idontbelieveingrammar

One of my favorite thanksgivings wasn’t even a thanksgiving at all. I didn’t eat turkey and no one had the day off. The weather was miserable. Cold and rainy and gloomy. I never seemed to get warm or dry and slept for a week on a tiny twin bed. With Shaun. In a flat with about 4 other people I didn’t know at all. And one I did. We skipped work for few days, emptied out our bank account, cashed in a few old savings bonds and traded in our dollars for pounds. And flew across the pond. And spent the week in London. And skipped Thanksgiving entirely. And loved every second of it. It was a time in my life where at parties the conversation was always steering to breastfeeding and birth control and babies. Which was odd because we were all married with no kids. We took  our dogs to dinner parties. Played ultimate Frisbee on the Kimball lawn every Thursday. Watched HGTV and decorated our new homes. We scrapbooked and redecorated and went to late movies. We packed up and w...

Ok. So I’m still way too tired and too busy to process 90% of the conference stuff. That and I still haven’t done my homework. And the week is only getting busier, so maybe after Sunday I’ll unpack a little. Instead I’ll talk about traveling alone. My husband travels alone all the time. For work. I almost never do. Like I’m not sure that I’ve ever flown into, an airport other than my own,with no one to pick me up on the other end. I was excited about the trip and exploring a new place and some alone time. Until the few days before. And then I kind of panicked. My dad has always been a ridiculous traveler. He is a crazy planner. When we take family trips I get bound copies of maps, itenoraries and things to pack. Really last summer it was 13 pages long. There was even a table of contents. My husband isn’t nearly that type A, but he does his research. He looks up maps and restaurants and even checks the weather. Even when I go somewhere with friends, I know I can usual...

the other ranch In my circles the ranch, always meant camp. Mo Ranch and where I spent most of my summers from ages 11-21. I haven't dedicated much writing to this place because it is one of the few things in my life that seems to be too big to tackle on paper. It is where I learned about friendship and family and first kisses ( well thanks to camp stewart dances) about being real and sharing a bathroom with 20 other girls, the importance of mail, my love for the late night conversation, the non-necessity of a hair dryer, that maybe jumping off a bridge isn't the best idea, some of my best practical jokes, that there is all kinds of grey, that sometimes it really hurts to send them home and lots lots more. Shaun has another ranch. One that he has spent almost as much time at, but in Colorado. There he learned to flyfish, how to sneak up on some elk, how to make gorp, how to clean a fish, just how much water a jeep can actually drive through. They are both beautiful: the Texas ...