Maybe it’s because “English major” doesn’t exactly lead to clear path forward for an undergraduate, but somehow I knew that I wanted to pursue graduate school right after completing my undergrad degree at Doane College (now University, but forever DC in my brain and heart). My senior year I started making plans, applying to four different university’s graduate programs: University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Minnesota, Iowa State University, and somewhere else (lol – I honestly can’t remember the fourth one now). 

The spring I graduated, I received rejections from two and acceptance to two – UNL and ISU. Although ISU invited me to visit the campus, something about it didn’t sit right with me, so I ended up accepting UNL, even though I was not awarded a Teaching Assistant position which meant I would have to take out more student loans to complete this second degree. Their initial letter did say I was an alternate for a TA job, but I assumed they said that to everyone and I would be stuck with the loans and whatever odd jobs I could squeeze in around classes. Imagine my surprise the summer after graduation when I got another letter telling me I was in fact being offered TA employment and would essentially have all of my grad costs covered! To this day, I thank my lucky stars for that person who said “no” so I could say “yes” for my much more affordable two years of grad school that followed in Lincoln, NE. 

For a Word Nerd like me, grad school was a wonderful place. As an ENGL grad student, life was even more right up my alley, with tons of books to be read and papers to be written. That said, it was far from all fun and games as the majority of it was not novels which meant for dense lectures to consume and essays to produce, not to mention the prep that went into becoming a teacher for UNL my second year of grad school. TAs were all assigned one section of Freshman Composition to teach both semesters of their second year, as a way to cover that general ed class which helped out the full-time faculty by freeing them up for other classes. As a 23-yr-old young woman, teaching those two classes to kids just a few tiny years younger than me felt a bit like getting myself tossed directly into the fire, but I guess that is in fact one way to learn. And hey – almost twenty years later and I am in fact still teaching that very same class, so I guess it didn’t turn out all that bad. 

While I was at UNL, I didn’t just teach as part of my TA gig; I also worked in various English-related offices around campus. It was a bit like being Inspector Gadget because you had to have about that many tricks, bells, and whistles up your selves to accomplish all the various grad student tasks. I worked directly under an ENGL professor, proofreading his newest book on Shakespeare; I spent a handful of hours each week reading/rejecting poetry and short stories submitted to the UNL lit mag, The Prairie Schooner; I also lucked my way into hours spent working for the University of Nebraska Press; I digitized content for various projects at the Digital Archives; and I worked on the Cather Journalism Project, coding dozens upon dozens of periodical publications from Cather’s undergrad days at UNL. Those weren’t all simultaneous tasks but there we definitely days when I wished I had go-go gadget arms (and legs) to get me all over campus and through my lengthy To Do list, for sure. 

While my TA work was varied and remarkable, as an extra bonus, I was surrounded by some really fabulous humans and scholars during that time, too. My supervisors, my thesis committee, my office mate, my classmates – all provided support both professional and personal during my two year program. When I ultimately made the call NOT to do a Ph. D., a handful of them still traveled to South Dakota to celebrate our wedding the following summer. I also chose that spring not to attend the three-hour graduate programs graduation so it was special to have some of my UNL favorites with me on my other Big Day that year. 

I may not totally have understood what I was getting myself into by applying and attending grad school at such a young age, but it’s afforded me the work and career I’ve had since and I’m grateful for all the pieces that went into that component of my educational journey.

*Post 41/52.  

For years I flirted with the idea of going super short with my hair. I’d had plenty of bobs over the years (including after our wedding when I chopped off something like 12 inches of the longest hair I’d ever had because I was so sick of growing it out), but had never gone pixie short. Then I entered the years of motherhood which messes with your hair on so many levels.

