An Email History of Pandemic Life

A history of my pandemic life since schools locked down for us last March, according to emails.

Leaning on my tribe

I could not raise my kids alone. Neither could Nathan and I do it on our own. We lean on our tribe. We have our family, and our neighbors, our church, and our school, and we have their friends from these places plus soccer, dance, and gymnastics. We need people. The isolation and lockdown measures from …

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An online tribute to Grandma

The caption on the picture above was written by the photographer. He visited Grandma in 2018 to take pictures for Utah Life Magazine. I wrote the story and it was one of the best writing assignments I've ever been paid for. I wrote Grandma's obituary this week. It was a costly writing assignment for the …

Blessed like Edith

I wrote her obituary today. I had help. I had her help first. I listened to her talk to me, through recordings on my phone, sharing her story of the memories and details she wanted to include. Then, I had a coworker (a writer, and a friend) Lydia help polish it. I then sent it …

Hybrid school year, here we go

A post about today. And Thursday. And a little bit of Friday. Today is Tuesday. That means it's online school day. We don't have online assignments yet. Teachers sent home some papers. Dom and Gabbi did them with Maeli and Sadie. They're the neighbor girls I hired as tutors. It was quiet for a bit. …

Blessed to be like three women who raised me

Today is International Women's Day. I was searching in a box for something from high school and didn't find it. I did, however, find a piece of paper that is nearly 40 years old. This paper is the transcript of the blessing my father gave me when I was not quite two months old. A …

The garden of Edith

Pick up a copy of the July/August edition of Utah Life Magazine and you'll find me, my Grandma DeeDee, and my son, Dominic. I've pitched and submitted plenty of stories and pieces over the last several years. I've received oodles of "no thank yous" and non-responses. One evening, I sent in a pitch to this …

Will somebody drive to Kamas and buy me some donuts?

I wrote this as an attempt to get a job with a magazine as their humor columnist. I didn't get the job. It was good times trying, though. Now, you can hear my story. It's from last summer, up in Park City, so I get to include the video Google made for me from my …

Grit and authenticity #yearofbeautiful

The culture of the Carlquists is grit. Carl Arvid Carlquist was born in Sweden in 1857. He moved to Utah, raised his family here, had a son, Carl, who had a daughter, Edith, and she is my Grandma DeeDee. I am a Carlquist. From Angela Duckworth's book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she says the …

Developing a family narrative (#yearofbeautiful idea)

Part of my #yearofbeautiful is to strengthen my connection with others. I’ve been thinking today about my connections within my own family and came across this article from The New York Times: “The Stories that Bind Us”. Here’s the bathroom break version of the article: If you want to create strong, lasting family relationships, develop …