jamie y. watkins

Tag: friendship

  • I Learned to Really Apologize

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    jywatkins
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    I’m over at The Mudroom today, writing about reaching out and making amends. I hope you’ll join me there! I sat in the parking lot of the grocery store with my cell phone in my hand. People were bustling all around, running their errands and loading their cars with brimming bags, but I couldn’t get…

  • The Unfinished Lists

    The Unfinished Lists

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    jywatkins
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    At the end of summer, I sat on the living floor with blank printer paper, highlighters, pens, a ruler, and my trusty monthly planner. A new semester of grad school was looming and I knew the only way I was going to be able to accomplish All The Things this fall was to make a plan.…

  • From Scratch

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    jywatkins
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    It’s bushel after bushel of bright red plum tomatoes, varying in their hues and firmness: some squishy on one side, others dense at the core; deep scarlet like a seductive lipstick or orange-red like a dimming evening sky. It’s three baths placed side by side, each with the lukewarm water that will wash the fruit clean,…

  • Come Right In, We’re Out Back

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    jywatkins
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    Once our first few friends arrived, I grabbed one of my chalkboard signs, scrawled the words, “Come Right In, We’re Out Back,” and set the sign on the front porch  Then we all grabbed a beer or a glass of wine and went to sit under the big white tarp my husband strung up over the…

  • Do Nothing

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    jywatkins
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    I have always enjoyed camping. We did it a lot growing up, mainly with Girl Scouts, but also as a family. But we haven’t camped as much in the last several years, just an occasional trip here or there. It had been a couple years since our last one when we went with friends two…

  • Tomatoes

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    jywatkins
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    When I was younger and my mom would ask me to help with dinner, one of my least favorite things to do was cut up tomatoes. Sometimes they needed to be diced for tacos, or sliced for hamburgers, or quartered for salad. But no matter what, I didn’t want to do it. Something about the…

  • {pretty, happy, funny, real}

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    jywatkins
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    ~ Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life ~ {pretty} Chad and I got to spend some time with The Big 5 this week and one of the things we did together was take a tour of Penn’s Cave. The cave floor is covered with a couple feet of water, so you take a boat…

  • The Big 5

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    jywatkins
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    My junior year of college, I studied abroad for one semester in Strasbourg, France. Studying abroad in France for five months was, for me, a big thing. I grew up in a family that didn’t really travel, didn’t fly, didn’t venture, so traveling alone for five months to a foreign country was a big step,…

  • To the Moms in My Life, From Your Friend Without Kids

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    jywatkins
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    Chad and I have been married for almost six years. Many, if not most, couples who plan to have children would have already started by now, but the truth is we love being just us. And we will probably have kids in the future, but we’re in no rush for the most part. But we…

  • Out of Sync

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    jywatkins
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    I love being married. And I really love my husband. He’s my best friend and my favorite person and I love spending time with him. He takes good care of me and he teaches me and he listens and laughs and loves so well. I know there’s no one else I’d want to be married to,…