Here you'll find current musings, as well as the archives from two blogs of yesteryear: YoungMarriedMom and What I Learned While Writing a Novel. Please comment and share. We love well when we are in conversation with one another. 

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welcome to a space grounded in

humor and humility

Young married mom

what i learned while writing a novel

motherhood

ethan

And we’re back! These couple weeks away from the blog were important to our family, but lately I’ve found myself itching to post here again. It’s been about six weeks since I posted, and “busy” is an understatement of what life has been like between then and now.

 

I finished my revision and sent it off to my agent. I learn more and more about writing and editing every time I work on another draft. There will be more about that here in the coming weeks. I was on a high for a full week after I finished. I still kind of am, come to think of it.

 

Potty training is coming along. We are celebrating victories and trying to figure out how to deal with accidents in a way that lets the little guy know we want to avoid them, without giving him some kind of complex.

 

In these six weeks, we also went on vacation,

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celebrated three years of this,

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and four years of this.

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I made some progress on knitting projects and got wrapped up in a YA trilogy by Ally Condie (Matched, Crossed, and Reached). Read them now! So smart, suspenseful, emotional. These are teaching me a good deal about telling a story well, too.

 

We joined the twenty-first century and got iPhones. I was so excited, two days later, I got a headache! Moderation, moderation.

 

I’m learning that, as friendly and sociable as I can be, I need some regular quiet time for myself. I knew this, in a way; it’s why I go write on Saturday mornings. But living with more people—wonderful, lovely people, whom I’m relatively certain are destined for sainthood for their charity, generosity, and humility—means I need to be sure I get some time alone. I am a better mother, wife, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, and friend when I do.

 

I joined a Bible study (we’re using this curriculum) and a playgroup. I also trained to be a lector at Sunday Mass. I’m grateful for these smaller communities in our hometown that give me some grounding as a mother in the place I used to be a child. I’m also excited for the ways I’m interacting with God’s word. I need that spiritual space as much, if not more than I need time alone, to be the best version of myself.

 

Jacob only asks to move back to Brooklyn when we go somewhere else over night, like on vacation down the shore or to Massachusetts for a wedding. He talks about the big truck taking all our stuff back and seeing his friend Gabriel. Otherwise, he loves living here, where we can pick up Daddy from the train every nigh,t and we see grandmas and pop-pops every day.

 

Part of me wishes that our lives were more settled, but I’m beginning to see that growing a family, as we are, means that we’re always in a state of flux. People are growing; we are all changing. Family means we’re there for each other. Home is wherever we’re all together.

  1. Elizabeth Mason says:

    Absolutely beautiful!!!! Thanks for sharing all of your celebratory moments in the last few weeks. I LOVE what you said about constantly being in flux while growing a family- that perfectly captures how it is, and I so appreciate you putting words to it.

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