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Features
Photo by Angie Davis.
Ordinary Days: Spilled coffee and a stolen summer
I can choose to sit and stew in all my disappointment and disillusionment and anxiety, or I can meet each day — each hour, really — with a spirit of watchfulness and expectation. Read more
Ordinary Days: Lessons from giving up my grocery store runs
I also figured out quickly that letting go of the task of grocery shopping was just one of the many ways I’d have to let go during the strange corona months. Read more
Ordinary Days: Coronacation - the worst kind of vacation
In an effort to both acknowledge the strange times we’re living in and not further burden your shoulders (or mine), I give you a short list of ways I’ve been surprised by joy, goodness, humor or grace in this first week of our coronacation. Read more
Photo by Angie Davis.
Ordinary Days: The hunt for a pet
I don’t know when exactly it’ll happen, but I have a feeling our non-pet days are dwindling. Not because I’m 100% ready to allow this unknown element into my some - what orderly world, but because I truly enjoy making my kids really happy. Read more
Ordinary Days: Silence is golden
With our phones and earbuds, podcasts and treadmill TVs, even the sports and news information that clicks on the minute you start pumping gas, we’re now at a place where it’s fairly easy to never have to be alone with your own thoughts. Read more
Photo by Angie Davis.
Ordinary Days: The mothering instinct
A few weeks after we started all this, our 7-year-old, Sela, asked me her Burning Question : “When you were a little kid, did you worry that you wouldn’t be a very good mom?” Read more
Photo by Angie Davis.
Ordinary Days: A new year and the redemption of time
Do you ever have those days when things just don’t go the way you planned? I’m not talking about big life direction-type things, though those can sometimes feel wrong. I’m talking more about regular day-in, day-out stuff. Read more
Ordinary Days: In the face of fear, come and make all things new
Parenting is scary, yes? Sure it’s a lot of other things too—fun, frustrating, joyful, nerve-wracking. But a thread of fear always works its way through the “job” of parenting, doesn’t it? Read more
Ordinary Days: Finding true identity ... again and again and again
As much as I love my children … as much as I love my husband, my parents, my brother, my friends … what they think of me doesn’t define who I am. Read more
Ordinary Days: The(se) Good Old Days
I’ll be honest with you here: I was all ready to write this month’s column on memories of my childhood, how I tend to long for the past and how I’ve recreated the best parts of it in some way in my novels. But then Andy Bernard messed it all up. Read more
Ordinary Days: Bats, birthday parties and the parental balancing act
A couple of months ago, our daughter Sela turned 7. Because she’d been planning her party pretty much since a few days after her sixth birthday, we had a lot of time to think about it, and she had a lot of time to change her mind. Read more
Ordinary Days: Cultivating a life
This summer, I’ve been reading a book I think will become my required summertime reading. “Liturgy of the Ordinary” (by Tish Harrison Warren) is about finding God’s presence “in the cracks of our days.” Read more
Ordinary Days: On kitchen renovation and cardboard artwork
Back in the spring, we made the decision to renovate our kitchen. Read more
Ordinary Days: Parenting wisdom and other day-to-day necessities
The other day, my nine-year-old Kate came downstairs with something behind her back and a nervous expression on her face. Read more
Ordinary Days: Unexpected surprises along the way
Soon after “The Hideaway” was released, I had my first “appearance” at a bookstore in Marietta, Georgia, with two other authors. Read more
Ordinary Days: Perfection, but at what cost?
Lately I’ve been asking my friends if they’ve ever heard of something called FaceTune. Read more
Ordinary Days: Discovering closets full of childhood
My parents have lived in the same familiar house, on the same quiet street, in our hometown for 37 years, and now they’ve decided to move. Read more
Ordinary Days: Accidental lessons from my parents
These accidental lessons remind me that my own children are absorbing the same from me — things I unconsciously teach them while I’m actually working hard to teach them other, more meaningful lessons. Read more
Ordinary Days: The journey, not the destination, and other cliches
A couple months ago, my family went to the Smoky Mountains for a vacation. One day, we went on a hike that took us from a busy parkway up a trail and into the silence. Read more
Ordinary Days: The blessing of a sick day
A call from the nurse is never good news, though, and as I stared at those two words on the screen, I envisioned a sick child along with my afternoon plans dissolving. Read more
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