A previous version of this post was published to Mom.com on October 9, 2020. “Why aren’t you on social media that much anymore?” friends and colleagues now ask me.”Mental health,” I reply. They instantly get it. Prior to 2017, I used to throw around the words “mental health” as a respectful yet passive casual catchphrase…
focused+fit
10 Years of Mom Blog. (Am I pregnant again?)
Ten years. One hundred and twenty months. Five hundred and twenty weeks. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days. Eighty seven thousand, six hundred hours. Five million and two hundred fifty-six thousand minutes. (Did I do that math right? Blame distance learning.) To be less poetic about it: I’ve officially been a mom — and…
Normal life cancelled? Get a puppy.
A previous version of this post was published in The Fresno Bee on Sunday August 9, 2020. It’s been a summer all right. Haven’t posted here in about a month (more!) thanks to most folks losing their brains and all previously-functioning reasoning skills. Spring, Easter, Summer and now ‘Back to School’ season were shamefully cancelled…
100 Years of Good Advice. Happy Birthday, Grandma.
The following post previously published in The Fresno Bee on April 5, 2020. This weekend, my Grandma turns 100 years old and none of us will be able to celebrate with her. Whoever penned ‘life isn’t fair’ can put this one in their book — you make it to 100 years old and can’t even…
2020: Small Choices, Big Results.
A previous version of the following piece was originally published in The Fresno Bee on January 4, 2020. Hello 2020! I tend to start each new year with new goals for self care, a personal mental checklist if you will. Call it a habit of analyzing what the previous year brought, what it didn’t bring,…
October Hauntings: Ghosts, grief & guts to get up.
Everyone has their own month — a month that haunts us, that reminds us of the dark, that sneaks up and tries to scare us when we let our guard down for a second. Mine is October — but not because of Halloween. October now delivers me ghosts. October is now an annual, tumultuous reset…
Dear Daughter, We Are Officially Halfway. (And here’s what I see…)
Dear Daughter, I’m not sure how or why we got here so fast. Halfway, they say. Halfway to 18, halfway to college. Halfway until you are gone from this home as a child. NINE. Nine years of you. Nine years of a reinvented me (being mommy). Nine years of love and life and laughing —…
