One day my oldest daughter randomly decided to recite a list of relatives she’d met. It went something like this: “Gramma Joyce”: that’s daddy’s mommy “Granny”: that’s mommy’s mommy “Papa”: that’s daddy’s daddy “Ummm . . . wait, ” “mommy, where is your daddy?” My husband and I laughed. The reality is, I was raised in a single parent home. My children will probably never be in the same room as their maternal grandfather. The blessing is, they noticed! When Gabrielle asked Continue Reading
A Prisoner of Perfection
I stood behind the mic. Opened my mouth and began to let the words flow. About half-way in, it happened! A speaker’s worst nightmare: the memory lapse. I could not recall what word was to come next. I paused. I repeated. Then moved on to a part I could remember. I placed the mic back on the stand and took my seat. I wanted to go hide! Later that evening, I decided to reach out to a friend who was in the audience. She offered some encouraging words in an attempt to assure me that I had done a Continue Reading
Retain It
By the time I was in middle school, it was official: I needed braces. It was bad enough to need them and it was psychologically petrifying to need them but not be in a position to get them. Such was the case for me. I went through middle school and high school with tartar build-up, an overbite, some serious crowding. The summer before I was scheduled to go off to college I pulled out a calculator, did the math, and realized that if I saved all the money I was on track to make at my summer Continue Reading