Category: home
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Gardening in the Rain
In case you’re wondering, our garden is still growing weeds. I’m learning that this is how it goes (so they say): you pull the weeds, they’re gone; then the weeds grow back, and you’re down in the dirt again.
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Lost Socks on Laundry Day
My husband (who affectionately calls me the Laundry Fairy) says his socks are missing. I remember hearing tales of lost socks from others who were living in a different chapter and carried far heavier loads than I did as a single person. Where could it have possibly gone? I always wondered. (How did your life…
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Our Secret Garden
Our garden is growing weeds. We don’t know what to expect in these garden beds because we weren’t the ones who planted them. We inherited them when we bought the house in the dead of winter, bare trees and frosted beds. So I’ve been waiting and watching, checking each morning to see what pops up,…
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Rain, rain, go away
Our cats have full roaming access to the whole house, and yet, all they want is a deep dive into the kitchen sink. We spray the water bottle, stomp our feet, clap our hands, put on stern voices, NO! GET! DOWN! BAD!, we’ve tried it all. J even became the blanket monster, draping the fuzzy…
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Shelter in Place
An overheard conference call: Wake up at the same time you always did on a normal work day, take a shower like normal, get dressed like normal, keep the same hours you normally did, invest in your space at home. This could be our new normal for a very long time. I can’t help but…
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M(r)s. Jogger
I spend my days watching people. Yes, I recognize that this sounds creepy, but I assure you, it’s nothing like that creepster watching kids at the playground that Netflix would turn into a documentary that goes viral. I watch with innocence and wonder, marveling and curiosity. I watch to learn how to live and breathe…
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Sorry I Ate All the Cookies
She skipped town for the weekend and left a Tupperware container on the counter filled with chocolate chip cookies. She had stayed up late one night baking them, clanging baking sheet after clanging baking sheet I heard downstairs at an unusual hour, said it was really only a recipe from the back of the chocolate…
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Needed
Somewhere deep down, we all want to feel needed here, beyond Can you count these paper clips? Way beyond Turn in your time sheets. So far beyond Pay your doctors’ bill or It’s time for your colonoscopy.
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Summers at the Lake: Why We Talk About Leaving
It seems we ask about plans for leaving mid-bend and swing on the summer’s first cannonball off the wooden dock. We’re handing over the SPF30, Can you get my back?, and it has yet to soak in before we ask, And when are you leaving?, condensation barely pooling on our defrosting cans in the North…
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There Are Things I Need to Tell You
My waiter, he asked how old I was in reference to the round of margaritas for the table of guac lovers, and so I replied, “27.” My friends, they turned to me quickly and corrected, “Ash, you are 28.”
Ashley Fenker 