Cultivating Joy

Last fall, Lucy and I planted 200 tulip bulbs. Tulips are my very favorite flower, and have been since at least high school, which may be the longest I’ve ever gone without changing my mind about something. It was a sunny September day with a bite in the air, and we knelt down in the

Dialing Down the Crazy…a True Story of Ash Wednesday, Yoga and Gilbert & Sullivan

Aaaaaaaand it’s Ash Wednesday again – my blogiversary, and the beginning of perhaps my favorite church season, Lent. I was sort of stumped on what to write about, to tell you the truth, but determined to think of something since Ash Wednesday is evidently THE ONLY day I won’t let pass without a blog post,

Where Joy Resides

My oldest child is in another professional play. She’s having a good season, it must be said. She had just finished one play when she started rehearsals for the next gig. Like seriously, the very next day. And she’s been spending HOURS downtown at rehearsal. My life, for the next two months, is chaffeusing. (I

Why Your Kids Should Definitely Study Music…and Maybe Even Ballet.

So an old friend posted two articles from The New Republic on Facebook today. In one, the author says “don’t make your kids play an instrument or take ballet.” In the other, a different author says “make your kids play an instrument,” skipping ballet all together. Mr. Con says that classical music and ballet lessons

Now We Are Six

Now We Are Six – A.A. Milne When I was one I had just begun When I was two I was nearly new When I was three I was hardly me When I was four I was not much more When I was five I was just alive But now I am six, I’m as

Life in the Desert

We celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary on Sunday, so that means it’s been 12 years since 9/11/01. There are lots of posts about 9/11 on my Facebook feed this morning, prayers for peace, and “I will never forget” badges and the like. Me, I’m going to be spending the day trying to get organized for

Baseball Blues

Tom Hanks famously said “There’s no crying in baseball” in the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own.” Well, I’m here to tell you that’s not exactly true. It’s possibly a prepositional problem. There has been plenty of crying over baseball Chez Belfry today. There has been crying about baseball. There has been crying concerning

Why I Am Still a Catholic

It’s a question I get asked a fair amount. How can you stay in the Church, after the child abuse scandal? when they won’t ordain women? with their stance on homosexuality/health care/contraception? I sometimes feel like I’m targeted in a special way since I’m a political liberal, and that’s supposed to make me above religion,

The Vietnam War and Critical Thinking for Kids

Setting: The parking lot in front of a Vietnamese restaurant, with posters in the window advertising colorful mixed drinks. Dramatis Personae: Emma: Forty-ish mother of three. Possible commie; certified elitist, liberal Riley: precocious ten-year-old. Reading obsessed. Henry: precocious eight-year-old. Baseball obsessed. Lucy: near silent five-year-old. Obsessions as yet undetermined. Scene 1 Henry: Hey look! A

Teaching the Kids to Cuss

My ten-year-old had lice during Easter break. It was kind of funny actually, by which I mean not funny at all, but rather skin-crawlingly gross. But I did have to laugh when I described it to a friend as “biblical” and then went, “No seriously, it’s biblical! Lice was one of the plagues during the