If you didn’t know, hair grows and grows and gets super lush and thick whilst pregnant and then about four months after baby arrives, it all decides to leave your head at once. Great fun, I tell you. I mean, thankfully mine always came back, but in the oddest growth pattern on my scalp that, according to my hair dresser, was like this strange halo of baby hairs on the crown of my head. That actually worked to my advantage with some of my new-mom bobs I rocked over the years because it gave a pretty decent amount of volume, but heaven forbid I actually try to do anything with my hair because the little fly-away, wispy baby hairs (on my head, not the actual baby at the time) were impossible to tame (actually, just like babies!). 

After four rounds of mass hair exodus, I decided to get ahead of the curve after Wilson was born and scheduled an appointment to get my hair CHOPPED when she was just a couple months old. My hair dresser knew I’d been thinking of this in the past so she knew it wasn’t a rash, totally hormonal decision, but I did keep it entirely secret from anyone but her until after the deed was done. 

Like some kind of fool, this meant going from hair eight inches past my shoulders to next-to-nothing left on my head in Nebraska in the dead of winter when it is freaking cold, cold, cold. I was not prepared for how miserable I was going to feel based on temperature alone (which turned out to be a LOT), but what also caught me way off guard was how much I hated pixie-short hair on me and the emotional reaction I had to the cut. 

Don’t get me wrong – I love women who rock short hair. I have plenty of friends who have done this over the years and they look like badasses. Who knows – maybe I also looked like a badass, but the problem was, I didn’t feel like I looked like me anymore. 

Back in the day, I loved watching America’s Next Top Model and I always marveled at the women during the makeover episode who lost their shit when the producers made them get a massive haircut as part of their new model look. What was their problem? But you know what happened when Ben walked in the door that day after school and I popped out from behind a kitchen cabinet to surprise him with my new lewk? I burst into tears! I instantly hated it and there was not a damn thing I could do about it but wait (for months and months and months) for it to get back to a comfortable length that felt more like myself than that shorty short look ever did in my eyes.

The funny thing was, the majority of people loved it. I had people stop me at church and exclaim over it and I had plenty of friends and acquaintances compliment the cut. But man, I just couldn’t ever rectify how it looked with how I felt about it. To this day, I look at pictures – both professional and snapshots – from that time and think, “Whoa. WTH was I thinking?” 

In the five years since, I’ve been growing, growing, growing my hair and for the foreseeable future, that’s still the plan. I suppose I shouldn’t say I’ll never go back to a pixie because maybe someday that will fit with how I see myself, but back then it definitely did not. So I can’t say never get a pixie, but I can tell you, don’t go from scarf-like hair length to a pixie during a Midwest Winter; that’s just stupid cold making!

*Post 38/52.

Whether I picked it up at home or school (probably both), I could sew with basic skills as a teen. In high school I started making scrunchies (hello, it was the 90s) and it became an annual tradition for a few years when I would make a large batch of the same fabric/design and gift that to as many friends as possible for that Christmas. I also made pillows both for myself and for my friends over the years, including large oversized ones for several of my closest guy friends when we graduated from YHS. It wasn’t until college that I upped my game and took my needle and thread skills to the whole next level by learning how to quilt during Interterm one January.

Called J-Term at some institutions, Doane used Interterm to describe the one-month hyper-focused classes you could take for 2.5 weeks prior to the start of second semester. These were often fun or kooky classes that still counted for credits but were a nice way to ease back into the college grind after the winter break. My sophomore year was when I decided, Lord only knows why, to sign up for Introduction to Quilting. Had I known how much work went into making a full-sized quilt in less than three weeks, I might have said pass; but as it was, I spent all day every day (most Interterm classes were just morning or just afternoon) getting it done.  

From start to finish, I used every minute of those three weeks (no kidding; one weekend I actually hauled the quilt frame to my dorm room so I could keep working on it there) to make my very first quilt – a Christmas colored Log Cabin design that I picked out with my mom’s help prior to the start of class. If you look at it closely, you can see that the stitching is terribly uneven but I pieced that entire top and then hand quilted the entire thing. In. Three. Weeks! By. My. Self! I’m insanely proud of it but have kept it hidden from the children all these years because I don’t want them to test the quality of the quilt (i.e. I don’t want anyone to break it!). 

