I’ve run (or walked) the Monument Avenue 10k almost every year since I moved to Richmond in 2006. The nice thing about running a race for more than a decade is that it becomes a bit of a marker for your stage of life. There was the first year, when after racing the 5k in
After spending an entire year with absolutely zero things on our calendar, our family is jumping into the figurative AND literal deep-end. We signed our kids up for swim team. I know that a lot of people’s kids do swim team, but this is our first time. And I sort of feel like we’re the
Sure, one winter storm was fun, but then we had another, and an hour before I sat down to write this I got a text from my county alerting me that another ice storm is on its way. The text said to have EMERGENCY SUPPLIES READY! What are the odds that that was a prank
Shout out to everyone who lives in a moderate climate, waking up to a blanket of snow, beginning the early morning chore of unearthing snow bibs and waterproof gloves for children who CANNOTWAITANOTHERSECOND to go outside. Since it only occasionally snows, all the snow gear is scattered here and there. Half of it is outgrown
On the first day of school I woke up early to go for a bike ride. Ya know, nothing like a little early-morning exercise before the 11th plague descends on your house — virtual learning. While cycling, I took a wrong turn and ended up going down a big hill. Not a huge problem, except
Well, here we are. Summer is nearly over; we’re in the countdown to back-to-school for the strangest academic year ever. That’s a true statement, right? I’m pretty sure I can say that without fact-checking. School has never been so strange, uncertain, controversial, and wildly different from one district to the next. My kids’ school will
My kids are both participating in their school’s summer school program this month. The main reason I signed them up was to get a preview of what virtual school might look like in the fall. I hoped this would give me and the kids a chance to get comfortable on the platforms they’ll be using,
In the past few weeks, my church has been slowly and cautiously resuming in-person worship services. In an effort to love and protect attendees, and out of deference to authorities, there is a litany of strange, “never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine this” precautions. Once everything started shutting down, church was the
For ten weeks I faithfully documented our quarantine. I published week 10 just after Thomas’s birthday, and after that I started wondering how long I’d keep this up. See, when I started, I thought the quarantine would be temporary. And I thought that it would end with us flinging open the doors and returning to
If you’d like a quick lesson on the lunacy of Confederate monuments, you should explain them to kids. Pare it down as much as possible, don’t let your bias cloud the water. There was a war — the north versus the south. The south lost. These statues are to commemorate the soldiers that fought for the