This post is sponsored by ShoeBox. My husband’s birthday was a few weeks ago. It also happened to be the day of our Beer & Hymns gathering. The two guys who lead Beer & Hymns with me are two of my husband’s closest friends, so we decided to parlay this month’s afterparty into a bit of a birthday celebration for Mark. (We do a themed afterparty after most of our events where we perform cover songs and lead the crowd in a rowdy sing-along.)  We wanted to do some songs that Mark . . .

For the past 10 years, we’ve done a weekend in the desert outside of Palm Springs with some friends. It’s a tradition that our family loves, as we are joined by other families with kids. We’ve been doing it long enough that as our friendship circle has widened, so has the group that comes with us. This year was our biggest year yet, and it was a blast. We had new friends and old, friends from church and from doing music and from the blogging community, and it turned out to be such a fun group . . .

I don’t talk very much about some of the attachment-related issues that our family deals with. I’m intentionally vague about it, but at the same time I’m not trying to sugar-coat anything. I don’t think it’s honoring to go into detail about all of the ways my child with attachment, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s helpful to other adoptive families who read here to pretend like it isn’t a factor.  So I will preface this post by making a sweeping generalization: kids who have spent . . .

Comfort is a big deal when you're trying to get some sleep. The number of pillows you use, the kind of pillows, the arrangement - I am very particular about my pillows. To the point where I sometimes bring my own to a hotel. Source   I sleep with three pillows. They're really old pillows that have been flattened down but I'm so used to them that I can't bring myself to buy new ones. I sleep with two under my head, one going vertically, one going horizontally. I don't know why. I've . . .

Every once in a while I will find a dress that's perfectly comfortable and stylish and easy to wear without ironing, and I will order it in several colors and pretty much wear it every day until it falls apart. I just love a single piece of clothing that I don't have to match, that I can throw on and look "put together" with no effort. Last summer it was this dress: It was from Old Navy and I ordered it in every color, and have worn the black one so much that it is nearly . . .