My life after the 15 minutes…

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...

We are home in Texas for Christmas—a truly magical time of fights, makeups, cousins saying terrible things to each other, and four adults (formerly “the kids”) who should absolutely know better by now. Our trip got off to an auspicious start on one of the rare mornings Bubs will spontaneously dance with me in the kitchen. For a man not known for spontaneity, it’s one of my favorite things about him. His song of choice was “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues. It’s actually a gorgeous Christmas song. Romantic. Wistful. And… lyrically questionable. As we danced, I heard the female singer casually drop, “you maggot, you f* ggot,” and slowly turned to see TJ frozen in place, staring at us like he’d just discovered buried treasure. You could practically see the mental file folder being created: Bad Words I Heard in My Own Kitchen, Therefore Probably Allowed. I made him promise not to repeat what he heard. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “Okay, Mom.” I know for a fact that ...

Every year you protest how big of a deal I make your birthday. Every year, I ignore you. It’s been happening for twenty years now (even the year we were broken up), so don’t ever expect it to stop. This blog is scheduled to post at midnight on December 19th. If you’re awake to read it, you’ve got so much more in store for you today, my little almost-thirty-four-year-old. Oh—sorry. Every year your mom reminds me you were born at 2:42 pm at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Albuquerque. I guess I’m not the only woman who thinks you’re basically Jesus incarnate. Lucky for you, you now have two daughters who also believe the world should stop and part to let you pass. Anyway, when this posts you’ll still have a while until you’re “officially” 34. I always struggle to pinpoint when I first met you. I think I just noticed you one day at your grandparents’ house after you moved to town. But my first concrete memory of you is the one where you were being a total smart-ass in Sunday school. You were sit...

It’s four in the morning when I start writing this. For me to be awake at this hour—especially now that Ashley is finally sleeping through the night—it means the hamster wheel in my head is spinning hard enough that there’s no chance of rest until I get the thoughts out. Right now, the reason I’m awake makes perfect sense. Will it still make sense tomorrow? Maybe not. But here goes. The show Landman got me thinking about a man named Tom. Thinking about Tom got me thinking about my years working at Hooters. Add in the fact that both my birthday and Bubs’s birthday fall in December, and suddenly all of it wrapped itself into one tight, emotional knot that dragged me out of bed and into this chair. Landman is a show about the oil industry in Texas. As a die‑hard Texan—and someone who went to school in West Texas—it resonates with me more than I want to admit. Parts of it feel like stepping back into some of the funniest, messiest years of my life. That said, while the first season felt ...

My last blog post was written in that post-holiday haze of realizing I had planned, cooked, and hosted my first-ever Thanksgiving more or less by myself. Again — I know people have it so much harder and people have accomplished so much more — but for a few short minutes last Friday, I let myself feel a tiny bit of pride. On my honor, it wasn’t twenty minutes after I hit “publish” that my phone rang. It was my mom. And my mom, being my mom — the absolutely amazing and inspiring woman that she is — of course wanted to know how it all went. Never mind that I had called her no fewer than thirty times on Thanksgiving Day itself for advice and reassurance. Every time, she reminded me I was doing great and slipped in something like, “a little extra chicken stock…” or “extra butter never hurt the flavor of anything.” But that didn’t stop her from checking in again and giving me the kind of kudos only a mom can give. Just before hanging up she said, “Honey, I would be remiss if I didn’t check ...