I doubt anyone will be shocked if I say I’ve always been a pretty serious person. I love movies and books and music that make me cry—that dig deep and explore human connection and emotion—that connect us to the REAL. But the last two years have been hard, and as I’ve already blogged a couple…
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the thick of it
One of my mantras over the past sixteen years of motherhood has been “This is the season of life I am in right now.” It’s a simple mantra—a recognition that what I’m experiencing is not permanent. (As an aside: sixteen years? How did that happen?) When things started to reopen this spring, I felt suffocated…
Read MoreTime for a Reset
It’s time for a reset. 2021 has been–well, a whirlwind. The long, choking oppression of the pandemic is lifting, and we’re busier than ever: soccer, baseball, color guard, 4H, scouts, marching band, concerts (hallelujah!), even church choir. Committee meetings. Oh, and there was that minor detail of a book release this spring. Pitching, promotion, recording…
Read MoreRethinking Priorities
It is time to choose next year’s classes for my three middle- and high-schoolers. Going through this process this year made me realize how much the upheaval of the last year has actually benefited me as a parent–strengthened and sensitized me, reshaped and reordered my priorities. I was a straight-A student, and as such, parenthood…
Read MoreThe State of an Author-Composer’s World
Do you ever have that feeling that there’s just too much going on? No, of course not, she says (wink-wink). This summer hit me like a Mack truck, and the grace in it was that I was so focused on two weeks in July–my week at NPM in Cincinnati and our trip to Colorado last week–that I…
Read MoreMy “Week Off”
I was supposed to take this week, the last week of summer school, as a week off writing. I’ve finished my novel revision, and that was my reward: scrapbooking, some time sitting outside in the quiet, a shopping trip, maybe even a couple hours in front of the TV. Well, I have deadlines, so forget…
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Kisses In The Outfield (Photo Friday)
Monday night, when the coach dismissed the boys from their last (praise God!) baseball game of the season, he followed it up with, “Let’s get together for a parents-vs-kids game on Wednesday!” I clamped down on the biggest “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” ever heard in the history of humankind. (Yes, I too can do idiotic superlatives that bear…
Read MoreLearning To Say No…to Me.
“I need to learn to say ‘no’ more.” Those words, spoken by a friend of mine this past January, were like a tiny pebble in a small creek. They resonated, but I already knew, or thought I knew, what I wanted to focus on in 2017, and the word “no” wasn’t it. But as the…
Read MoreThe Negative Loop From Hell
Life has been feeling pretty overwhelming lately. If I haven’t given out that vibe, just look back at the fluffy blog posts I’ve been publishing, trying to avoid talking about it. I’m not sure why it seems so much harder right now. Really, not all that much has changed. Maybe this is what people mean…
Read MoreThe Challenge of Achieving Zen When Your Kids Are Wrestling On The Floor
I spent last week hobnobbing with my fellow liturgical composers…which means I got to geek out about hanging out with people I have looked up to since I was old enough to pay attention to the names in the copyright line at the bottom of the hymnal pages. And yes, I am fully aware that…
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Kathleen M. Basi 