Nothing makes me want to travel more than going on a great trip. After a few days in my own bed and drinking my home coffee (home coffee is always better, I’m sorry), I was thinking about our next adventure.

As our girls get closer to the graduating (I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT), I’m feeling the pressure to get those last states checked off our list. So last March, after we returned from our Arizona and Nevada spring break trip, I started hunting for our next one. We’re dabbling in using strategic credit cards and points for travel, and, after our spring break trip, we had enough Delta Sky Miles to book inexpensive flights to Seattle. Originally, the plan for this trip was to explore Seattle and take the ferry to Canada for a few days.

But in April (May?) a new Travelzoo email arrived with a really great deal on an Alaskan cruise leaving from Seattle the day after we planned to arrive. It arrived back to port early on the morning we’d planned to fly home. It was meant to be. We’d spend a day in Seattle, take a 7-night cruise through Alaska, stop on the last night in Canada, then be back in Seattle in time to catch our flight home.

Sold immediately x 4.

What made our Norwegian cruise such a great deal was it was the last cruise of the season. We set sail on October 4, 2025 and returned to port on October 11th. It was the beginning of Alaska’s rainy season, so there was a chance we’d be seeing Alaska in the rain, but we didn’t care. Visiting Alaska is hard and expensive. To see so many places, you either need a prop plane or a boat. And, shockingly, we don’t have either. So taking a cruise was the best option.

[A few things to note: I’ve been on a few cruises, but no one else in my family had. Chris Graham gets car sick and seasick pretty easily. He has thrown up on a dolphin cruise in Florida and while speeding down the highway in Ohio. I told him a giant cruise ship feels different, and, while he did not believe me, he agreed to the trip anyway. Secondly, cruising is super not-great for the environment. A lot of the glaciers in Alaska are melting (as they are everywhere), and we were worried about the environmental impact of taking a giant ship into such fragile places. Most cruise lines will share what they’re doing to combat their environmental impact, so that’s definitely worth researching.]

We flew into Seattle and stayed one night at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront. It was a perfect location to walk to Pike Place Market and all the surrounding streets. We got dinner at the market and did some shopping, then walked back the next morning for breakfast and coffee before we boarded the ship. Our hotel was directly across from the dock. We woke up that morning to the giant ship docking outside our window, then when it was our time to board, we just walked over. We could not have been in a better spot.

Our trip was a 7-night Alaskan cruise with Norwegian Cruise Lines on the Norwegian Bliss. Our cruise package included a balcony stateroom, freestyle dining, 150 minutes of wi-fi per person, and one $50 shore excursion credit at each port. There was also a deal that the 3rd and 4th guests were free, so we just had to pay taxes on the girls stay. I was a little worried about the size of our room and tried, at the last minute, to bid for an upgrade, but the ship was sold out and there were no other rooms available. But once we got on the ship and settled in, it was actually fine, and I’m glad we didn’t upgrade. After taxes and fees and random other charges, our total for the cruise was about $3400. We didn’t add any additional wi-fi packages or dining packages, because I didn’t want my kids to stare at their phones the whole time and there were plenty of food options onboard. We’re not fancy and not there to eat fancy meals. We were there to explore Alaska.

And that’s what we did. Our ports of call were Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan, and Victoria, British Columbia. We also spent one breathtaking day cruising through Glacier Bay.

With the season being so close to ending, some excursions weren’t available, but we got to do everything we wanted to. I think the only complaint was we didn’t have enough time on land. We’d prefer less time on the water and more time exploring, but that’s the downside of a cruise: you’re on someone else’s schedule.

On other cruises I’ve taken, booking excursions through independent companies is often cheaper than going through the cruise line. But for this trip so close to the end of the season, many places were only accepting reservations through the cruise line’s website. So with that extra challenge and the $50 credit we had for each port, we booked our excursions through the Norwegian website.

In Juneau, we took the Goldbelt Tram up the side of the mountain and did some hiking. Then we took a tour bus to Mendenhall Glacier and got to spend some time hiking and exploring the park. In Skagway, we took the Historic Dyea Walk (it was fine, nothing super great) and visited a musher’s camp (amazing, so fun, loved every second of it, did not want to leave). At Ketchikan, we did the Tongass Rainforest Expedition. We really liked it and wished it was longer. Our tour guide was great, and we got to see a lot of really cool stuff. We pulled into Victoria, BC, late in the evening, so we didn’t plan any excursions for that stop. We took a cab into the city, ate sushi as requested by Elliott Graham, then took an impromptu tour with our cab driver before heading back to the ship. This stop was more for maritime law reasons than a full day, but we still liked our first visit to Canada. They have really clean streets and universal healthcare, so we’re big fans.

The best part about every time we got to a new port? It never rained. It was the beginning of rainy season as I might have mentioned, and we were prepared to be wet the whole time. Then every time we pulled into a port, every person there said, “You guys got lucky. It’s been raining every day and just stopped.” The stars aligned so we never once got rained on. A friend was on a similar cruise the week before, and it was raining so bad they had to skip one port of call. So I’m not sure how that all worked out, but we felt super lucky. That’s the gamble with going so late in the season: we could afford the reduced-rate trip, but we could’ve gotten really wet.

Overall, we loved Alaska, and we’re so glad we got to see this incredible place. Chris Graham and his mini-me Harper are not interested in going on another cruise. Elliott said she would. I’m indifferent, but if I go on a cruise again, it will probably not be with my family. We did get to spend a lot of time on the observation deck, reading books, playing card games, gazing out the window as we made our way through Glacier Bay, eating endless snacks and dessert, spotting whales and dolphins, drinking Starbucks coffee, and napping. It was absolutely lovely. I loved the forced slowness we had some days, but some teenagers found it a little boring.

We’d do this cruise again, no question. It seems to be the best, most economical way to explore Alaska. We wish we had time to see and explore more, but we still got to do a lot and really loved the trip. Highly recommend if you, too, do not have access to your own prop plane or boat.

What I want back is the night when I was eight. When my sister, my cousin, and I spent the night at my grandma’s. When she fed us canned peaches, heavy with syrup, and the sugar made us giddy. Canned peaches became “giggle peaches,” and we hid under the blanket in her guest room as she snuck up to us with a plastic gorilla figurine and scared us. I want the shrieks and screams and joy back.