Beyond the beauty of completing my very own project, that class opened me up to some other beautiful connections in my life, too. For one, it gave me another activity I could do with my Grandma Gert, a long time crochet fiend and hand-quilter herself, who was then on a quest to make quilts for all of her grandchildren by the time they graduated high school. When I was back from college that summer, I helped her between my busy social and part-time job schedules to complete the top stitching on my cousin Ashley’s quilt that she had already pieced together on her own. We spent plenty of hours at her quilt frame that was set up in my grandparent’s bedroom, talking and probably swearing from time to time when we inevitably pricked our fingers, even when using thimbles and finger guards. I didn’t get to help Gertie with all of her graduation projects but that time together holds a precious place in my heart and I am thankful the class provided me with that. 

Also special from that class was the teacher herself, Kay Hegler, who was then a faculty member of the Education Department at Doane and, obviously, an avid quilter. Kay and I learned that we had Yankton/SoDak connections and she was in general a delightful human being who also turned out to be a generous one, as she let me rent a room in her house during my Junior year when I had nowhere else to stay. The first half of Junior year was my travel abroad to Africa but we had no guarantee of a spot on our residential campus upon return, so several of us were granted special permission to live off-campus and it just so happened that Kay had a room for me. Ever since then we’ve kept in touch through Christmas letters, social media, and the practice of yoga, which we both became big fans and teachers of in later years. Any time I bump into Kay when I’m back in Eastern Nebraska is a special moment with a great hug attached to it as she wraps me up just like the quilts she taught me to make.

I haven’t tackled a quilt project since becoming a wife or a mom but perhaps it will be something that I revisit with age (and maybe more free-time?!) later in life. Either way, I’m thrilled that I took the time and effort to learn this skill when I did as it is one that has returned greatly on its investment. 

• Post 36/52

Despite there being plenty that I don’t remember from being 13, the age is going will stay with me forever in part through the lyrics of an artist I started listening to when I was, yep – you guessed it, 13 years old. Alanis Morissette wasn’t my first CD ever (that was Hootie and the Blowfish, thank you very much) but it’s possible that her debut album, Jagged Little Pill, was one of the most played CDs of my adolescence. To this day, Alanis has a soft spot in my heart, and her music can still captivate and feel quite relatable to me. 

The particular line in question that anchors me to the start of my teens comes from the song, “So Unsexy” (not on JLP) where Alanis says, “I’m 13 again, am I 13 for good?” She then goes on to sing, “I can feel so unsexy for someone so beautiful/ So unloved for someone so fine/I can feel so boring for someone so interesting/So ignorant for someone of sound mind.” And that right there, folks, is it.

For as much as I have grown and healed and acknowledged about myself in the 27 years since I was 13, I can still find myself back in that prepubescent body and swirl of hormones and emotions on pretty much any given day, if the circumstances hit just right (or wrong, depending on your perspective). Some days, feeling 13 with the whole world of possibilities ahead of me is thrilling and I can still have those moments at 40, which is a real gift. More often than not, though, when these lyrics pop into my brain, it’s because I’m feeling like the awkward, out of place, unsure version of my 13-yr-old self, like the young girl who has no idea how things are going to work out or if she’ll ever move past the bullshit she currently finds herself facing. To still have those moments at 40 is, well, humbling. 

Had you asked me at 13, I would have said that yes, by 40 I would indeed have all my shit together and would be done with life and emotions pulling me sideways (or completely off the tracks). This is very similar to my feelings on parenting when I used to watch SuperNanny prior to having my own actual children and thought, “Man, I will be so much better at that than these people; what’s so hard about it?” (<— UGH. I knew nothing!) In other words, laughable at how wrong I was! 

