Category: The Valley
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2025 Edition: Joe Stepped In
[Disclaimer: This post is an up-to-date revision of last year’s anniversary reflection, Joe Stepped In: A Tribute to my Husband. I recommend reading this one:)] The anniversary post I typed on this day in 2023 was marked by left-to-right leaning back and forth, a desperate attempt to stay positioned in…
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I’ll Still Go Buy Daisies
I’m up before dawn on a Sunday in May — one week away from the now-dreaded day when many in our midst will don floral dresses and pick up a bouquet on their way to Sunday brunch. I was among those scrambling children once. “Sorry it’s not much,” we’d all…
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This Changes Everything
The mechanized whir of a coffee bean grinder roared through the Starbucks lounge as my friend leaned in, eyes watery and full of compassion. Her hands encircled a steaming espresso, her voice barely above a whisper: “How are you handling this so well?” I glanced down at my phone lying…
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Friendship in your late twenties
Welcome to friendship in your late twenties — the roaring, soaring, tears-pouring twenties. It seems the easy days of community we created in college are behind us. Walking with each other through hard tests and breakups prepared us for life a little, but nothing compared to what we’re learning right…
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A Letter to Mom: I’m a mom now, too
Mom, I wanted to write to tell you that I’m a mom now, too. And I never thought I would have to walk this journey without you, but it’s happening — it’s here. He’s here. And he’s beautiful, Mom. Ocean-blue eyes with a dimple you could sink in. I’m convinced…
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Bookends
I was struck this year by the bookends of life. In the past fifteen months, I have watched my mom’s final breaths on this earth while anxiously awaiting my son’s first. I’ve drawn up the design for a gravestone in the same month I’ve decorated a newborn nursery. I’ve begged…
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Birth Story: I am not God.
Of all the lyrics on my 20-hour labor playlist, there’s a line from a Hillary Scott song that rings most resonant in my mind — Sometimes I gotta stop, remember that You’re God and I am not. I’m one week into life with little Luke, and those lyrics seem to…
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2024 Recap
It was a blustery Upland February in 2018. Little college-freshman Cali sat in the padded dorm chair of Bergwall Hall desperate to process everything that had just happened on a life-changing study abroad excursion throughout the entire land of Israel. The result was a blog. That blog became a storehouse…
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Redeeming Moments
Christmas has come and gone in a whirlwind of candlelight services, peanut butter kiss cookies, and sweet together time as a family. While it was technically our second Christmas without Mom, in some ways it felt like the first. Many times, we would reflect on last year and say things…
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Light of Christ
I’m that type — the Christmas tree is up. Like many women, I married a “no Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving” kind of guy. But also like many women, I just got too eager. Took a personal day to get some nesting done and next thing I knew, the tree…
House on the Rock 