HILARY HAMBLIN

Last night I lay in the bed staring through the darkness at the wall. The knot in my stomach turned and grew. I’d allowed my child to make a decision alone earlier in the day. It wasn’t a life-or-death decision but it was a decision that could affect the future for all of us. My mind flew back to an interview I had with a young woman a few years ago. She had applied for a job with my company and I was moving through the list of interview questions with her. I asked her where

Josh and I had been dating about six months when he took me to Memphis to meet his grandparents. Sometime after lunch they were talking about Josh’s aunt and uncle who lived in Arkansas. One of his grandparents said, “We could just drive up there.” The other one agreed. Josh and I had no other plans so we all hopped in their brand new Oldsmobile and took the drive into the delta of Arkansas. Granddad decided to take the “short cut” and since I’d never been to this part of Ark

When we moved into our new neighborhood a few months ago, we knew several people but none of our nearest neighbors. One night I cooked a huge pot of chicken n’ dumplings and then stared at all the leftovers. In our old neighborhood we had neighbors across the street we would call and share whatever we had left. We were known to put out a call to our neighbors to help us eat extra burgers, ribs and BBQ too. For the last few years, I helped my mom with her garden. I routinely h

A few years ago I looked at my school-aged boy and my preschool girl and realized how short the summers were. I was doing work I loved and they were with a sitter who loved them, but I hated not being able to take advantage of the summer. So I made a decision to take Friday afternoons off. We called it Fun Friday and I planned things like swimming, the splash pad, the library, movies, hiking trails, and local museums. At first I was scared to tell my clients I couldn’t take t