I want to return to the afternoon in her front room when we all still lived nearby. When my cousin Ben was still a toddler and somehow we noticed he had a seriously cavernous belly button and what I thought that cavernous belly button needed was an M&M. His belly button was perfect for holding bite-sized candies. We all still fit in the front room then, all the aunts and uncles and all the cousins, still small and growing. Before the dining room extension was built, and Grandma’s tiny dining room still had the upstairs where she stored all her decorative plates. 

I would like to learn to play euchre from her again, her knobby fingers helping me hold the cards. One more evening of Skip-Bo around her dining room table as Grandpa tells us Grandma likes to cheat and peek, and an early morning of eggs and cinnamon-sugar toast as I pumped the sewing machine foot paddle that held up her kitchen table. I would like to see her spoon instant coffee into her worn Tupperware mug again.

I wish for one more day picking my grandma up for shopping and lunch. She was already sad by this point—my grandpa was gone and she didn’t know what to do without him—but she’d climb into my car, and we’d head to town. When I’d call to invite her out, she’d hem and haw, not sure she needed to go anywhere or do anything. Wasn’t I too busy? But as soon as she buckled that seatbelt, she’d take out her list. We should go to Wal-Mart, she’d say. How about Goodwill? Lunch will probably be at Cracker Barrel, but she loved a Coke from McDonald’s, so it would be okay to stop by there. 

My grandma was with me the day Chris called to tell me his secrets. Not all of them, that would take time, but just the beginning. I was walking out of the Cracker Barrel dining room, had just passed the giant empty fireplace, when he told me there was a problem. My grandma ahead of me, so she didn’t see me stop and grip the table next to the wall. She didn’t see my face or my life collapse. I drove her to Tractor Supply after where we looked at wind chimes and flowers. 

I’d like one more day before my fist got too big to fit into the coffee mug full of change she kept in her kitchen. I’d like to show her my (probably not really that great) report card again and grab as much change as I could as a reward. She’d write my name in permanent marker on the baggie full of money, her big swoopy letters labeling my treasure “Mary Beautiful.”

Maybe just one more night at our college apartment, where Amy and I would watch Beaches and drink cheap alcohol and drunkenly cry about Grandma dying one day. Grandma and Grandpa were both alive and well and had, unbeknownst to us, decades left. We were young and hadn’t lost anyone close to us yet. The idea of losing her was unbearable when we were twenty. At forty three, it still is.

I want to hear her tell the story of reaching out for my pacifier as Grandpa drove me down the road; to hear about Amy’s pockies and how Melissa “didn’t have no food.” I’d like to say something inappropriate just one more time and have her tell me how naughty I am, but then cackle the loudest. I’d like to drive home from her house with a sandwich bag full of blue Sour Patch Kids—the only ones she refused to eat—and realize they all tasted like smoke when I tried to eat them. 

All those stories we don’t remember that died with her. I cannot abide it.

Maybe I could have just have a week? A week of all the memories relived. I promise to pay attention and not rush and listen well and write everything down. I promise to answer the phone when she calls and stay at her kitchen table just a little bit longer. And since this is my fantasy and I get to do whatever I want in it, I’d like time to move very slow that week. I’d like to keep my eyes wide open, and my body close to hers.

I would like Edward’s Drive-In to be open one more day so I could eat giant tenderloin sandwiches and onion rings with my grandparents. Just one more afternoon where Grandpa talked to every person in the place, and Grandma finally said, “Robert, it’s time to go.”

Very early on a Monday morning, we boarded a plane for Phoenix. This was the first time we’d flown together as a family; the girls had both taken trips for their 13th birthdays, but those were solo trips. Thankfully, we all fly well. One kid doesn’t like how people-y planes are, but we made some modifications after her first flight and this trip was much better.

We’re still on a quest to visit all 50 states before our girls graduate high school. I’m obsessed with planning trips and dreaming about adventures, but the benefits of exposing kids to new experiences and places trumps all the other things I love. Traveling has always been a priority for us, but as my kids get older, and I see how confident they are in new places, I love it even more. Especially as our country becomes more polarized and so many people live in fear of the big bad world, it’s so important we explore outside our comfort zones to realize that much of what we’re told about other places isn’t true. Fear has ruined so many people’s lives and families, and my mission is to show my kids there is more good than bad out there.

This trip was booked through TripMasters. I get a few travel deal emails every week; one I love is TravelZoo. They round up a good selection of trips from all over the world and last fall, an Arizona/Nevada trip made the list. I knew I wanted to end up in Las Vegas for our spring break trip—it’s a good place to fly into and then rent a car—but I didn’t really have specifics in mind. The package I bought through TripMasters was for 8 days/7 nights of hotels and a rental car. I had enough Delta SkyMiles to pay for about half our flights, so the travel package deal plus SkyMiles made this expensive trip a little less painful. (I’m just starting to get into travel hacking with credit cards; I’m very intrigued by this. We’ve never really had more than one credit card, but I’ve been slowly opening and using cards for some insane rewards. TBD if I can get some free travel out of it.)

Phoenix, Arizona was our first stop. We stayed at the Cambria Hotel Downtown. We could either walk or easily drive to everywhere we wanted to go. I’m sharing the places we ate and the things we did, but just know that we had about 10-15 things on our to-do list for every stop and we, obviously, couldn’t do them all. We could have spent a week in any of these locations, there was just so much to do.

We ate at Pizzeria Blanco (so delicious, highly recommend), Huss Brewing Co., and got yummy gelato at Grateful Spoon Gelato. We also took a kayaking trip down the Salt River with Saguaro Lake Guest Ranch. Some of us hiked all of Camelback Mountain, and some of us only hiked about an hour of it.

After Phoenix, we slowly made our way to Sedona, which is about a two-hour drive. On the way, we got breakfast (pie!) at Rock Springs Cafe. There are cute shops at this roadside attraction, so we did some shopping too. We stopped at the Sunset Point rest stop for some amazing views, then made our way down into the desert for a stop at Bumble Bee Ranch. We had reservations at the ranch for horseback riding. If you go, make sure you plan ahead, they don’t allow you to just drop in. Riding horses through an old pioneer town and through the rocky, hilly desert was fun. If you have time to stop, I’d recommend it. They had horses for all experience levels; I’d never ridden a horse before and felt completely comfortable and safe on our ride.

After our ride, we traveled farther into the desert to visit Cleator, a former mining town. I really wanted to visit a ghost town and this did not disappoint. Randomly, we happened to pull up while a film crew from HGTV was there, and we got to meet Jack McBrayer as he filmed an episode of Zillow Gone Wild!, but even if that weird experience didn’t happen, the town was still neat to see. Because we arrived during the filming, we got to meet the mayor/owner of the town (who had recently purchased it and had begun renovating, which is why the show was there) and explore the old schoolhouse and general store. They were all open because of filming, so you might not be able to do that normally. There is a bar in the town, so you can for sure get a cold drink before you hit the long, windy road back to the interstate.

