Destini and Robin…ready for anything… I hate those arrogant ‘update’ blogs. As if the world is waiting, on the edge of their seat, to learn the fate of that once frequent blogger who mysteriously went AWOL from the Facebook feed. But alas…here I lie, tapping away at the keyboard. So much to say… so little…
If you’ve not been following the sage of the bear/boys/bum injury, here’s a couple of links: Bear In The Back Woods Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’ Last week I went in for an MRI at the request of our local clinic doc here in Ninilchik who took one look at this bruising and said, “How long…
For the record…I don’t know how to get my blog to stop showing you TWO of the same picture in each post. Sorry. I don’t have mirrors in my house. I mean, there is a tall mirror in Robin’s room because, well, she’s seventeen and that is required. And we have a small hand mirror…
It was just before noon on a Monday morning, sometime in the fall of 1988, in Phoenix, Arizona. I stood in my pale blue polo shirt behind the counter at Dairy Queen, my breast milk dampening the front of my uniform. My baby girl was somewhere across town in a basement apartment with some sitter…
I don’t know when it started, for sure. The feeling of not feeling. A few months, maybe more. But without warning, without any clear signs it was even happening, I lost myself for a while. I don’t remember when I stopped being me. Or exactly when everything dimmed. Just suddenly, I was dark. But nothing…
Dan and our girl about ten years ago… It’s after midnight, which makes it Father’s Day, and one of my old foster kids just sent this message: “can u tell Dan happy fathers day plz and think u i miss u all love u Keri.” It’s been nine years now since she was ours. My…
Yesterday I stabbed myself in the hand. Not just stabbed, but sawed, really, while cutting bacon. I knew bacon would be the death of me, I just didn’t realize I would go like this. I’ve never had stitches unless you count childbirth (ouch) nor have I broken a bone. So my kids thought it hilarious…
People always remember, with clarity, the moment their lives changed. I remember the moment mine didn’t. In the spring of ’03 I had just finished up the third year of my writing degree at Linfield College. My fellow students were planning their summer vacations, jobs, going home to a family. I was raising one. One…
I stood in line at a Carl’s Junior restaurant in Palm Desert, California, eager to order my Chicken Fried Steak sandwich and strawberry shake. Sixteen years old, pregnant but not yet showing, my parents had whisked me away from hometown shame and embarked on a sudden cross country trip. A modern day escape from ruination….
Once on an episode of COPS, a woman, upon being arrested, was throwing a Made-For-TV tantrum when her mother, giant breasts sagging out the sides of her tank top, cigarette hanging from one side of her mouth, drawled, “Shut up girl…you aint dead.” You aint dead. And ever since, when things are tough or one…
Last night a young lady with a history much like my children’s wrote me a message and asked for advice. But before she asked, she spent several paragraphs telling me why she wasn’t worthy of my time. “…as if reading your blog somehow makes me worthy of placing myself in your life,” she said. As…
In late August of this year I will be the proud mother of two college students. Two kids on two very different paths… Destini is eighteen and will graduate Salutatorian of her senior class in a few weeks. She has been accepted to the Business program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage and has received…
Our Destini graduated from high school last week and in honor of her success, I’d like to embarrass her a bit by sharing a story with the world. Five years ago this August I picked up my phone to find an Alaska State Trooper on the other end. He explained to me that my daughter,…
I’m standing in front of the candy rack, neck kinked upwards, staring at the boxes in the top row. I can’t see inside them…they are too tall and I am too small. But I know what’s in there. And I know it’s out of reach in more ways than one. The twenty-five cent rack…might as…
This afternoon I drove down to HOOKED ESPRESSO here in Ninilchik, Alaska. Hooked is the coffee shop owned by my teen daughter, Destini. (Read about that HERE and this story will make a lot more sense.) I’ve not been down to Hooked in several months though I’ve driven by a thousand times. Destini is closed…
I was just two weeks into motherhood when I took a job at the Dairy Queen on 28th drive and Cactus in Phoenix, Arizona and made the first of many bad parenting choices. A few days past my seventeenth birthday, I was still fresh from prom nights, backseats and football games, not quite ready for…
It was more than forty years ago that my in-laws, just after giving birth to their seventh child (my husband) purchased an acre of land. An escape, they said, from the L.A. life they found themselves living. Bud worked the assembly line at General Motors in Van Nuys, and Patricia worked in a medical office. …
This is not going to be well written, of that I am sure. It’s late at night, I’m tired, and I have computer access for just a short time. I apologize ahead of time… The past few weeks have been very stressful. We left behind our 7 bedroom home, moved completely out, cleaned it spotless…
Written summer, 2010…warning…this piece is long…but worth the read (or at least look at the photographs of true Alaska wilderness.) We were eighteen steps down the trail when Anthony announced he had to go to the bathroom. And not the easy one. Blood pressure rising so early in the day, Dan unclipped the boys backpack…
Someday I hope to live child-free. And in order see that fantasy happen, I have to get them out of my house…independent…living on their own. And to achieve that goal, I must teach them how to support themselves, so they don’t come back and live in my basement with their six children and deadbeat spouse. …
Last year my daughter was assigned to interview a person about their job for school. She asked, “Can I interview my mom?” “Does she work?” asked the teacher. Hmmmm…do I work… For the better part of my adult life I’ve been at home with my kids. I don’t have a ‘job’. I don’t get a…
A few weeks ago my mother’s wedding ring fell from her finger while she was shopping in town. Now, this is a small town…so there aren’t that many places to look. But my mom lives a half hour from town and only goes in about once a week so she makes it worth her while….
