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The Brat, The Boots, and the Barefoot Prophet

As I sit down to write this blog, I’ve realized there’s been an overarching trend in my last few entries… I am an incredible brat. This is true when I read each blog individually. It’s also true when I zoom out and read the overall narrative of my writing since we first blew up on Reddit. I met an amazing guy when I was the ripe age of thirteen, and I’ve spent nearly every day since being an absolute pain in the ass. I’m thirty-four now. I write a lot of these blogs almost like diary entries. I try to make them entertaining for the people who read them, but a big part of why I write is to have a record of this season of our lives. Sometimes that season is big and exciting and a lot of people can sympathize or empathize with me. Other times I come across as a bratty, boring housewife who doesn’t appreciate how good she has it. After this long preamble, this blog will be the latter. One of the things that has always driven me crazy about my husband is how he can have 30,000 irons in the ...
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Tucson in the news and how I turned that into a day long fight with Bubs

As most of you know, we moved from our childhood hometown in Texas to Tucson, Arizona last year. For the most part, it’s starting to feel like home—and while I had my reservations at first, I’m actually starting to like it here. One of the things I’ve come to appreciate most is how quiet it is. Tucson is a very “normal” mid-sized American city of about a million people. We have all the same stores, all the same chain restaurants, mixed with a lot of local flair inspired by the Native American and Hispanic cultures that were here long before Tucson became a genuine Old West railroad town. (The O.K. Corral—the site of the most famous shootout—is less than an hour from our house in Tombstone.) That was until this week. Earlier this week, Today Show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother was reportedly kidnapped from her home on the north side of town. I tend to personalize stories like this anyway, but Savannah Guthrie has been something of a personal hero of mine since her reporting on the ...
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My utterly amazing family and Abby's 10th birthday party

Thursday was Abby’s 10th birthday, which still feels impossible to say out loud. I officially have a kid in double digits, and I’m not convinced that should be allowed. On my mom’s side of the family, tenth birthdays are… a thing. A big thing. I used to think it was just a Texas quirk, but I’ve since realized it’s more of a love language—one that involves travel plans, head counts, and a total disregard for subtlety. When someone turns ten, the village shows up. Which is why, earlier this month, Abby came to me with a very serious request. “Mom,” she said, “I don’t need a huge party. Can you please tell Grandma and Aunt Jenn I just want to stay in Arizona and maybe go to dinner with you guys?” This is Abby in a nutshell. Thoughtful. Quiet. Deeply aware of her own limits. I told her that was fine with me—but also warned her that it might break a few hearts. And that there was a very real possibility they would all just… come anyway. Because I cannot imagine my sister Jennifer ever missi...
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The Science Project Had to Be Finished Before the Engineer Got Home

On Thursday afternoon I was sitting in the school pickup line when Abby came bursting through the door. “Mom, I have a project I need to do before wrestling practice.” My eyes narrowed in the rearview mirror. “What kind of project?” With fear in her voice, she said, “A science project.” The violins of a horror soundtrack could have been ominously playing in the background. Everyone in that car understood what this meant. Well… almost everyone. Ashley, oblivious to the danger, kicked her feet and drooled happily that her sissa and bobba were next to her. But even TJ, the family’s resident chaos agent, actually reached over and put a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “Good luck, Abby.” This project had to be completed before the engineer got home. Now before I start complaining, I need to say this: we are unbelievably blessed to have a husband and father who takes such an interest in his kids’ schoolwork. In fact, our entire family exists because he was something of a math-tutoring prodigy in ...
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How My Husband Won a Bet and Ruined My Dignity

This is one of those blog posts where I’m having trouble creating a coherent structure, because it starts with motherhood… and then swerves wildly into me being a bit of a deviant in my early twenties. Bubs and I made a bet yesterday — and this is me losing. The thing is, he claims he doesn’t even want to be “paid off,” but I’ll be damned if I let him hold an unpaid debt over my head for the rest of our lives together. Dani M pays her bets. The Bet Ashley has had her first cold of her little life, which quickly turned into a sinus infection. She’s been miserable, and I spent all of last week glued to her — loving it, but by Saturday I desperately needed a break. I also felt guilty that I’d been neglecting the older two kids. So Bubs and I worked it out: I’d take Abby and/or TJ out for most of the day, and he’d happily stay home with Ashley. Sounds great in theory. Except Abby and TJ woke up on Saturday morning with battle lines already drawn. By 8 a.m. they’d had three full-blown, out-...
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Two days in the life of Dani and Bubs

So by design, I never talk about politics on this blog. That doesn’t mean I don’t care — it just means that making things divisive among the few readers I have left probably isn’t the way to keep everyone around. But for Bubs and me, politics are fair game. As much as we love each other — as much as I literally still see the stars in his eyes — there is very little we agree on politically. I think he’s an unfeeling libertarian driven only by data. He once said, “You’re somewhere left of Lenin, if Lenin were a paranoid housewife and teacher who sees everyone as her student or her baby.” Rude. Accurate. Annoyingly funny. I won’t get into specifics, but politics have hit a fever pitch lately, and maybe like the country itself, Bubs and I took up our very predictable positions. Earlier in the week he had a night flight, which meant he was home most of the afternoon. We could not let each other off the hook. We’d bicker, take a break, then one of us would see a social media post that valid...
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The Wedding and the War Between the States

We are finally home after an absolutely amazing Christmas break. I should probably look before I say this with any confidence, but I’m pretty sure the day we walked back into our house in Arizona marked almost exactly one year since our furniture was finally delivered and this place started to feel like home. I’m so tired that my brain is already wandering from where I meant this blog to go, so I’m taking that as my sign to just let it unfold the way it wants to. This past week held several big, beautiful milestones. Our eight‑month‑old experienced her first Christmas — a picture‑perfect holiday in my childhood home, surrounded by siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and a few “soon‑to‑be” family members thrown in for good measure. It’s not hard to imagine that with all that attention, she was the undisputed star of the show. We also had a couple of false starts with my sister‑in‑law going into labor, which meant some unexpected quality time in an admitting room where we wer...
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