Before we pulled into Sedona, we stopped at Montezuma Castle National Park to see the ruins. It’s a quick stop, but walking the grounds and seeing the structures built into the side of the cliff is incredible. (It costs $10 a person to get into the park, so if you’re making any other national park stops, it’s worth it to buy the annual pass for $80.)

Once in Sedona, we were starving, so we stopped at Dellepaine for dinner. Then we grabbed donuts for the next morning at BoSa Donuts and checked into our hotel: Bell Rock Inn. Technically, we were about 8 minutes outside of Sedona proper, but I loved our location. We could walk to plenty of restaurants and hiking trails, it was a great spot.

We tried a few local coffee shops while we were in Sedona and were able to do multiple hikes up or around the Bell Rock area. Chris and I left the girls in bed one morning and hiked to the top of a mountain during the sunrise. 10/10, would recommend.

We took a Jeep tour with Arizona Safari Jeep Tours one day, and everyone liked it. We did the Rim Run Supreme which was definitely rough and precarious, but worth it for the views at the top. After our trip, we ate at Torte de Fuego, which was good Mexican food.

We tried to visit Chapel of the Holy Cross but parking was a disaster, so we just saw it from afar. Everything was busy, so the earlier you can get to any of the stuff you want to do, the better.

Leaving Sedona, we made a slight detour to Jerome, a former mining town now full of great shops and restaurants. We shopped, had lunch at Haunted Hamburger, and got treats at a candy shop before hitting the road to the Grand Canyon.

We stayed in the park, at Yavapai Lodge, for our one-night stay at the Grand Canyon. If you’re familiar with national park accommodations, they’re not state of the art. They’re basic and unfancy. But the lodge we stayed at was very clean and had been updated in the past few years. So the cinderblock outside was deceiving when we pulled up. And, really, you’re not spending much time in your room, so who cares if it’s not luxurious? I just need a clean place to sleep and shower.

We ate our meals at the Grand Canyon Village cafeteria. Food selection was good, and it was much easier than leaving the park to get food. Entrance to the park for our car was $35, or free if you have the national parks pass.

After doing a bunch of research, I decided just buying a self-guided audio tour was the best option for us. I downloaded the Action Tour Guide app and then selected the Grand Canyon south rim tour. It was great, and we didn’t regret not doing a paid tour. Our children were not super impressed with the Grand Canyon. Teenagers are lame, so we did some of the tour, but not the whole thing. Yes, a lot of it looks the same, but that did not matter to the adults, we wanted to see it all, every inch of it. As we were leaving, Chris said, “We’ll come back here one day without our kids.”

Yes, yes, we will.

After the Grand Canyon, we had our longest drive: 4 hours to Las Vegas. We crossed over the Hoover Dam without stopping, which I regret now that we’re home. We were all just ready to get to the next stop, but it wouldn’t have taken long to stop and see it.

In Las Vegas, we stayed at the Tuscany Resort and Casino. It was about two blocks off the main strip and about one block from the Sphere. We happened to arrive the night Dead and Company were doing a three-show run at the Sphere so our hotel was overrun with stoned hippies. I’m not exaggerating; one of the parking lots was shutdown for all the vendors and people who travel for the shows and because marijuana is legal in Nevada, everywhere we went we got a contact high. So much pot. So many White people in culturally-appropriated dreads.

Again, traveling gives our kids experiences they wouldn’t have if we just stayed home, and this was no exception. I didn’t expect the experience to be drugs, but here we are.

We had a king suite at the hotel, which came with a pullout couch, a large living area, and a kitchen. The hotel had a beautiful pool and the resort was large. They had a great coffee shop on-site and a few good restaurants if you didn’t want to leave the hotel.

We did venture out each night to walk around. There is such good people watching in Vegas, plus all the crazy hotels and shops. We ate delicious ramen one night, Crack Chicken for lunch one day, random snacks or ice cream places we stumbled upon, plus frozen drinks at Fat Tuesday. We bought fresh fruit cups from a sidewalk vendor and spent way too much money at a candy store. One afternoon we went to a nearby outlet mall for shopping and Shake Shack.

Las Vegas weather was perfect, so we got to spend time lounging at the pool in the sun as well. We got tickets to the Museum of Illusions one mid-morning and everyone had fun there. I think our tickets were for 11:00 or 12:00, and by the time we were done, it was getting really busy. Going early allows you to do all the exhibits without waiting in line or too many other people around.

On our way to the airport, we took a little road trip to Seven Magic Mountains, it’s a quick stop, but I’m glad we did it before dropping off our rental car and jumping on a plane to head back home.

Our travel package from TripMasters was a little under $2,000 for all our hotels and car rental. Because I wanted to know how much money we saved, I looked up hotel rates at each hotel we were at and asked the rental car price when I picked up the car. We saved about $800 to $900 with the deal we purchased. I was a little worried the hotels they booked would be a little shady, because you don’t know the actual hotels before you purchase, but they were all great. I’d stay at all of them again. (When you book, you’re told you will be staying at 3-star hotels, that’s all the info provided.)

All the excursions or activities we did weren’t included in the package, but every one we did was fun and worth the cost, in my opinion. Also, because we booked so early, I was researching activities and randomly booking them as I had extra money, so they were all paid for by the time we took off for Phoenix. The trip was definitely not cheap, but because I was able to pay for so much of it ahead of time, we just needed spending money once we hit the road.

Visiting Arizona and Nevada knocked two more states off our bucket list, and we’re now officially down to less than 10 states. Ellie has a little over two years left of high school (seems impossible), but I think we’re on track to make our goal before she graduates.

I can’t believe it’s all that close.

Before I was laid off, if someone had told me they had been unemployed that long, I would have thought they were lying or doing something very wrong. Are you really applying to jobs? Are you bad at interviewing? Does your resume have a million typos? Are you applying for jobs you’re not qualified for?

I think that’s one of the reasons I told very few people I’d lost my job. It felt shocking and embarrassing every single time, plus it still didn’t feel real. Like something was wrong with me because no one would hire me. I did not have the mental bandwidth to manage my own life; explaining in detail to someone else why I was finding it impossible to find a new job was beyond my abilities.