I just found the lunch I was supposed to eat today sitting on my desk between my laptop and the pencil sharpener with two bites gone. Proof…once again…that I don’t stop and think about what I’m doing. I just do. My other half (not better, just other) told me the other day, “You don’t think…
I spent half my teen years suspended over the frame of my daylight basement bedroom window, either sneaking out … or sneaking back in. So when I found my son’s bed empty at four a.m. the other night, I was only surprised by the fact that I’d not caught him before. We’ll not go into…
I’ve spent the past twenty years wishing I was one of those perky, pony-tailed, runner-chicks I see on the side of the road. You know the ones that your steering wheel tugs towards as you pass and you have to fight yourself not to flatten their tiny sweats-clad ass with your bumper? Yah, those chicks. …
When Anthony came to us he was six years old. That very first day we knew we were in for a challenge. But we also knew we were in for quite the vocabulary treat. I’d had him for about six hours when I handed him a cup of soda and he said, “Oh…it just…
This morning I followed a trail of broken, dry, Top Ramen noodles down the hall, across the living room and to the garbage can where the empty plastic wrapper lay crumpled on top of the garbage. Yesterday it was an entire package of Coconut Dream cookies, bought for a trip. Before that, eight granola bars…
Today I laid down 99 cents each for those balsa wood airplanes for my three youngest boys. I don’t know why…an impulse buy at the register. Because, aside from being incredibly flimsy, physically incapable of flight and a total waste of a dollar, they are also the only thing in the world that duct…
It’s a simple story really. A simple story with a big impact. I’ve tried to elaborate it. I’ve tried to embellish it. But in the end, it all comes down to a three minute conversation with a five year old. Here it is. I stared across the room at my oldest child in her bed,…
As I sit here, one Hershey’s Kiss away from a coma, I’d like to express a special thanks to the makers of processed sugar for all you’ve done. I, a faithful servant, nay, slave, to your colossal power, would bow at your greatness if I thought I could get back up. I’d like to thank…
There are few words sweeter to parent’s ears than, “I made this for you!” said through sweet, smiling cheeks. We’ve all gotten them…those precious gifts from our children made with macaroni noodles, paperclips and feathers. Our children’s eyes gleam as they proudly hand us some creation they’ve spent anywhere from six minutes to six hours…
There are few sentences in the world that will stop you dead in your tracks as fast as, “You have a lump.” Like hitting a brick wall. The invincible, indestructible you suddenly feels like a paper airplane in a hail storm…helpless and going down fast. And in those first days of waiting, you examine every…
I’m not saying I’m addicted to my phone, but I once nearly tore my nipple off on the sharp edge of wooden paneling while running towards the jingling fiend. But again, not addicted. Not really. My love goes back to our black rotary dial phone we had when I was young. She sat on a…
This afternoon I got to drive an hour south to take my two smallest boys to their basketball game. And by “got” I mean “had” since by three o’clock this afternoon I’d already put more than 100 miles on the van and was barely moving on five hours of sleep and a double dose of…
This week my doctor found a nodule on my thyroid. She sucked some blood from my body, promised test results soon and told me to return in a week. I went in for an earache and pain when I swallowed and came out with far more than I bargained for. On the one hand, I’m…
Because we live in the sticks a trip anywhere takes a while. Most people like to crank up the radio and sing or roll down the windows and listen to the wind. Anything to drown out the kids. I like to stick all three small boys in the seat behind me and then be very…
I have glimpses of memory from my very early childhood of my mother holding a pallet knife and a paint tray. But not long after my birth my mother…for reasons of insanity caused by parenting, no doubt…stopped painting. It was a travesty, as my mother has spent her entire life taking care of my dad…
As time moves quickly, just like our parents warned, most of us spend at least a small portion of time re-evaluating who we are, where we’ve been and what we’re going to do next. As my peers and I circle our fortieth year, preparing to land in our fifth decade, we can’t help but reflect…not…
Fiction Friday, my way of forcing myself to write outside my comfort zone of non-fiction, by backing myself into a corner every Thursday night. Chapter ONE Chapter TWO Chapter THREE Chapter Four By Monday morning, word had gotten around the village and whispers had turned into assumptions which had quickly become pure fact, as is…
It’s just after midnight and if you’d driven by my house a few moments ago, you’d have seen me in my pajamas, blood up to my elbows, chasing a salmon head around the grass in the dark. Even as I sit and type, scales are still attached to my forearms and two bandaids stop the…
I’m Keri Riley, a backwoods mom in Ninilchik, Alaska where I shuttle 8 kids around, fighting off moose, mosquitos and middle age. My husband is an ice road trucker…that’s right, just like the show…and gone from our lives six months of the year, so more often than not I’m edgy, tired, and going it alone….
