It has been a busy past couple of months for us with teaching, writing and a little travel to New England for the Thanksgiving holiday. But I took some time over the summer to recap for a local magazine just what our first year with diabetes was like and I’d like to share it with [...]
Steve and I love the outdoors. As parents, we try very hard to instill that love in our children. When not on a His-and-Her-only retreat (for you other outdoor enthusiasts check out Mount Le Conte, a “primitive” lodge in the Smokies reachable only by hiking. You will not regret it!), we’ve had the kids join us [...]
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve done this before.” I looked skeptically at her–this superhero, who had in her life done many brave things–where she stood very pregnant near the bottom of the stairs of our house, the keys and the phone in my hand, ready as the faithful sidekick. “Really,” she went on, one arm [...]
A few years ago I wrote a story about a dog we owned named, Digger. The piece was for a local publication which every August ran a special “Dog Days of Summer” edition printing favorite pet stories submitted by their readers (you can read it here, if you’re interested). The story was, originally-enough, titled “Digger”, [...]
I love the idea of documenting our d-journey through pictures and while it’s true we have captured a few memorable events on film (or in pixels, rather), unfortunately, there’s just not that much more that’s worth posting beyond what I’ve already shared. So, instead of inundating you with pictures of say, the combined quarter-century worth [...]
Dear Kids: As I write this letter I imagine it as a pin hidden in a haystack, buried beneath dawdling levels of virtual white pages, layers upon layers of words and wordsmithed images and deliberation. How many, heaven only knows. Plenty, I hope as that means I have plenty of time to write them. [...]
I am having a problem with our dog. You might remember Jake. I wrote about forgetting him as we left from a holiday weekend visit with some friends at their lake house. Jake is a pretty mellow dog. He follows me around the house, lays under the desk while I write, and other than shedding, [...]
A couple of years ago, I got into an email argument with one of my kids’ science teachers. Beyond the fact that I was on a two year low of feeling particularly let down by the conscience and caliber of science teachers at the school, who seemed incapable of anything other than sucking the fun [...]
Since Lia’s diagnosis eleven and a half months ago one of the things we’ve been watchful of and spent many long hours safeguarding against was the effect diabetes would have, if any, on everyone’s self-esteem. We watched out especially for Lia’s, but our worry was not limited to her well-being alone. Before this disease it [...]
It was a common yet unproductive habit in the days, weeks and months following Lia’s diagnosis to do as any worried parent might do and question every external encounter or genetic mutation in our family history in pursuit of where had this come from. Often it wasn’t a very long thought, really more of a [...]