From guest room to Linden’s nursery, the transformation is complete, minus a tinker here and a tinker there. (See the moodboard here.) It’s strange to design a space for someone you don’t know yet, but it’s also one of my favorite things to do in the last weeks of pregnancy—to create a space she’ll hopefully love to play in and sleep in. Please sleep, I prayed as I set the level on the shelf while Kev screwed it into the wall. Please be level, too. Made from shallow prayers, teamwork, hand-me-downs, so many stripes, and last-minute Target drive-up pick-ups (because COVID), I’d love to take you on a tour of Linnie’s room. Read more

Oh, hi. It’s me again. We’ve been getting a 9-hour stretch of sleep outta this baby for the last week (!!), something we didn’t get outta Hal until she was over a year. Things are starting to feel normal again. You know, new normal. With that, I’m wading my way back online. Though it shouldn’t go without mentioning, using the word normal about life feels strange right now, like it’s a word worth holding back on. Nothing is normal outside the walls of our house, neighborhood, and country between the centuries-long lack of basic human rights extended towards our Black neighbors and the months-long pandemic. If anything, a new normal, a more equitable normal, is in order here, too. It’s a heavy time to be dipping my toes back into this space. I’m not quite sure how to do it all and do it all well, but here I am, tripping along. Oh, hi. Read more