It’s noon on Friday, and I’m pounding on the back door of the Green Wolf Tap Room. Bob and the kids are next door at the library with a homeschool group, and I’m demanding that Justin, the owner, open up early and serve me whiskey for breakfast. I haven’t eaten since lunch the day […]
Women’s Work
I’m not used to being invisible. It’s true that I’m happy to go for days on end seeing no people. It’s true that social contact takes a lot of energy for me to muster. But it’s also true that, when I am seated in a room with people, I expect to be seen and acknowledged. […]
Divine Intervention with a Shot of Espresso
When Don and Trish sold us the PO building and former firehouse, they left behind an Old Town canoe, a curio cupboard, an electric coffee pot from one of the former post misstresses, a five legged table, and Mark*. Mark is a young homeschooled man from a Mennonite family. He has a gift for working […]
Mothers’ Day
I’m not a fan of Mothers’ Day. I was seven months’ pregnant for Saoirse when I vowed to put a stop to the madness. I saw it all as a giant pyramid scheme, with the youngest, newest, most exhausted Mom in the family line at the highest point of suffering. Because, while it was a […]
Less Stress, More Profit
Lessons From A Kitchen Disaster It’s the middle of May, and I shuffle the bills like playing cards. It’s that time of year, when all the savings from the end of last fall have run dry, and I’m scanning due dates, matching them up with the the farm’s production and sales schedule: pairing feed bills […]
Holiday Mom
“I don’t get it, “ I rant. Bob’s washing dishes while I toast pecans with one hand and whisk eggs and maple syrup with the other. Ula works at crimping a pie crust at the kitchen table and Saoirse is at the spice drawer, putting together a blend. “We cook and clean every day for […]
Selling it.
Become a Patron “You don’t show enough cleavage,” I was told by some cynical veteran writers one night after a bottle of wine. “You’ll never make it as a popular writer.” “You don’t do lunch,” I was told by a New York publishing insider. “You’ll never make it.” Long before I faced the brutal realities […]
Selfish
Selfish Bitch. To my mind, those are about the cruelest words that can be uttered to a woman. It isn’t that I haven’t encountered (or employed) more extreme vulgarities. But the venom in that accusation contains the most poison. It tells a woman who has stood up for herself or seen to her own needs […]
Happily Ever Right Now
November first is a special holiday for Bob and me. For us, it represents our first day of happily ever after. It was the day Bob was unexpectedly fired from his job. We were shocked. Embarrassed. Scared shitless. We had only closed on our house two weeks’ prior, and our first mortgage bill arrived in […]
Camping
Ula was reasonable the first time we told her we wouldn’t take her camping. That was about three years ago. I’ve learned that the key to being an always-(physically, if not mentally) present mother is knowing where my boundaries are. I’ll cook great food for them. I’ll read to them at night. I’ll spend my […]
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