At 40 I can tell you that I very much still struggle. And sometimes it is the fact that I am still struggling that pisses me off more than anything, including whatever said struggle may be! Recently I had a shame spiral over body issues that threw me for a massive loop and while I was upset by the body dysmorphia, I was twice as disappointed in myself for being disappointed as I was bothered by my thoughts about my body. 

That feels crazy making at times but I also am learning that that’s just life. It’s part of being human and I am never, ever – as much as I read or practice or meditate or affirm – going to rid myself of being human. I’d like to think that as I continue to age, I’ll go through longer and longer periods of time between when I feel the shame and uncertainty of 13, but I don’t know that I’ll ever get away from that part of me altogether. The real trick, I suppose, is to love that awkward little version of myself as much as possible, even when she rears her less than appealing sides. And who knows – maybe being 13 for good, when channeled as a little feminist rocker, isn’t such a bad thing after all. (seen here at a piano recital in a church, but still – a little rock star at heart)

*Post 34/52

In college I won crap all the time. And I say “crap” on purpose because it was never anything big, just random door prize drawings at events hosted on campus like speakers or performers, etc. The most memorable door prize was a giant tub of cheese puffs, so again, nothing of major note even though I was consistent as all get out with having my name drawn. This even continued after graduation when our family later attended alumni events and somehow I would still walk away with some little Doane swag like a foam mini-football (that became a favorite plaything of HD’s until some younger sibling literally took a bite out of it and we had to chuck it, pun intended). 

Beyond door prizes, I’ve never really entered myself in competitions. Even though my family, of origin and the one that I’ve created with Ben, is competitive, I’ve never been on a team or in an event that resulted in a nail-bitter championship moment. My favorite activities have always been more solo-based, and even when I did team sports, it was cross country which was a team, yes, but also entirely individual in terms of performance. It makes sense then that the one title I earned more than once growing up was Top Reader at our library’s Summer Reading Program.

With my mom the elementary teacher off for summers, my brother and I did a remarkable number of week-long lessons, including swim, tennis, golf, and art-based classes that she worked out for us via the giant matrix of offerings printed in the Press & Dakotan each spring. In the midst of all that, we never missed the SRP and our chance to log books read and earn little prizes in return. A lot of what we got was coupons for local fast food places: wooden chips that were good for a free taco from Taco John’s, or a slip of paper that meant a free ice cream cone at McDonald’s or Dairy Queen. I’m sure there were other items available, but to a kid who grew up in the country and didn’t have as direct of access to eating out as town kids, these were big treats. 

Also big was the list of books I put under my belt each summer. I spent so much time at the Yankton Public Library that I could probably still draw you a map of its interior, the children’s department in particular. As I aged, I had my favorite series that I loved to read which included, but was not limited to: The Sleepover Friends, Sweet Valley Twins/High, Nancy Drew, and some Babysitter’s Club, too. I wasn’t quite to that reading level, though, when I landed myself in the paper (along with a couple of classmates and other local kids), pictured together after a party to celebrate Top Readers. You’ve gotta love a small town that not only holds such honors but documents them in the local paper! 

These days I don’t do a good job of recording my reading through our local library (although my kids do participate in the SRP most years), but I have been keeping track of my books read for a handful of years now on the blog. More recently I also (finally) started using GoodReads, a website that helps you record titles and reviews of your books read which is super helpful for not reading titles again (a mistake I’ve made more than once). I typically set a 52 book annual goal which lands me at a book a week, but in 2021 I went wild and aimed for 100 books in 12 months time and hit it, even though it was a little dicey there at the end of the year to get all books done by deadline. 

I don’t plan to repeat that little stunt again any time soon, but I wear my Word Nerd/Top Reader status with pride and am always happy to talk books with people. Just don’t ask me for details because I am way more likely to remember how a book made me feel than I am plot points (and even character names, sometimes). Such is the life of a prolific reader! 

*Post 33/52 of year-long Writing Challenge.