Let me start off by saying that I love my parents' neighbors. Growing up, our neighborhood was charming but most of the residents were elderly. We hardly saw them and clung to the few families near our house when we wanted to engage in conversation. Now that Nick and I have moved out and away, Euclid has been the dream street. You know the movies where the kids run from yard to yard and they all play together? Euclid. The...
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The other day, I reminded my brother, Nick, of the time we met one of his first friends in Marion as they stood in our house nineteen years ago. NINETEEN. I told him what his friend was wearing and why I thought they'd never actually become friends after that. One day, while walking across our college campus, my friend received a phone call from her mom. There was some back and forth and Grace relayed her social security number...
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The INFP in me is a dreamer. Sometimes I have to remind myself to think big enough to dream but small enough to act. I live in a great community in West Michigan. I see so much opportunity here and I can't help but desire to be a part of it. It's something I can't shake and it's a vision I've had for months now: a retail shop in West Michigan. There are wonderful parks, restaurants, shops, and beaches in Muskegon....
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Four weeks ago, on Friday of Labor Day weekend, I rolled up to my family's cottage expecting to meet a locksmith. Instead, I met four dear friends of mine; four (of six) girls from college who have seen me at my very worst and love me anyway. Girls who celebrated with me on my wedding day. When we moved, I stumbled across a pile of inside jokes from college: I unwrapped a wine glass with a note that said "because...
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There is something eerie about nighttime. Everyone is quiet. Everything is still. And when there is commotion, it feels chaotic yet incredibly lonely. Deep dark hours of the night have a tendency to swallow up any security I have. It's safe to say that things felt very insecure and uncertain when we rushed Maddie to the ER at 1:30am last Thursday morning. We had spent all day driving home from Indianapolis, turning a 5 hour drive into 10 hours. Maddox had...
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When Patrick and I were newlyweds we lived in a shoebox of an apartment and I loved it. Our entire lives were in that place. We lived simply and had just enough furniture to function, including a broken love seat as our main living room seating. I didn't buy much home decor, mostly because there wasn't adequate space to decorate. And, actually, those have become such fond memories for me. I'm introverted and Patrick is beyond extroverted. I need quiet time....
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My Dear Sweet Son, You've had a whirlwind of a week. You've been hauled across three states, put to bed in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar apartment. Honestly, I feel I've ripped you away from anyone who knows you well. You'll never know the Northwoods the way you could have, so there's a couple things I want to tell you about the place where you were born. I'm very proud to have been born where I was (in East Michigan), and...
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We were wrapping up our 36 week ultrasound, which had to have been our 7th one. Truly. With high blood pressure, my doctor was overly cautious. We were so appreciative of this attentiveness. We loved our Tech too, but she was unusually quiet during this appointment. "You're seeing your doctor today?" she asked. We nodded. I had a passing thought - but that's all it was: a thought. And it wasn't enough to really complete an entire idea and definitely not something...
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A friend recently said "Parenting is like folding a fitted sheet. Nobody knows how to do it." This is more true than anything I've heard in a long time. And if I'm being completely honest, I roll fitted sheets into a ball and shove them into the back of the linen closet. So what does that tell you about my parenting skills? My kid doesn't usually sleep more than twenty minutes at a time during the day. But he sleeps ten straight...
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"No, it's never too late to get an epidural." No greater lie has ever been spoken. On September 9th I checked my blood pressure at home as I often did. I had been suffering from a headache that week, which was abnormal for me during pregnancy (even with high blood pressure). It was 153/113. We threw the hospital bags in the car "just in case" and drove to Rice Lake where we were late to our one and only birth class. We...
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