Stepping In

It’s been forever and a day since I last checked in (when I logged into this account it said two years and one day, to be exact). I’ve been preparing the girls to someday take flight, which has consumed minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and, apparently, years. It’s a process that is full of perspective and breathing and growing.  I’ll share more about the chickadees and their process in the future, but these next few posts will focus on different topics entirely.

To be honest, I’ve found it difficult to be in an online space without friend requests and boundaries. It’s vulnerable and open and real. I’ve been all of these things, but on a much smaller scale and with a limited audience, so please bear with me as I take baby-steps back here.

I am honored to be part of the Choose Joy launch team.  I am.  But honestly? This is hard. Glennon says all the time “we can do hard things”. I hard core adopted that mantra as I geared up to read. The hard is in no way based upon the writing or the promotion or any of it. It’s the topic, which just happens to be my dead friend. The one who made plans with me for the “highlight of our twilight” and had a wicked sense of snark and uncontrollable curly frizz. The one who didn’t make it to forty.  Yep. Her. Our Sara (I'm linking to a post YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY GO READ where she discusses her snark along with her philosophy of it being "all good" and also uses the term "freaking kidding me" which was ALL HER). The game she discusses? The one she played with Mama Jane in the waiting rooms at Mayo? We often play it in airports. So. Many. People. In. Airports. Yes, the girls and I share Sara's snark. As I review and share the book I'm going to guide you back to her blog. It was many of the best parts of her, the ones she put out for everyone to see, but it was honest and raw and real. She was real. Rereading the post I linked made me laugh and cry at the same time. True definition of sappy that she and NieNie discussed often. So, dear ones, we can do hard things. I proved it. I picked up the darn book and read it in a single sitting.


The book arrived for me to review and it sat under my Christmas tree for three weeks.  Three. Weeks.  Side note: A friend, Alece, refers to this, 2016, as her year of “badassery”. It’s not my word, but for all intents and purposes, I’m borrowing it here.  I’m reaching deep down into that word to rejoin this online community and review a book that was difficult for me to read. Laura Pederson and Mary Carver spent countless hours launching (Laura) and writing (Mary) Choose Joy. It took me that much time to gather the strength to read it. I'll be sharing parts of it here in the coming days. Welcome back, friends, I'm harnessing strength and rejoining this crazy wonderful word world.

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