Every year I write a letter to send along with our family’s holiday card. It includes illustrative anecdotes that portray the mess, the humor, and the passage of time with our three sons (5, 3, and 1). Every year I (humbly) receive a flood of compliments — how fun it is to read, how vibrant our household sounds, how relatable so much of it feels. One friend told me that he saves it for after his children are in bed and he’s poured himself a glass of wine (though I hope he told me that as a way to suggest it was an enjoyable event and not that the font has gotten so small and the page so decidedly double-sided (to be clear, it absolutely has) that to read it requires hydration along the way…).

At the urging of a few particularly enthusiastic friends, I am trying my hand at more frequent cadence and a wider potential distribution list. Normally I have a pretty limited social media presence by design, but I have to say that I find the idea of translating observations, thoughts, and feelings into words that might resonate with others so appealing. So here goes: life as I experience it — and maybe you do, too.