking, I... Continue reading

Gosh, today was a nearly-perfect day, and it was close to not happening at all. We were due in Wichita yesterday for Easter festivities and a funeral and I spent all morning packing my stuff, stuff for my three kids, and snacks for all. After much ado, we loaded into the car and head out. We had tried to take the better of our two cars, but at the last minute, it had a flat tire. About a half a mile down the road, my van gets a flat and sealed the deal. We werent' going to go after all.... Continue reading

I've been in a bit of a funk the past few days-angry and resentful-about everything. I know its due, in part, to a sugar binge I've been on...it started with the dark chocolate-with-sea salt bar we got in the store last Friday. It's an incredible combination, and it has quickly shot to the top of the chocolate heap. We sample it and recruit followers. It's easy-sugar is a drug-a powerful and provacative drug. So, anyway, I have been in a sugar-induced funk, and this morning, amidst the breakfast-fixing and lunch-packing, I was also chopping cheese to send with each of... Continue reading

Today its houseplants . I used to grow tons of houseplants, every surface in my house full of them, plus big tropicals like schefflera, fig, and palms, hogging all the space by the windows. I loved violets too, because of my Aunt. When I was a kid, she got us all started raising violets, and we gave them all names and delighted in their frequent blooms. In college I grew houseplants for sale. I would take cuttings from any plant I came across, even surreptiously a few times, from restaurants or businesses. I grew the cuttings through the summer, until... Continue reading

This story I am about to record is not a pleasant one, but one that seems to swirl through my thoughts with a sad regularity, especially since I've had children and cats of my own. Maybe if I lay it down here, it will stay, and quit pestering me with its wounded, meeeeooooow. It was so exciting to get a kitty, our first non-dog pet in the family! It was pure white with pink rimmed eyes, and it was young enough that when it curled up, it was the size of a softball. Our grandmother's cat had kittens and Dad... Continue reading

As she drove toward the state line, Marie let her mind do a play by play of her life since leaving home. Some people's lives change at the snap of a finger, like a train wreck, from which there is no going back, and that's how it had been since the day she was approached at the mall, by a modeling agent, who offered her the world--a way out, a better life for her struggling family--an offer she couldn't refuse. "Why do they have to want my daughter?" her father had asked her, hugging her tightly at the airport that... Continue reading

The baby's makin' fudge; it's really quite a mess. She's got flour on the ceiling, and eggs upon her dress. The baby's makin' fudge; it really looks like fun, After she adds the nuts, we hope that she'll be done. The baby's making' fudge; I hope we get a taste, She licks the spoon and bowl, so there isn't any waste. The baby's makin' fudge, and she's sticky from head to toe, She's kneading it and stretching it, and rolling it like dough. The baby's makin' fudge; its quite a site to see, She's clapping hands, giggling, and handing some... Continue reading

As I sit down to write my head is tingling, not with a creative idea or caffeine buzz, but with a concoction of naturally killing oils I applied to kill the lice my children brought home from school. My hair, heavy with slathered coconut oil to smother the tiny beasts, will be wrapped in a towel, beehive-syle, for the next hour. To the coconut oil, I added drops of rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, and tea tree oil from my natural arsenal, so it actually smells pretty good, albeit so strong my eyes are tearing. It all started on... Continue reading

Passion. Could ever a more loaded and ambiguous word exist? Just speaking the word passion sets a longing in motion, as it whispers through the lips and expels its heat to the universe. Its meaning, spinning in any number of directions, is, at its core, a strong feeling. Passion is love or lust or desire or anger or misery--all of these intensities qualify the word. Is it any surprise these opposite extremes of emotion are allowed expression in a single word? Unfulfilled. Could ever a more empty and bitter word exist? Its meaning is clear and is not open to... Continue reading

I'll never get this dream out of my head. I was probably seven or eight when I first had it, then it recurred over and over, haunting me with its anger. I am walking down a stone path in a park-like setting, an absolutely perfect park, painstakingly manicured, and all-abloom like the cover of a garden magazine. I am a child, dressed in a sunny yellow dress with lacey edges. I have Shirley Temple socks and shoes, and a yellow ribbon tied in a bow, sits atop my head. A graceful tree arches over the path ahead and I skip... Continue reading

My time is dark and deep and quiet. The background sounds, inaudible during the day, come forth, and remind me that the time for me is now. The hum of appliances, insect songs broadcast through a crack in the window, the brief crackle in my ears that occurs when I swallow, the tapping of keys on a keyboard--these are the sounds that usher my thoughts to their seats--for a night of play. Two hours ago there was dinner, prepared for three young bodies, fresh out of the tub. Muddy debris now clogging the drain from their afternoon of soccer in... Continue reading