My mother-in-law loves Costco. For the record, I don’t want to love the two-pack cereal boxes or the vats of edamame hummus. I don’t want to indulge in so many free food samples that I skip lunch. I don’t want to pay a membership fee to a store at which I have

DO NOT do any of these if blogging is important to you!

Ok, truth: this is really a list of five stupid things that have kept ME from blogging for the past month…

1. I got in a fight. Not like punching or anything. My mom and I drove to Idaho with

An abandoned dairy near my house has become a rest stop for migrating birds–mostly Canada geese–and I can’t help slowing my car on mornings after I’ve dropped my daughter at school to gaze out into the field and watch the birds. Last week, I did a double-take when I noticed white

I’m alone in one of the library’s tiny study rooms trying to write something deep and profound. That’s what REAL writers do. I don’t want to be a failure, so I try to think deep thoughts.

The door is closed and even though I’ve been here only twenty minutes (distracted by texts

Photo credit: National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov/)

Driving home last night from an impromptu going-away party for our friends’ Australian exchange student, my daughter and I spotted a male elk towering alongside the road.

Without thinking, I  pumped the brakes and stopped the car right in front of him. The elk’s breath

I woke up yesterday with a cold sore. My lip was swollen and blistery and I was pretty sure the world was ending.

Turns out I’m still here. I think everyone else is, too. Apparently, the Mayans weren’t trying to predict anything; they just got sick of calendar-making.

Don’t think I wasn’t worried,

I’ve been thinking about God lately.

I imagine a guy enamored with model trains, spending all his time in the basement painting tiny evergreen trees and rail cars carrying fake coal and those yellow and black striped crossing signs. The Big Engineer knows every detail of the goings on in Train Town. He

I did it! Finally. After months of hand wringing and yammering on about how I need a change, I sneaked away on Sunday to one of those cheap places with Master in the name, signed in on the clip board, and a few minutes later…presto…

Bangs.

I now have a thick mop of fluff

So I’m at this retirement party for these two guys my husband used to work with and I’m talking to this woman–another former co-worker of my husband, but also a friend of mine–who mentions she read (at least started to read) the original story I tried drafting in real-time on

Summer, my thirties, the pears I canned last year…so many cool things on the verge of being gone forever.

Stupid finite human reality. I hate it.

Now I have regrets…like  I should have blogged during August (I’m a slacker). Should’ve made more of myself during the decade of my thirties. I should have savored

Usually I give it up for free. Now I feel used and I haven’t even held the check in my hand, just a contract promising me $250. (I hear that’s good money for what I just did.)

Yeah, that’s right. I sold a piece of myself…A piece of writing.

I thought it would

Of course I couldn’t officially attend Tin House’s writing extravaganza this past week—it’s like $1,100. And of course I’ve been plotting for months to go anyway.

The thing is, I’ve been to enough of these writing confabs to know they’re a bit like weddings. Everybody’s slightly drunk and blissed-out and wouldn’t know if you’re a