When I was laid off, I took one week to sit with my shock and grief, then I started applying for jobs. I was given 12-weeks severance, and I wanted to find a new job before that time was up, so I could put all that extra money in my savings account. My plan was to come out ahead of this setback, start a new job and have a new paycheck before the severance ran out.

I had my first interview a few weeks later. I look good on paper and have lots of experience. This was going to be so easy!

Except the salary was less than I made my first year of teaching. The job wanted a college degree and 3-5 years writing experience but wanted to pay me for none of it. No, thank you.

I kept applying for jobs, getting some interviews and lots of rejection emails. By October, I was going through rounds of interviews at a Fortune 500 company. Things were going great. They wanted to pay me an insane amount of money. I’d have to travel to Columbus, Ohio, three days a week, but we could make it work. It was such a great opportunity.

In the third (fourth?) round, they ghosted me. Like just stopped all communication. We went from “we’ll get the offer drawn up and emailed over” to silence.

I learned the hard way you shouldn’t stop applying for jobs just because it looked like you were getting an offer soon. I had wasted a few weeks of not applying for jobs and was back at square one.

October turned into November and then December.

No one hires around the holidays, so I wasn’t confident I’d have much luck until 2024. But then in early December, I started interviewing at an online merchant to manage writers and editors. I went through three rounds of group interviews, each one more promising than the next. Things were looking good.

Then I got the “we’re going with another candidate” email the day after Christmas.

I’ve always thought I didn’t care much about what other people thought of me. In many cases, that still holds true. But this process was a mind fuck. How many times can I be rejected before I start to lose all sense of myself? Is there something wrong with me? All the ways my previous boss had told me I was horrible or overbearing, was that coming across in all these interviews? I had lots of first interviews, but I had many second and third interviews also. I tried to tell myself I wouldn’t be invited back if I was as off-putting as my old boss said.

But I wasn’t being offered a job either. So maybe she was correct.

I stretched my 12 weeks of severance to just over 20 weeks. Money was tight, but Chris was working any overtime he was offered, and our budget was saving us. I’ve written endlessly about money and how we manage it, but I can’t tell you how much having a budget made the first 5-ish months of my unemployment more manageable. I knew what we could cut immediately when I lost my paycheck. Being laid off was shocking, but I wasn’t, at first, worried about our finances. We intentionally live below our means, but trimming a lot of the fat (our new clothes budget, vacation fund, etc.) was a painless choice. Plus, it all felt temporary. I just knew I’d have a job soon.

January was coming and people would start hiring again.

By the end of January, I applied for unemployment benefits. My severance was gone. I was applying for jobs, but not getting any calls for interviews. We hadn’t touched our savings yet, but it felt like we were getting close to it. Through the fall, I had been doing odd jobs for family members and friends of friends. Need your laundry room redone? I got you. Need your house cleaned? I’m your woman. I was buying furniture and random stuff at auctions and selling it on Marketplace or Etsy. I was applying for jobs and doing so many random side hustles that our needs were being met, but by the new year, things were getting stressful. We weren’t saving any money, and I didn’t have any job prospects. Things couldn’t continue like this for much longer.

Unemployment finally kicked in, and it almost covered our mortgage payment. I got a freelance writing job in February that felt promising as I continued to look for a full-time job. We demo’d our upstairs bathroom thinking we could finally fix the leak that we’d discovered five months prior.

Except the leak had created much more damage than we thought. And the freelance job only lasted a few weeks before they decided I wasn’t a good fit (great! just what I needed to hear!). Now we had a destroyed bathroom and office, no additional income, and bills to pay.

Chris and I started donating plasma around this time. This felt like another humiliating blow. Chris was working as much as he could, and then after work he’d go spend hours waiting to donate then sitting in a chair while they took his plasma. I’d drop the girls off at school then go spend the morning at the clinic.

A random fact about me is that my veins are incredibly difficult to draw blood from. They’re deep and they roll and I have really low blood pressure; I’ve always been a hard stick. In college, I worked at a clinic where the nurses saw my veins as a fun challenge on slow days. I’m not scared of needles, but I’ve had some pretty painful experiences. More often than not, I’d show up to donate plasma, spend a few hours waiting and then just have the techs dig around in both arms until they had to give up. I’d come home covered in bruises and swollen. I’d wear long sleeves and wait for the bruises to go away, then do back and try again.

It was, in many ways, a violent way to make money. Chris could do it easily, but I could only donate when a certain woman was working. She was the only one who could stick me, no matter how confidently the other techs assured me they could. Mostly, I just wasted 3 hours to come home covered in deep, painful bruises and bandaids, with no extra money to show for it.

Chris pleaded with me to stop, but I felt so hopeless and guilty about not having a job that I felt like the punishment was appropriate. I needed to contribute to our family. I felt guilty he was working so much and then spending his evenings at the plasma donation center. He was tired and overworked, and I needed to be able to do something besides apply for jobs and do random work for other people who paid me more than I was worth because they felt sorry for me.

The bruises felt deserved.

I kept applying for jobs, mostly getting rejected, and going on a few interviews. I sometimes made it past the first round and sometimes I did not. I spent hours on LinkedIn and job websites. When I was initially laid off, I was given access to a job coach and job search firm. They helped me with interviewing and resumes and cover letters, but I exhausted their resources and contract before I found a job. The school year ended, and I still did not have a job. My daughters had completed their 7th and 9th grade school years, and I had been unemployed the whole time.

I was still in shock. It felt like I was living in a nightmare, where nothing made sense, and I couldn’t figure out how to wake up. And all of this was my fault. I spent hours rehashing my last job, convinced I could somehow fix everything if I thought about it long enough. And still, very few people knew I was unemployed. I was severely depressed, didn’t know how to ask for help, and didn’t know how to help myself.

I was applying for any and every job I was vaguely qualified for. I didn’t care if I had to drive an hour each way to an office job. I didn’t care if I would be paid half of what my last salary was. I kept thinking about the job interview I declined in September because of pay. How clueless I had been. I should have accepted anything and everything that came my way. I thought it would be easier than this.

In the summer, a former colleague and boss reached out. She had been checking on me since I had been laid off. She offered to connect me with a few people. I welcomed the connections. I introduced myself to both people and then applied for jobs at their places of employment putting their names down as referrals, with their permission. I had done this countless times in the past 11 months. LinkedIn is a hellscape, but it’s good for knowing who works where and how that might help you.

Within a week, one of the companies reached out. The recruiter loved me. She ended our longer-than-scheduled call with “we’re going to get you a job here.” I was past hopeful or trusting of recruiters. I had literally been told I had a job before and then ghosted. But, okay, whatever you say, lady.

