I haven’t blogged all week, and it’s because we are about to begin renovating our kitchen.

The Orioles suffered a terrible loss on Saturday evening, but we figured you can only go up from there. And who wants to be a fair-weather fan? So, we headed to Camden Yards on Sunday afternoon to cheer them on.

There is nothing as intimidating as the blank page.

I could definitely be a better mother. I fall short in many ways. But I choose not to feel guilty about letting our children have screen time.

You can almost taste the end of summer. I can no longer complain about the ridiculously early back-to-school sales, even though I have yet to buy a single No. 2 pencil or accordion file.

Every time there is a shooting—yet another shooting—I feel so helpless.

Suddenly it’s August. We’ve had such a fun and more-relaxing-than-usual summer that I would really like to hold onto this season a bit longer.

As we celebrate the feast day of St. Ignatius, here are some of my favorite lessons from the founder of the Society of Jesus.

I’m not very easy to surprise.

Today is my birthday! I just love birthdays. I enjoy everyone’s birthday, of course, but especially mine.