• Life Lessons,  Travel

    On Setbacks: When Life Hands You More Lemons Than You Can Hold

    [Originally written in April of 2018] Here I sit, in a VRBO-rented condo in the tiny resort town of Fajardo, Puerto Rico. It’s been over six months since Hurricane Maria devastated the island, leaving its 3.3 million inhabitants (one of whom was my daughter, but that’s a stressful story for another day) entirely without power and water for over two months.  Even now, signs of the storm are everywhere you look. Roof tiles missing, large holes in fences and wall stucco, broken and dangling street lights. The condo complex is eerily quiet. Of the three pools, only one is fully operational, but we’ve had it mostly to ourselves all week. Many of the…

  • life-lessons
    Life Lessons,  Parenting

    Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn

    “The rooster is dead,” my 15-year old son declared, barely holding back the tears I know he felt too old to shed. He’d walked into my bedroom that morning while my husband and I were still in bed, browsing our phones and putting off getting ready for another busy day. It was said as a statement, but the accusation was in his eyes. His big, brown, usually playful eyes told us his beloved rooster was dead and it was our fault. “Too long,” was all he could get out before he walked away and left for school. Ugh. Gut punch. My husband didn’t say a word. He just sighed, got out of bed…