As a parent with young kids, finding time to recharge can feel impossible. But it is so essential, at least for me. I think about the phrase "put on your oxygen mask first" when it comes to my own self-care which includes quiet alone time. As an introvert this kind of time is the difference between feeling like myself and being overwhelmed. Personally I love having time to journal or to work on enjoyable projects like family photobooks or planning Christmas at a leisurely pace. I can tell that I am a more calm and present parent when I have... Read more →

Chris attended a neighborhood protest. After I took this picture he added the "[forward]" at the bottom. Being anti-racist isn't something to check off a list. It's a lifelong practice of learning, examining my own privilege and bias, doing better, showing up, and modeling and teaching anti-racism to my kids. Repeat, repeat, repeat. In thinking about how to continue practicing anti-racism I thought about what I can do at different effort levels. Because even at this time while I have little bandwidth and am at home I can still be actively anti-racist. What I've come up with for now is... Read more →

Lately I've been loving my evening routine. I haven't always had such a structured evening routine or intentionally spent so much time on myself before getting into bed, but now that my routine has evolved I find myself looking forward to it every night. The parts that include getting the boys ready for bed are pretty easy and enjoyable but I especially enjoy my evening habits that are just to help me wind down and relax. I know our evening routine will change so much once our baby arrives so I wanted to capture what my evenings look like right... Read more →

Sundays are a beginning and an end: the end of the weekend, the start of a new week. After several days of being out in the world and feeling the influence of so much input I love to make Sundays a day to reset; to exist only in the world that includes our home and family. I wrote about the concept of the Sunday home that I love so much years ago (look how little the boys are!) and I still think about creating a Sunday home. I find it comforting to look for the rituals in our life and... Read more →

Little things I'm so glad to have done. Clockwise from top left: fixing a broken picture frame, organizing my makeup, simplifying our key ring, hanging a jewelry organizer, installing a flagpole bracket. Does fixing a broken photo frame have anything to do with overall happiness? I'm starting to think it might, at least for me. Little to-do list items tend to clutter in my mind. I think this is a result of being a details person and from my love of efficiency. I notice the little things as I go about my day: I see that the door out to... Read more →

When it came to health goals for 2019 I couldn't get excited about committing to any one health habit. And so I picked 12! Here's how it will work: for each month of 2019 I will challenge myself to do a healthy habit every day, and each month will have a different habit challenge. The habits aren't cumulative so when the month is done I can stop doing pushups, stop tracking my food, whatever. I'll only focus only on the current month's challenge. In coming up with the 12 different ideas I wanted to pick challenges that were do-able enough... Read more →

Usually a resident on my bedside table, I've banished my phone from the bedroom. We go to bed together. We wake up together. We're hardly ever apart. To describe a relationship with a person in this way speaks of new love. But taken to describe another relationship, the one many of us have with our phones, the words betray a love twisted into dependency, and perhaps ring a bit too true. At times I could describe my own relationship with my phone in this intimate way, and it doesn't make me feel great. Even though I try to be conscious... Read more →

I grew up watching my parents read the paper, as you probably did too. My dad would often leave the arts and culture section of the daily paper on the table so that I could read it as I ate my morning cereal. Later I think it was the full paper but the arts and culture was the perfect place to start for a young reader. When my parents read something remarkable or about something they disagreed with in the paper they would talk about it. In that way my parents modeled the practice of reading about the world and... Read more →

Here's something I've noticed: managing your calendar, reminders, and to-dos can now be done with a zillion apps yet paper planners seem to be enjoying a resurgence. (A paper planner is even one of the cheapish thing that can change your life.) This makes me think there must be many other people who, like me, are trying to figure out the perfect digital-paper harmony. It's taken a while but I think I've finally settled on an effective system using both digital and paper calendar and task management. The challenge with using both is that they have to work together. Otherwise,... Read more →

A fresh year and a fresh batch of a dozen monthly goal posts is in front of me. It a good place to be. I've been collecting quotes for a while and thought that I'd pick one each month to accompany my goals. Just a little bit of inspiration for us all. Read more →