About

My aim is to help lead people out of loneliness and back into love. And on the occasion I make people laugh while doing so, it’s the ultimate trifecta for me. I call the Pacific Northwest home and amble about its captivating forests and breath-taking (quite literally, because brrrrrrr) bodies of water with my husband and two children. I’m a voracious reader and film connoisseur, seeker of laughter, avoider of kitchen duty lately, awkward dancer always and one of the hardest things I will ever do in life is battle to stay awake past nine.
I write to connect pain to pain and struggle to struggle to help us all feel less alone inside our stories and more at home in our hearts, minds, and relationships.

When reading the “About” pages of writers/bloggers I appreciate, I yearn for insight into the person behind the words, I’ve an eagerness to get to ‘know’ them. And/or I hope they’ll make me laugh. Either will do. Four years later, I am still laughing about the time a good friend sat beside me on my couch, put her bare feet up on the coffee table and said, “Look, I shaved my big toes for you.” A little levity goes a long way with me.

In the spirit of reciprocity, some things that help to explain me but will never define me are: I am an only child, I don’t tan I burn, I can’t be left alone with a box of Girl Scout Cookies, I was raised by my mom because my dad couldn’t even, I have fugly feet, I’ve had three different perceived near-death experiences, I root for the underdog, and I have a real problem with the color mauve.

I LOVE CHANGE, especially when it comes to my hair color and moving our furniture around. My go-to beats right now are by P!NK, Ed Sheeran, Daya, or Sturgill Simpson and his genre-bending sound. I bake a Bailey’s Irish Cream and chocolate fudge bundt cake you would harvest an organ for, I’m a college graduate and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I believe in a loving God and when I see a picture of myself with almost anyone else I remember I am short but otherwise I feel tall.

I’ve been married for 22 years, so, yeah, I’ve got some stick-to-it-ive-ness. But really, my marriage has made for six of the happiest years of my life. I have two children that push me to the outer banks of sanity and for whom I would lay down my life with exactly zero hesitation, both. I get through life when it feels to lifey (thank you for the adj., Anne Lamott) by choosing to laugh, dance, get quiet, read, learn, grow and binge watch Girl Boss/Fargo/Entourage/Homeland/Fixer Upper/Shameless/Parenthood/Narcos/Girls/Ozark/This Is Us.

I also keep calm and… choose to accept my introverted tendencies, believe Justin Timberlake is my spirit animal, be outdoors, travel, stay home, make cherished memories, slurp boxed wine, tell shame to, “Suck it,” stay in the moment, talk to God, listen to God, trust in God, wait on God, change into my soft pants, sniff out bottomless mimosas in the world like a truffle pig, raise my heart rate, channel Scarlett O’Hara and think about it all tomorrow, lift the weight and hike the hill, speak the truth, hang with lovers and ignore haters, buy all the shoes, embrace imperfection, find a cause, remember I’m never the only one, be the change, forgive, forgive, forgive and love, love, love.

What will you find here in this blog? Fair question. Maybe it’s best to think of it like a metaphorical game of Whack-a-Mole in respect to the content.

You’ll hear from me about a smorgasbord of topics and universalisms related to life, love, loneliness, marriage, parenting, friendships and the cosmic clash between joy and grief within each realm as they present themselves to me like 8-year-olds squirming in their seats, with their hands raised high, shouting, “Pick me, pick me!”

And I write about recovering from infidelity in my marriage. When it comes to my husband’s affair, I heed some great advice and I wait until I can write from my scars and not my open wounds. It’s better for us all that way. So, as I heal, I write. Remarkably, I’ve found as I write, I heal faster and as I share, others heal. If infidelity is part of your story too, if it’s choking your heart and scrambling your brain and it helps you to know you’re not alone, please click here for a collection of posts.

However my writing prompts pop up, I’ll vet them and if I think they add value to the collective conversation I’ll polish them up and place them here. Speaking of value, the following essays seemed to have provided some. The readership of these posts soared to over ten times the average readership of my others:

Loves, if you’re still with me, if you’re on board for utterly imperfect riffs on life, love, and less loneliness, then grab your oversized rubber mallet and let’s play mole!