By this time, I had run out of unemployment benefits. We were paying our mortgage with our savings, which I had avoided for as long as I could. I was sure I’d have to go find a retail job, I was out of options. I was still busting my ass buying and selling stuff on the internet and doing any and every odd job someone offered me, but it had been a year without a job, and we couldn’t keep doing what we were doing much longer. Would I have to ask one of my parents for money? I knew either one of them would help if I asked, but I felt so defeated already. I think that would have been a tipping point for me. But it was soon going to be the only option.

But the recruiter had been right. She was going to get me a job there. After rounds of interviews, a job offer finally arrived. A good job offer. One that I accepted, trying not to sound as desperate as I was. I began the new job after being unemployed for over a year. It still felt unreal, that someone had thought I’d be a good fit somewhere after being told I wasn’t for so long.

I had applied to over 800 jobs while I was unemployed. Had countless recruiter phone calls. Went on endless first interviews and many second and third interviews. Sometimes I heard back after interviews and sometimes I did not. I told myself I was just bad at interviewing, but I got enough callbacks I knew that wasn’t true. I read countless posts and threads from people in similar situations. Unemployment was low but finding a job if you were unemployed was insanely hard. My messy search for a job wasn’t unique. Lots of people were working just as hard as I was with no success.

I’m not exactly sure why I’m sharing this now, besides the internet has always been a place I’ve shared hard things. I don’t do that as often as I used to, but this one felt like it deserved space. Because I know reading this when I was unemployed would have made me feel less alone. Because I’ve mentioned my depression but not fully explained it. Because I want to write about other things now, but this experience has had such a profound influence on my life I felt I couldn’t go forward without telling it. Because I’m a different person now, and I want to mark it in some way.

I thought I’d share about this experience after I started my new job. But then I got worried. What if that’s too soon? What if this new job doesn’t work out? So I decided to wait until my 3-month review. After I pass the trial period, then I’ll share. But then that passed, and I thought I’d share a little bit later.

My review went well and my boss is helpful, communicative, and encouraging. I feel stable and welcome in this role, but the lasting impact of a horrible boss and a layoff has followed me to this new place. I’ve had this job for 5 months, and I still live in fear of losing it. Even when no signs point in that direction. I finished out the year with a review that was really good and planning with my supervisor what I want to work on when this project is finished. My boss sees me in this position long term. I’m still just working to make myself believe it too.

I want to leave most of this in 2024. I want to get it out of the way. I want to start 2025 with less fear and shame. I lost my job in 2023, and it took me a really long time to find a new one. Its impact was felt in a million ways. We have picked up a lot of those pieces in the past five months, but not as quickly as I would like. Even after all these years and all kinds of lessons to the contrary, I still want to be more resilient and quick-healing than I can be. Than I should be.

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the messages. It’s the first day of 2025, and I’m looking forward to a better year than the past two. Not because I have a job now, but because we survived, because we’re still here despite all the hard stuff. And that’s a constant in my life I’ve come to appreciate.

Still here.

Thanks be to God.

I was in the car driving my daughter to her orthodontist appointment; she was getting ready to start high school in a few days, and it was finally time to have her braces removed. It was an exciting day.

The afternoon before, my boss had rescheduled a meeting, so we were arriving to the appointment early so I could have the meeting in the car before heading into the orthodontist. On the way, I explained to Elliott that I didn’t know what the meeting was about, but it wouldn’t take long and she just needed to sit there quietly. I even said, “It’s not like I’m going to be fired or anything.”

I don’t know why I thought to say that.

30 minutes later, my boss and a random HR lady I’d never met before informed me my position was being eliminated, and I was being laid off. It was a Wednesday in July. My last day would be Friday.

As I sat stunned in the driver’s seat of my car with the rising sun in my face, my daughter wept silently. I couldn’t cry, not in front of this boss who I despised or my daughter who I loved fiercely. My boss read her prepared statement without acknowledging me or even saying hello. Then she signed off and left me with an HR lady to go over severance and PTO payouts and returning my computer equipment.

I didn’t understand a word she was saying. I focused on my breathing and not getting upset in front of my daughter who was sobbing in the seat next to me as she texted her dad.

The call ended, and we stepped out of the car to walk toward the orthodontist office. At the last second, I remembered to take a picture of Elliott, the last one with her braces still on. Her eyes were swollen and red, tears still staining her cheeks. I wanted everything to be normal and fine for her. This was supposed to be a good morning. I had to pretend it still was.

I told her everything was fine, hugged her, assured her I was okay, and then sent her back to have metal and glue scraped from her teeth.

She cried quietly through the whole appointment.

I had been given the rest of the day off. My job didn’t exist anymore, so what was the point of working? I finished out my last two days and ended my time with a send-off from my coworkers. It was tradition, on a person’s last day, to say goodbye with funny memes, kind words, and silly games. A virtual going-away party. But the party had never been for someone who was laid off. It was always a celebration, a bittersweet see-you-later.

My party was horrible. I loved my coworkers, and I loved my job. I was proud of the work we did, and the people I worked with were some of the best. All thirteen people present cried. No one was happy; we were all shocked and sad. It was the worst party I’ve ever been to. Everyone said nice things about me and that was also horrible. I lost count of the times I had to turn my camera off, because ugly crying at your work going-away party is such a bummer.

I’d met the woman—the one who selected my position to be eliminated—the year before at a company retreat. When she became my boss a few months later, she informed me during our first meeting that she had not liked me from the moment she met me.

I was too proud of the work we were doing. I bragged about our data too much. I took too much credit for the success of the content I created and managed.

She was—it goes without saying—a shitty boss. She was immature, unsure, and manipulative. She liked to keep secrets and withhold information. She didn’t like questions, which is an unhelpful trait when you’re the manager and your teams need to know how to do their jobs.

She disliked me for all the reasons a bully is mean in middle school: she was scared people would realize she didn’t know what she was doing. And I often asked questions that highlighted deficiency, which made me a target.

The good news is I wasn’t the only target. But she eliminated that woman’s position too, so she really showed us.

Losing a job you love is devastating.

I know you’re supposed to hold a job loosely, your job is not your life. Your life is your life and the job is just a way to help you live your life.

But I loved my job anyway.

