Summer has come to an end. Tomorrow my little boy starts First Grade. First of all, how dare he grow up, turn 6, and go off into the numbered years of school? It's sometimes hard to reconcile the tiny little 34 week preterm baby he was to the long-limbed getting-too-tall-on-mommy sophisticated 6 year old he … Continue reading First Grade, Here We Come!
Once upon a time, The Lily Cafe was a writing blog in 2013-2015. I shared my fiction and some poetry. Most of it's still there if you're curious; they're too much a part of what this blog is for me to want to delete it. When I came back to blogging in 2018, I hoped … Continue reading Why I Share My Fiction
Dear Kids, It's been a while. The last journal was about Brother graduating from Kindergarten. Now we're a little over a week until he starts First Grade. Virtually. The Last Safer at Home Order Journal was over a month ago, around the time Brother turned 6. I figured it was time to update you two … Continue reading Journal For My Kids #4
My sweet little boy, Earlier this week you turned 6. It hurt my heart that it wasn't much more than letting you have pizza for lunch and cereal for dinner, and not having to do all of your summer educational activities. Usually, we celebrate by going to Disneyland, but, well, that's closed, and the reopening … Continue reading Safer at Home Order Journal #8.5
Dear Kids, My heart is breaking for you. My last Safer at Home Order journal was about a month and a half ago. The numbers were stabilizing, the county was reopening. Things were starting to look like they might be getting back to "normal." Everything was getting kind of boring. Things were reopening, numbers weren't … Continue reading Safer at Home Order Journal #8
Dear Son, Today you graduated from Kindergarten. It's so hard to believe the academic year has finally come to a close. It wasn't exactly how I had thought, had hoped it would be. The way it should have been. For now, I'm left wondering what graduation was supposed to be like, but at least we … Continue reading Journal For My Kids #3
Dear Kids, The past week has been an exciting one. There have been 2 major events that have grabbed our country's attention. One was quite exciting and thrilling. The other was and is...scary. I'll get the scary one out of the way first and then end with a high note. On Memorial Day, a black … Continue reading Journal For My Kids #2
Dear Kids, We're in the middle of a pandemic, when things are starting to reopen and Dad and I are keeping an eye on the numbers to see how they'll change, especially after Memorial Day weekend and far too many gathering like they shouldn't have. But today is also an historic one. Today, SpaceX and … Continue reading Journal For My Kids #1
Dear Kids, There are 5 weeks left of school. Five weeks. When did that happen. Eight weeks ago, I thought it would take forever for the end of the year to come. I was desperately hoping for even a slim chance of schools reopening before the end of the school year. I felt like the school … Continue reading Safer at Home Order Journal #7
Dear Kids, As we head into our 8th week, we did something different yesterday: we went to Nana and Papa's house. It's been hard for the past couple of months to not see them. We're so used to going over almost every weekend, and you two love playing in their backyard and with your cousins. … Continue reading Safer at Home Order Journal #6
The Lily Cafe 