I’m Not the Only One

Dress Up Dreams

Once upon a time I spun in front of my parents’ record player, singing and dancing to a song called “Tina the Ballerina.” I closed the door to my bedroom and sat at my desk with a Brother typewriter and filled pages with stories. I majored in philosophy and wanted to help people find beauty [...]

Be Enough Women: Wardrobe Woes

scarf, earrings, and lip gloss to distract from my actual clothes

Closets stand on the north and south sides of our bedroom, one for the husband and one for me.  Built into the slanted eaves of our second story, they’re identical in their small size. His is neat and organized, everything placed meticulously onto hangers and shelves, shoes lined up on the floor. Mine is a [...]

Be Enough Women: In Defense of Makeup

image by Trostle (Flickr Creative Commons)

The lovely Missy recently posted a photo made up only with her smile, and the Just.Be.Enough team discussed a series of photos in the same vein. I hesitated. I’m not mortified by the way I look in the morning, face bare but for the shadows of mascara I didn’t remove thoroughly enough to withstand my [...]

Be Enough Women: After the First Time

After the First Time | Just.Be.Enough.

My mother converted to Catholicism after marrying my father, but her good-girl label had nothing to do with the church she attended. Her pragmatism and relatively chaste beliefs collided as we ventured into talks about sex and marriage and virginity. She never hesitated to share the physical aspects of what sex entailed, but the emotional parts [...]

A Time For Plans to Bloom

Spring Crocus

Even a mild Michigan weather fades the vibrant fall colors into monochromatic grays and browns. Winter sunlight streams bright and cold and emphasizes the dull ground. I suppose there is beauty in the hardened ground, covered at times in snow. Skis and sleds lean against doorways, gloves and hats in a jumble on the floor, bright [...]

Adjusting Our Plans

Preschooler at Baby Shower

Tuesday I volunteered in my daughter’s preschool classroom, three and just-turned-four year olds painting watercolor storms and building a man out of curved and straight wooden shapes. Boys and girls tripped over dress-up clothes, and I sat with Abbey and her friend as they played a hybrid of school and zoo with little plastic animals [...]

Balancing My Dreams

Balance

I close my eyes and see a scale. Not the one shoved under the bathroom cabinet every day except Monday mornings but a delicate device struggling to balance what’s placed on its plates. My pink scribbled notes run together in my notebook. I came back from Blissdom, my first blogging or writing conference, with a [...]

Princesses as Superheros

Red Tights

I shift dishes from the dishwasher to cupboards, moving around the kitchen in a practiced dance. My daughter runs up the stairs and tears through the kitchen. The blur of blue tulle and glitter tells me she’s raided her dress-up clothes for whatever game she’s coerced her brother into playing this afternoon. Her articulate voice drifts towards [...]

Snow Day Delight

IMG_0126

Winter in Michigan is dazzling sunshine on crunchy snow and dreary days where exhaust from cars dulls the whiteness into gray. We spent much of last winter barricaded against the snow, my toddler unsteady on uneven terrain and irritated at the many times he ended up planted in his snow pants instead of rushing after his sister. [...]

Challenging Media Images

Be Enough Women

After a day of impatience and hurt feelings, I curl up with my kids and read our bedtime story. Their heads lean into mine, small fingers curling near my neck. Goodnight sighs and hugs remind me that tomorrow will be better, that motherhood is filled with good and bad days. When I struggle with words, [...]

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