Without exaggerating, I probably acknowledged how lucky I was to have the job I did and how much I loved what I was doing at least twice a week. It felt ridiculously privileged to get to combine the things I loved—teaching and writing and never leaving the house—into a job that paid my bills and more. I worked with smart, creative people who challenged me and made me better. I went from impacting one hundred students a year in the classroom to thousands each month. I got to write the instruction for The Outsiders, a book I loved teaching, so that thousands of students learned about poverty and friendship and grief and love. I wish I could say I didn’t feel so proud about the work I was doing, maybe my boss would have hated me less if I didn’t care so much, but I did.

And then someone who didn’t even understand my job was able to eliminate it due to budget cuts and pettiness. It’s been over a year since this has happened. I’m not writing from a place of anger anymore, just honesty. I don’t want you to read this and think I’m sinking to her level. I refuse to do that.

But I do know my job shouldn’t have been eliminated. I do know she did this out of spite.

And I know this because soon after my last day, my boss got a new boss because of all the bad choices she was making. And soon everyone realized what some of us already knew, and she was fired. And now they’re trying to re-create my position to make up for the mess she made. They’re trying to bring back an integral part of a product she tried to ruin.

I hope they can right the ship, because I still love the product I worked on and the people still there. They deserve a calm, safe work environment and smart, capable leaders. I hope they get that soon.

It’s hard to find the words to describe how depressed I became after losing my job.

A few days after I was laid off, my girls went back to school. I was able to get everyone where they needed to be and then spend the day frozen. I didn’t know how to recover from this blow that felt so personal. I know a layoff isn’t supposed to be personal—I was one of thirty people who lost their jobs that day—but I knew why my boss had chosen my position. And that made it so much worse.

I told very few people about losing my job. It took me two months to tell my mom, three months to tell my dad. If Elliott hadn’t been in the car with me that day, I’m not sure I would have told the girls for a while. I felt so ashamed and sad. It felt like failure, and I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know how much my job made me feel secure, but having it ripped away made everything feel out of control. I would like to pretend that’s not true, but I’m not good at pretending.

I isolated myself from everyone. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I went radio silent in a few friend groups and only one person reached out or asked how I was doing. I didn’t think I could feel worse, but I was wrong. I was the friend who helped you move, who dropped off food, who showed up to celebrate you, but apparently that was all I was good for. It was not to be expected from others. No need to check on someone who seems to have disappeared, someone who doesn’t normally do that. Sometimes I just felt like I was being a victim and making everything about me—depression is good at that—but I can look back now with clearer eyes and say that was shitty. I deserved better friends.

I had a really hard time finding a job and that made my depression worse. I couldn’t get out of the funk I was in, and then I kept getting rejected for jobs I was qualified or over-qualified for. [I’m going to write more about this tomorrow.] My layoff felt personal—it was my personality and work style my boss found so offensive—and applying for a new job feels so vulnerable, especially when you’re unemployed, that I took every rejection email as another blow to my non-existent self worth.

Chris, without mentioning it, upped his depression medicine. I know he did this without telling me because I was too fragile to know. My mental health is tied so extricably to my family’s that being sad felt dangerous at times. I tried to be sad during the day while everyone was gone and then “normal” when everyone was home. I know it wasn’t working, but no one pointed it out. I’ve always been the strong one, the one who helps everyone else hold it together, but I was barely hanging on by the end of most days. I was on edge, impatient, and snippy. I couldn’t get control of what I was feeling or literally anything and a single, small need from someone else in my family felt overwhelming.

And then I felt guilty about all of it.

Rinse and repeat.

Fall was hard. Winter was harder. Spring felt hard but with whispers of hope like it always does. By summer, I began to think I might never find a job, might never not be depressed, might never be who I was. I’d like to say that’s hyperbole, but my brain and every rejection email confirmed it. I would never recover from this blow. I had done something wrong, I was unlikable, I was unemployable.

The one-year anniversary of being laid off came and went. I had been unemployed for a year. I did not recognize myself, my life, or my future.

Anyway, it rarely happens.

So here’s my penance for all the times someone on Instagram asked about a wall color, and I didn’t reply: pictures of every room of my house (no filters!) and what the paint colors are. I’m getting ready to change some things up—some intentionally and some as a result of the bathroom remodel slowly taking over the whole house—and I wanted to get all these down before they change or I lose the paint cans.

Our eat-in kitchen walls are Behr’s Merino Wool with Farrow & Ball’s Bancha color matched at Home Depot. (The wallpaper is Lemon Fresh from Chasing Paper.)

I painted the living room (and the foyer, stairs, and landing) last winter. After all the Christmas decorations come down, I start a new project to get me through the winter blues. Painting a room, rearranging furniture, or hunting for an antique to add to a space keeps me from full-on winter despair.

The living room walls are Sherwin Williams’ Redend Point. I really love this color that leans pink/mauve, but also feels a little beige-y. I didn’t think Chris Graham would like this choice, but he does. The trim is Sherwin Williams’ Kestrel White.

The same SW Redend Point goes up the stairwell and onto the upstairs landing. The bead board and trim are from Home Depot, painted SW Kestrel White. I really like this soft off-white color. The stairwell walls seem to get dirtier than other areas of the house, so I picked this in hopes the fingerprints would be less noticeable.

The wallpaper is from Amazon, but I’m not sure I’d buy it again. It was not the best quality, and I feel like it has moved slightly. Nothing anyone but me would notice, but still. (The flooring is from Wall Pops; I really want to tear up the original slate flooring in our entryway, but I’ve just not been brave enough to yet. So those removable floor tiles are a temporary fix while I work up the courage.)

Our family room has been dark and moody since 2021. This was my winter project that year. Once I was done, I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I like all the colors, but I just didn’t like how this room came together. I didn’t hate it though, so we lived with it. Until now! I’m removing the wallpaper, painting the walls, shelves, and brick wall (not pictured because it’s already been repainted) right now. I’ll share more later.

Wall color is Beta Fish by Behr. The trim paint is just a basic white, and the shelves/cabinets are Spring Stream by Behr. The wallpaper is Opalhouse Leaves from Target.

(Spoiled, ornery dog is from Rosie’s Southside Animal Shelter. He’s the precious baby of the family and takes full advantage of this.)

Last summer, I painted my office, ceiling and all, a dark navy blue. I had a gallon of paint leftover from painting the shed a few years ago and decided that exterior paint would be great for my office. *shrugs* Of all the rooms in our house, this one needs the most work. When we moved in, there were holes in the wall from a water leak and the ceiling had been badly patched a few times from, what we assumed, was a former plumbing issue. We had the holes patched, new carpet installed and brought in shelves, but we knew down the line this room would need to be demo’d down to the studs. That makes doing something bold like painting the ceiling less scary.

