I love hedgehogs. Last week, my amazing friend Andi Cumbo made me this super-cute hedgehog. You can get one too, handmade just for you, from her Etsy shop, and support her dream for “God’s Whisper,” a retreat for artists in the Virginia mountains. This started me thinking about *why* I love hedgehogs so much, and what we can learn from them… A hedgehog is a solitary creature. I can relate. She is perfectly happy to cuddle up all alone in a warm little fleece bag. She won’t come out voluntarily unless you’re holding a mealworm in front of her nose. But […]

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Welcome to Fiction Friday.  Each Friday, I’ve shared with y’all a glimpse into the mind of Zach the Zombie and some of his friends.  If you remember, an old friend returned last week, and fell apart in Zach’s arms. You know the drill–this is only very minimally edited.  I still appreciate grace and forgiveness, please…no red pens!  🙂   “Zach?” She says it so quietly, I almost miss it. My mind was not here with us. “Yeah?” “Sorry.” I feel her body shift, and I pull her in tighter and rest my cheek on her head. She relaxes and mutters “I’m sorry” again. […]

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People ask why we adopted. (I sometimes want to look back at them and ask why they gave birth, but that’s a different post.) We’ve told the story of how; we’ve told the story of what and where. And you certainly have heard about how the girls have changed our lives. But I don’t think we’ve ever sufficiently answered why. It’s simple, really…we fell in love. For us, adoption wasn’t an answer to infertility, it wasn’t a way to meet a deep unfulfilled yearning to be parents, it wasn’t even through a passion to “save” an orphan. We just fell […]

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Welcome to Fiction Friday.  Each Friday, I’ve shared with y’all a glimpse into the mind of Zach the Zombie and some of his friends.  If you remember, an old friend returned a while back. You know the drill–this is only very minimally edited.  I still appreciate grace and forgiveness, please…no red pens!  🙂   She sits down and peers at me over the edge of the coffee cup. Like she’s been here the whole time. Wow. Not really sure how she thinks this is ok.  But she knows.  She knows I’ll forgive her. Eventually. “I’ve been to the City,” she repeats. I try […]

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I recently saw a list of the top five most popular posts on a productivity app’s blog. The posts themselves weren’t really anything stunning…what struck me was the story that the collection of them told. The five posts were titled: The big list of 100 tools, tips and tricks to work more efficiently online What multitasking does to our brains What happens to our brains when we exercise and how it makes us happier How much sleep do we really need to work productively? The science behind how your productivity is affected by what, how, and when you eat Individually, all […]

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