Pen-demic

  “The best things in life are the people we love, the places we’ve been, and the memories we’ve made along the way.” – Auliq Ice As 2021 winds to a close, I’m grateful to be turning the page to a new year. In many ways, COVID has caused life to feel like a roller coaster this past year, filled with barrel rolls and corkscrews that make it hard to get my bearings. And yet, somewhere between the roller coaster inversions, I’ve been lucky enough to catch my breath and enjoy slower moments visiting new places, spending time with loved ones, and making memories. As my family can attest, I take a lot of pictures as we’re making memories. I am frequently behind the camera lens, but sometimes will force my family to do a group selfie, or even have my husband step behind the camera to take a pic of me with one or both of the kids. As my son edges closer to his teen years, I’m starting to receive eye rolls and snarky remarks. But simply reminding him that our family’s annual yearbook won’t ...

The 2021 school year has arrived. Backpacks are packed.  First day of school outfits are chosen. Teacher assignments are received. The last thing on my checklist is to have the kids fill out their chalkboard for the first day of school. Obligingly, my son and daughter will stand in front of our home – backpacks on and hair fixed – and hold their respective chalkboards. Those boards are currently blank slates but soon they will be filled with each child’s age, teacher, and aspirations for what they want to be when they grow up. I’ve been anxiously awaiting their teacher assignments and over the past week, I’ve been asking them to think about what they want to be when they grow up. Last year they both said they wanted to be soccer players. To be exact, my daughter said she wanted to be the greatest soccer player EVER (she’s got some serious goals!). As I stare at the blank slates in preparation for the 2021 school year, I’m thrown back to last year. A time when we took their photos i...

  Food is the ingredient that binds us together. As I quickly picked up a handful of groceries at Schnucks a month or so ago, I glanced down at the refrigerated items in the middle cooler. The jars of Kraft Pimento Spread immediately drew my eyes. My family had purchased and emptied enough of those tiny glass jars during my childhood that we had repurposed them as our water cups. On any normal grocery run, I would have concerned myself with the nutritional value (or lack thereof) and passed on this pimento spread. Instead, I snatched one out of the cooler and backtracked to the cracker aisle to pair it with Triscuits. Just as I had many years ago, when I returned home from the grocery store, I loaded a plate full of Triscuits slathered with pimento cheese. It threw me back to memories of weekends when my dad was working and my mom, sister, and I were hanging out at my grandparents’ house. My Grandma and Grandpa Trulove maintained a stock of the best snacks—twizzlers, bing cherries,...

  You know those warrior princesses that are both strong and beautiful? With long sweeping dark hair and powers to right things that are wrong in the world? My best friend Rehab is one of them. Her power isn’t flying, although she drives as if she can. It isn’t the use of a signature weapon, although she wields tools that serve her well in battles. She has special powers to save people in the ER. She’s a warrior, battling each day for life.   With her husband deployed to the Middle East weeks before our own country went into lockdown and just now recently returned, Rey has been on the battlefield back home, donning whatever PPE is available, and waging war with an unseen virus attacking her friends and neighbors. After daily combat, the princess returns home to parent two toddlers, praying each day that their own superheroes will continue to care for them while she fights on the front lines. She even shielded her children when the opponent attacked her and brought the battlegr...