And now, with the upstair bathroom remodel, we’ve found a pretty good leak that was never fixed properly. The bathroom that sits directly above this office. So now we get to tear out the ceiling in this office to fix the plumbing and, in the process, demo this whole space. It’s just really not worth tearing out half the space to fix something then paying to have it all fixed again knowing that we’ll rip it all out in a few years.

The walls and ceiling in this space are painted Sherwin Williams’ Archors Aweigh. The French door is an auction steal I stripped and painted Behr’s Merino Wool. I’m still on the hunt for a doorknob because a standard knob won’t work in it. So the door I purchased for less the $20 is going to become a lot more expensive when I order a custom knob for it. Eh.

Okay, that’s it! I did it. I listed all the paint colors and wallpaper sources. Now let me go change everything, okay, byeee.

Of all the things aging steals, I think this was the hardest for me. My grandma—who only had a tenth grade education—read everything she could get her hands on. When she stopped reading, it felt like a death.

By December, she moved into hospice care. My daughters were still riding the bus to her condo after school, and one day my aunt asked me to grab Grandma’s suitcase, pack the sweaters and nightgowns on her bed, and bring it by her house so she could take it to my grandma. I walked through the lot that separates my house from my aunt’s, carrying my grandma’s small blue suitcase and my pad of paper. 

“You’re the writer in the family,” my aunt said, “so you should write her obituary.” I dropped off the suitcase and filled a page with notes and dates and places. 

Like most writers, I wrote draft after draft in my head for weeks afterward. When I finally sat down to write the obituary for my paternal grandma whose house I live in, whose land I garden, and whose fire I sit in front of on cold mornings, I could not do it. 

I could not write an obituary for a woman who was still alive. 

In high school, I took a trip to Washington, DC, with the newspaper staff at my school. We visited the NPR studios where we saw the room where they stored all the obituaries for people still alive. This was the late 90s and most things were still stored in binders and folders. There was a room—maybe the size of a large walk-in closet—where the obituaries of well-known people of a certain age were stored on metal shelves. I only remember a few things about this trip, and this is one of them. I think about this room and what it held often, wondering who they’ve written about recently and if everything is now just on a Google Drive somewhere. 

It never occurred to me an actual person was researching and writing about an alive person as though they were already dead. I’m sure they didn’t actually know the person, but still, writing about an alive person as if they are no longer alive is disconcerting.

In the middle of March, my grandma went to sleep and didn’t wake up. She was adamant she did not want to wither away in a bed. She was adamant she did not want to be kept alive when she was no longer interested in living. And so she lost consciousness, was made comfortable with a mercy called morphine, and, less than 9 hours later, she took her last breath. 

I saw her a few hours before she passed away. I got to tell her I loved her, that it was okay to go, that everything was okay here. She didn’t have to keep fighting. 

My grandma fought her whole life. Born at the tail end of the Great Depression, she fought for food and fertile soil in southern Illinois as a child. She fought for an education with her three sisters. She met my grandpa after he started a fight at the skating rink when she was in high school. She fought to make a new life in Indiana with four small children and no support system. On bad days, she fought my grandpa. She fought through the grief of losing her husband, her daughter, her great grandbabies. She fought leaving the house she loved, because even though it was too much for her, it was still her home. 

The most challenging part about writing about the dead is fighting the strong urge to romanticize a person or a life. I believe it’s a disservice to whitewash the human experience by pretending everything was good and shiny and easy. My grandma’s life was not always easy. Being married to her husband was not always easy. Raising her grandchildren and great grandchildren could not have been easy. But she did it all with generosity and love. I’m sure, like all of us, she would have done some things differently. She was not perfect or without flaw, just like all the best people.

The evening she passed away, I sat down to finish her obituary. It was not suddenly easy, but it was easier than before. It felt like I was writing to honor her instead of writing to anticipate her death. She longed for death, but I, selfishly, could not join her in that. I had to wait until the idea became a reality.

My stubborn, smart, scrappy grandma lived a good, long life, but she was tired. I’m so glad she’s finally able to rest.

It was a lot of driving, a lot of beautiful scenery, and a lot of fun. Here’s where we went and what we did.

How many vacation pictures is too many vacation pictures? Asking for a friend who wants you to come over and watch her 45-minute slideshow with accompanying puppet narration.

We were gone a total of 8 days last fall to check off more states on our quest to visit all 50 before our girls graduate high school. Our first stop on this adventure was Niagara Falls, New York. We drove all day and made it just in time to see the sun setting over the falls. We spent the night nearby, then hit the road early the next morning for our next destination: Boston.

We spent a day and night in Boston, eating delicious food, exploring the New England Aquarium, and resting up before we pushed through to Maine.

(We’ve been to both Niagara Falls and Boston before, so we didn’t get to check any states off the list with those stops, unfortunately.)

We rolled into the Sunrise Cottage on Beech Hill Pond in Otis, Maine, on Monday evening. This was home base for the rest of the week. We loved this cabin and wish we had been able to spend more time there relaxing on the porches and using the amenities, but we were mostly just there in the evenings after hiking or exploring all day. The house was about 40 minutes outside of Acadia National Park, but it was close to a little town with shopping and restaurants, plus you drive through a slightly larger town on the way to the park with even better shopping and restaurants. It would seem you’re not close to the park or Bar Harbor, but we felt this was an okay distance to travel each day. If you have little kids and want to get to the park or Bar Harbor quicker, I’d definitely pick someplace else though.

The next four days were hiking and shopping and trying new restaurants and eating lots of ice cream. Fall in Maine is busy—rightfully so—so when we got into the park each day, Chris Graham went out of his way to take us to less busy hikes and lookouts. You know, the ones the tour buses and older people can’t get to. *awkward smile* That plan led to some pretty intense accidental hikes, but we all survived. Except we almost lost two people on the Precipice Hike, in all seriousness, and we should not have jumped on that trail without reading some signs, like the one that said people have died on this trail and please don’t do it when it’s wet or if you’re not a skilled hiker. Which was super cool since it was most certainly wet and we had some people in our group who were not skilled hikers.

It made for some good stories though, and Chris Graham got a cool t-shirt to commemorate the experience, but we all voted to never do that one again.

This was a good trip because the area has a good mix of shopping and delicious food, with a very large side helping of pretty landscapes and mountains. As our daughters get older, they are less enthused to spend a week hiking in a national park, so we have to temper that with bribery purchases at local bookstores, ice cream parlors, and gift shops. But those bribes were worth every penny, because Acadia National Park is stunning, and it felt ridiculously lucky to be able to see it in all its splendor in the fall.

