Sometimes grief grabs you by the heart and squeezes so hard that love comes out.  Five years after moving into this house, I finally painted the master bedroom. Last weekend I was crawling along the floor foot after tedious foot, cutting in where the baseboard meets the wall, splitting the long straight lines of white into two colors - like a before and after - when I stopped for a second to consider the moment.  And I thought,  I wish my mom could see me in this good life.   Tears pricked my eyes and heavy sadness fell on me like a thick blanket. Grief is like that sometimes, sudden and blinding. I wanted to cry. I wanted to lay down right there, brush in hand, and dissolve into sleep. Most of all, I desperately wanted to see my mom and have her see me, so far from where I was when she left.  The windows of the room were open, an unusually warm spring breeze drifting in. My husband was mowing. The man I moved 1200 miles to join, near family I had just met, in ...

In the epic battle between a 41-year-old female with zero plumbing experience and a Bradford White 50 gallon electric water heater, I have been triumphant.  This was a war I never intended to fight, a battle brewing for more than four years.  Beneath the glare of a single bare lightbulb, the beast waits in its lair. In the first days after we moved into this beautiful house, I noticed our hot water was measly. Wimpy. Unimpressive. It was very warm at best, never up to the challenge of being truly hot. On the advice of our builder, I cranked up the water heater's two heating elements over and over until they were set hot enough to boil us, but the water temperature at our faucets and showerheads was still unexceptional. I was vexed, but thought it was a minor inconvenience we'd just learn to live with. Yet the thorn in my side slowly festered. About two weeks ago, the hot water inexplicably became even less hot. Now I was taking daily showers with no cold water added whatsoever...

Just before 2 p.m., I was gathering my things for a school pick-up run. Bag? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Mask? Check.  Suddenly, multiple smoke alarms in my house started blaring simultaneously. I froze in fear. There was no explanation, there was only the ear-splitting screech of dire warnings in stereo. DANGER! Like a thousand pigs squealing Weird thoughts go through your head during a perceived crisis. My first panicked thought was our security alarm was going off, but 1.) I hadn't turned it on yet and 2.) I was the only one in the house, definitely not intruding. My second thought was I wasn't currently cooking, so it wasn't a burned dish smoking in the oven or a pot holder I accidentally set on fire like that one time in college. (PSA: Do not leave unattended pot holders on the stove, lest you turn on the wrong burner and they go up in flames.)  I frantically rushed around two floors and a basement while sniffing the air like a bloodhound, but I couldn't see or smell...

The summer after I gave birth to the baby, I treated myself to a new swimsuit. It was one of those forgiving tankini styles in black, with strategically placed blue ruffles. Dillard's was having a special sale, so I got some free gifts with my purchase -- a set of cheap flip-flops two sizes too big and a pair of ugly plastic sunglasses. I knew I would never use either but felt guilty throwing away items that were perfectly good, so I left the items in a bag on my bedroom floor until I decided what to with them. That was in 2013. One entire presidential term came and went while that bag sat on my floor. (Thanks, Obama.) I am not a good housekeeper. Clutter tends to follow in my wake , from winter shoes I may need to wear tomorrow to bills I need to sort through to toys I should give away. And when I begin to feel overwhelmed by raising two tiny, needful humans and living through a time of deep political unrest that may affect my family's sole income stream, my housekeeping...

If Facebook and Instagram are to be believed, there are women in our country who have clutter-free, artfully decorated, visitor-ready houses at all times. I suspect Mary Poppins floated in on her black umbrella, sang "Spoonful of Sugar" in a full-throated soprano, and the debris of daily life magically marched into its assigned drawers and cubbies of its own accord. I'm still waiting for her to get to my house. I have two children under age 4 and a husband who works odd hours, so my musical experience is more like Jakob Dylan repeatedly singing the line "this place is always such a mess, sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn" from " One Headlight ." Toys and dog hair litter the floor, you can write cursive (if schools still teach it) in the dust on my bookshelves, and the counter tops are a veritable treasure trove of miscellany. One of the biggest collectors of stuff is the kitchen. Like the heart of the body collects cholesterol, the he...

One of the dogs peed in the dining room. I don’t know which one, and neither is talking. It left a sprinkle of yellow spots that I got out with Resolve Pet Stain carpet cleaner. As a result, though, the carpet is lighter where it’s been cleaned. Which means either the carpet cleaner is killer, or I’m a crappy housekeeper. One of those.  Then I chased down the kiddo, who is suffering from spring allergies, to give him some Benadryl. Which he spit out on the dining room carpet, leaving a pink blob somewhat near the now-light-tan spots. I reached for the closest napkin to wipe up the pink, which happened to be one of the variety which has a decorative border of blue and green squares on it. One of these squares, naturally, transferred to the carpet as a green spot.  My dining room is a multi-colored rainbow. It’s pink and tan and blue and yellow. You know, for spring.