I’m pleased to be a featured reader at the first EcoAction Author Night on May 21 in Arlington, Virginia. EcoAction Arlington, the event organizer, was formerly known as Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (ACE). The organization celebrated 40 years last fall! I’m honored to be reading with Tara Campbell, author of TreeVolution, from which she…
Activism & Politics
Recap: Inspiring BlogHer18 Health conference!
BlogHer18 Health, the first health-focused conference produced by BlogHer and SheKnows Media, was a terrific two days full of inspiring speakers, education and connection. To say that I’m glad I went is a profound understatement! It was terrific to be in a space with a shared language of health and wellness being spoken everywhere! I loved it! More…
Busy spring!
The first two weeks of May have been packed. The month started with a Clean Air Awareness event I helped to organize. It was successful and I hope will lead to more awareness about clean air habits, especially people turning off their cars while parked at school. That drives me crazy! The event went well…
Gender today
The National Geographic special issue on Gender and the Gender Revolution documentary that airs this month could not have come at a better time. I was thrilled to get to see the documentary last week at a pre-release screening at Nat Geo headquarters here in DC. My post on The DC Moms goes into more detail…
What we teach our children, and ourselves
When I was halfway through my first pregnancy, I found myself startled to realize that I would be giving birth to a white male. After all the time I had spent teaching about race, gender and class privilege, I wondered how I could ensure that my son wouldn’t grow up feeling entitled. Last spring, as…
Talking about talking about race and gender
When I was in graduate school, long before I had kids, several of my classes in both English and women’s studies addressed an approach to teaching called critical pedagogy in which students are invited and expected to participate in conversations about their own learning and even about the power structure of the classroom and the…
Getting back on the train to social justice
When I first began battling illness in late 2003, my commitment to social justice activism waned. I’d been up against resistance in the high school where I taught as I worked on the issue of racial disparity in AP/honors classes vs. “regular” classes. We’d made some progress, but it was still challenging. Further challenging, still, was…
Things I want to remember about this awful week
It’s obviously been a terrible week for humanity. With the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police officers followed by the deaths of five police officers at the hands of a sniper who professed his hatred of and anger toward white people, it’s hard to have a whole lot of hope for humanity. And…
Return to BlogU
BlogU is a small and intimate conference that is both super practical and a lot of fun. It’s local to the greater DC area, which is big for me since traveling is such an ordeal with my food and fatigue issues. And it’s economical, with the conference – including all sessions, keynotes and parties –…
What would “success” look like
Today I was challenged to define success. This was at the end of a networking meeting, and I was spinning my wheels about what I’m trying to achieve with Mindful Healthy Life vs. what seems realistically possible given the commitments I have to my health, to my family, and to my community. Well, that was…
Lessons from my nephew and my sister
Today my sister published a piece on The Mighty about her son and his experience getting excluded from his Boy Scouts troop, essentially because they couldn’t handle his autism. I will have to revise this post tomorrow to say more, but on the off chance that anyone is reading this post, please go read my…
My day in the world
Here is the photoblog I created today after touring the new Arlington MOM’s Organic Market store!
What I did today
Today I did write before the kids got up, but nothing personal for here. So behold a partial accounting of my day. Today, I: wrote this play review about Hansel & Gretel put together this quick weekend preview of DC-area wellness events after some research, emails, texts and a phone call added this School Garden Meetup…
Modeling moderation when mama abstains
As a woman whose health can’t support her drinking any alcohol, I feel pretty out of the mainstream with all the funny jokes out there about needing a drink. I can’t even tolerate decaf coffee anymore, so I feel similarly out of step when others talk about the day not starting without java. It’s not…
Why clean air matters to my family
After I’d attended the summer Moms Clean Air Force play-ins and had learned more about the organization‘s important work, I was honored to be invited me to speak at the Virginia Mama Summit at the Virginia General Assembly building. At first, I thought that since my children don’t have full-on asthma and I don’t work as a…
Grounding in fall
This fall I have noticed the leaves without trying so hard and have immersed myself in a lot of interesting activities that seemed to land in my lap. I have been so many great talks and events, and I’ve wanted to write thoughtful and helpful recaps of all of them for my website, Mindful Healthy…
Activist, educator, mother: spin the dial
What words would you use to describe yourself? How do those words change when you become a parent? What do your choices look like with the glasses of parenthood on? This week I felt like some of my many identities came together outside the Federal Triangle Metro station at the Moms Clean Air Force-organized rally…
The importance of laughter
This post is part of the first Humor in Parenting (and Breastfeeding!) Blog Carnival inspired by the anthology Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding, a collection edited by Rachel Epp Buller and published by Demeter Press in August 2013. The anthology looks at the lighter side of nursing. All of its contributors found something…
Humor in Parenting (and Breastfeeding!) Blog Carnival
The hilarious anthology Have Milk, Will Travel: Adventures in Breastfeeding was published in August by Demeter Press (and reviewed glowingly by Literary Mama). The editor is heading up a Humor Blog Carnival this month. Details below! The book contains some 30 essays from mothers sharing the funniest breastfeeding stories you’ve ever heard. Even if the…
On blogging and living (simultaneously)
Everything changes, but what is important never does. That is the biggest lesson I’ve learned from parenting, and I think if I work hard enough, I can apply it to blogging as well. When I was a high school English teacher, back before I became a mom, I was constantly busy reading papers, or thinking…