An appreciation post of Claire’s faces. @cleezy
A few months ago I had the honor of reading a chapter in my friend Rachel Held Evan’s book of her last writing before her death. It was incredibly emotional to read her words, particularly the passages I was given, and I had to stop several times along the way to compose myself (if you listen to the audiobook, you will probably hear me fighting back tears.) What a devastating loss to the world. What a friend, who I miss dearly. And what a gift to have these last words from her. https://amzn.to/3nPQpgc
I’m ordering our holiday cards this week. Which ones should we choose? I am loving the options @Minted has this year and I’m torn between the ones with some humor, the classy look of the gold foil over our sunflared photos, or bold typography.
(And yes. I do this really early every year. Because I generally find the holiday season and stressful and this is one thing I can get out of the way in advance.)
Shout-out to @stevecowell_photo who took these photos that I adore! Check out Minted’s card selection at http://bit.ly/yayminted.
A few folks have made comments about it, so I thought I would talk about where we are at with masks. Throughout this pandemic, I have been concerned with not being responsible for spreading a virus that is taking lives. To that end, we quarantined and did remote school, even after our district went back in-person. We were diligent with mask-wearing and did not have anyone in our home for over a year. Once we were able to get vaccinated, we loosened the reigns a bit, then 2 of my kids had breakthrough COVID cases with no symptoms. So we masked up again. But as school started and the activities that are a part of a rich adolescent social life restarted (dances, sports, theater, sleepovers, birthday parties, etc) I had to make a decision. With the vaccine now widely available, am I willing to keep my kids in isolation for more of their short high school experience in order to protect people who are refusing it? And the answer I came to was no. I often tell my clients “you can’t care more about something than they do” to conceptualize boundaries. And that’s where I’ve landed. I’ve never been concerned with my own kids getting COVID. Statistically, they’d have been fine. I wasn’t “living in fear” for the year+ we stayed home. I was trying to avoid any of us being the cause of someone’s death. But we now know that the best tool for avoiding this is the vaccine. I’m no longer willing to sacrifice the social lives of my kids to protect people who won’t protect themselves. I am glad to live in a state that is mandating vaccines for students because I think it’s the key to getting back to our lives. But I can’t care more about your vulnerable family member than you do. So I am also allowing my kids to go maskless in places where other people have chosen to go maskless. We will still mask in stores, doctor’s offices, airplanes. My kids mask at school. I won’t argue about having to wear a mask, but I do hope that as mandates increase, we can start to offroad required masking. You will occasionally see photos of my kids without masks on. I believe in masks, but I believe in the vaccine more. We are vaccinated, and I won’t punish my kids further because others refuse it.
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