After the week in Maine, we packed up and headed back to Boston. It’s about a four-hour drive, which is a good stopping point for gas and stretches. We got back into town just in time to tour Fenway Park and do a little baseball shopping, then we ate dinner near the ballpark and hit the road heading east for home.

This is year seven for our book club that evolved from the early days of The Front Room Studio (more info here). I love what we’ve become: four women who text about books all the time, attend author talks, share our never-ending book recommendations, and meet once a month at a Mexican restaurant to sometimes talk about the book we were supposed to read and sometimes barely talk about the book we were supposed to read.

Book club is a gift in a weird season, a constant when everything seems to be changing.

Anyway, enough gushing, here’s this year’s list (with affiliate links!):

January: The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick
February: What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall
March: A Burning by Megha Majumdar
April: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
May: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
June: Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King
July: We Are All Good People Here by Susan Rebecca White
August: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
September: Butts: A Backstory by Heather Radke
October: Assistant to the Villian by Nicole Maehrer
November: The Only Good Indians by Angeline Stephen Graham Jones
December: Comfort & Joy by Kristin Hannah

There’s a method to this madness, so if you’re interested in learning what gets picked and how, you can see that here.

And as always, I try to post books reviews for these books and many, many others on my book IG account. You can follow along to hear about the books I love and hate at @themarygrahamreads

Tell me what you’re reading!

My friend texted me this week to check-in. I’ve been quiet off and on the internet. She noticed.

I have a handful of similar messages on Instagram, I can see the preview of DMs asking if I’m okay, telling me I’m missed, hoping that I’m well.

I am well. I am tired and maybe a little depressed, but I am well.

Where have I been?

About two months ago I went radio silent in most parts of my life and the short answer is I’ve been putzing. Putzing around the house. Putzing around thrift shops. Putzing around my neighborhood on walks where I stop to inspect flowers and discarded trash on the side of the road.

My oldest daughter, after years of begging for social media, was finally allowed to get BeReal. I’m staunchly anti-social media for teenagers. There’s just too much damning evidence on how it impacts mental health and body image and a million other developing brain parts too precious to influence right now. But also, I understand the feeling of being left out. I understand what it’s like to show up to school when everyone but you has had the same cultural experiences. I grew up without cable TV when it was a thing everyone had. I wasn’t allowed to watch Friends or The Simpsons, and I had my Salt and Peppa CD taken away after my mom walked into my room while I was listening to it.

I survived, even though conservative Christianity tried it darnedest. And by survived, I mean I’ve had lots of therapy, and I left the cult of evangelical Christianity. But still.

Back to BeReal: my daughter got BeReal so I did, too. The gist of BeReal is you can only post at certain times a day, and you have to participate to see your friends’ posts who are also only posting at certain times a day. It’s similar to Instagram but without filters and set up to, hopefully, help you with some boundaries around your time.

I’m horrible at BeReal.

For years, I’ve had all notifications except text messages turned off on my phone. I don’t want the distraction or intrusion most of them bring, so the only time I know I have an email or a mention on Twitter (never calling it X) is to open an app. I like it that way. But BeReal, to work correctly, means you have to have notifications, which I miss constantly. And then when I do see them? I’m doing the same thing I was doing yesterday when I got the notification: driving my kids somewhere, making dinner, sitting in bed reading a book at an extremely early hour.

That’s it. That’s where I’ve been.

A few weeks ago, I was with my dad as he picked up some stuff he bought at an online auction. As I helped him load some shelves into the back of his truck, I had a flashback to my grandpa doing the exact same thing a few decades ago.

I come from a long line of people who love auctions. One of my favorite stories about my grandpa is how one Saturday he was at an auction and fell off a truck while loading something for someone. He got up and continued about his day, just limping slightly. The next day, he went to church—limping—and then after church, he and my grandma went out for dinner. When they pulled up to the restaurant (maybe my aunt was with them?), he casually asked if someone could run inside and see if the restaurant had a wheelchair he could borrow.

Someone said that’s probably not how restaurants work and maybe you should have your leg checked out if it hurts that bad. They ended up at the emergency room where they learned my grandpa had been walking around on a broken hip for the past 30 hours.

He was mostly upset he missed Sunday dinner.

Anyway, my family loves an auction (and food), and we will not be distracted by silly things like broken bones when it comes to a treasure.

I’ve been driving all over eastern Indiana picking up my online auction deals the past few months.

That’s where I’ve been.

In 2019, we had some drywall work done in our house: patching a light switch we’d moved, redoing the ceiling in a room that was wonky, just random things around the house you ignore until there’s enough of them to warrant calling someone to fix them.

One of the patches has sat, unpainted, in our kitchen since then. I would stare at it at least once a week and think about painting it, but I didn’t have any more of the original kitchen paint and to figure out the color and finish and buying more felt like it would kill me, so I left it.

This week I painted the kitchen, finally covering the drywall patch. I decided it was just easier to paint the whole kitchen than figuring out the original color. Then I had to paint the bench because the new wall paint made the bench color look off. Now I’ve started painting the trim because it looks dingy.

Chris recently said, “Can you just leave stuff alone?”

No, no, I cannot.

That’s where I’ve been.

Chris turned 40 a few weeks ago. I had a late-night, very loud dinner with friends last weekend. I’ve been slowly sanding a French door for my office. I took my nervous dog to the groomer, and he shit on the car seat on the way, so I got to clean the car. I’ve made gallons of tomato soup for dinner, for freezing, for sharing. We just shut the pool for the season. I sat on my porch this morning covered in a blanket and sipped hot coffee. I decided we are a family who no longer uses paper plates or napkins because it’s a waste of money and bad for the environment. I’m trying to find a pair of loose-fitting jeans that everyone is wearing right now, but it’s not going well.

I’ve watched tennis, helped my mom move, and done one million loads of laundry. I’ve been reading a lot, putting myself to bed early, and planning our next road trip. Noah Kahan has been playing non-stop in my car, and Fleetwood Mac provides the background music for anything I’m doing in the kitchen. It’s not chilly enough to turn the fireplace on yet, but I’m counting down the days until I can.

I need to order groceries, and last night I fed my family Zaxby’s because making food sounded like the hardest thing I’ve ever been asked to do. Chris is meeting with his sponsor this morning, just like he does every Saturday morning. I’ll take a walk this afternoon. Tonight, I’ll drive some kids to the homecoming dance.

That’s where I’ve been.