My brother, sister and nephew are here! The holiday started out slow, ended with a bang <— see what I did there? Most of the morning was spent testing out ways to wear our bandannas. Then a delightful BBQ at a friends’ house – complete with burgers, pulled pork, a pool for the kiddos, and…
You may or may not know that my roots are Finnish. Insert joke here: “Finnished with what?” I know, knee slapper. Anyway, my mom is from Finland and that’s where my weird name comes from too. We still have family there, and every few years, we are very fortunate to see them. This time around,…
When I first heard we would be having a big family BBQ for Mother’s Day, my inner voice let out an audible groan. What I actually wanted was to be in a spa with body oil, a back massage, someone picking at my face, and a mani/pedi. But instead I would be outside, in the…
Technically, it will be a month on the 16th. But it’s been 4 weeks. 4 Saturdays since Luke’s passing. Some days are still hard. I didn’t have Luke in my life on a daily basis, but knowing how much his parents miss him… oh, it makes my stomach hurt. All day yesterday I was very…
Mondays used to be for Mom Style. I enjoyed hamming it up, posting my goofy outfit pictures. And there’s a bunch of stuff in my drafts folder to be posted. But somehow, after everything our family went through the last few weeks, the things I usually write about, now seem so… stupid. I know life…
Usually for Easter, we drive far, far away. Hey, Dana Point can sometimes take like 3 hours! This year we stayed pretty local and visited family in Chatsworth. It was a lovely day except for the fact that Stevie skipped his nap. So he was just plain ol’ angry. A grumpy old man in a…
In case you hadn’t heard, driving from SoCal to Southern Mizz is no joke. I’m just going to start calling Missouri “Mizz”. Because why not. We rented a minivan, or – as my stepdad likes to call it – a Mormon Assault Vehicle so that we could have a little more space. Five hours into…
No matter how crummy the circumstance, having all of us together in one place… well, it hasn’t changed much over the years. Except there are probably a lot more inappropriate jokes now that we are older. And we talk about our feelings more. But otherwise, yes. We are just a bunch of overgrown kids. And I have…
We got in late last night. Pretty sure I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Then today I woke up to an alarm and a list of things to do. Back to the old grind. Were we just in Missouri? Did we just attend a funeral for Luke? Were we really…
Yesterday was really, really hard. My nephew’s funeral took place here in Missouri. He packed the memorial hall. Many, many kind words were spoken. He brought all different types of people together through love. When I looked at him in the casket, I couldn’t believe how big he had gotten in the last 6 months.…