View of the Old Ninilchik Village Ninilchik, Alaska, at milepost 135 of the Sterling Highway, is a fishing village about 180 mile south of Anchorage along the bluff of the Cook Inlet on the Kenai Peninsula. As Ninilchik is our home now, we’re a little biased…but we think it’s a darn nice place to be. Ninilchik is…
A small brush fire near my home last night brought a trooper to my door saying to prepare for the worst…the wind was taking it our direction…be ready to leave without warning. Warning. Wasn’t that what he just gave us? I went back into the house and gathered the children. “Pack your school backpack with…
I was thinking about us today. Remembering those years when you had hair and I had a waistline. Back when we sat, feet to feet on the couch, scheming our next adventure late into the night. It was a time when it all seemed doable and barriers were more like speed bumps than impossibilities. When,…
In 2004 I graduated with a 3.89 GPA from one of the highest rated private colleges on the west coast. And I did so, while parenting eight children, six of whom had some kind of special need. My final semester I managed 25 credits at two different colleges, picking up some missing credits at the…
I lay on top of the pale green sheets on the eighth floor of John C. Lincoln Memorial Hospital and stared out at the night. It was August of 1988 and the thunder raging outside the fourth floor window seemed a warning of things to come. Bolts of fire lit up the black sky with…
It’s the little things that get to you. It’s the, “Not Me” that always gets blamed. The Birds and the Bees that needs explained. It’s the cookies hidden beneath the bed. The fifteen millionth book to be read. The science fair project that’s due tomorrow. The hand held out, wanting to borrow. It’s the crusty,…
On July 7, 1988, I found myself traveling across Phoenix, Arizona in an un-air-conditioned 67 Gallaxy with red leather seats sticking to the backs of my thighs. Windows rolled down, pony tail flying in the wind, I looked out at the city rolling by…so far from Alaska, so far from home…and wondered how I’d come…
As parents, we spend our lives trying to be good enough. Trying to keep up. We worry that we’ve failed. We worry that we’ve screwed up our kids to the point of no return because somehow we’ve not been good enough…as parents. But let me explain something. Our children will not remember their childhood the…
This is the first installment of Fiction Friday, my way of forcing myself to write outside my comfort zone of non-fiction, by backing myself into a corner every Thursday night. Read chapter TWO It would be unlikely to find a small town that was not governed, propelled and held captive by gossip. Sherman, Alaska held…
This morning I popped Anthony on the butt. I don’t normally spank my kids…gave it up years ago when I started fostering simply because it seemed unfair to spank one kid, and not the other, when they both did the same thing wrong. So I spanked Anthony, one solid whack to the backside. Which is…
I’m not a good gift giver. I show up to parties without a bottle of wine. I send my kids to birthdays with no bag of trinkets. I rarely remember my friends with a card or a gift certificate to their favorite book store. I’m probably snickered about behind my back. Eye rolls likely ensue…
Anthony came up from his bedroom yesterday morning with a “blueprint” in hand he’d stayed up half the night creating. He’s a man with a plan… And by yesterday afternoon he’d put his plan into action at our new property where he intends to build…and live in…his own cabin. He ‘might let Luke and Steven…
“It’s odd,” I said to Destini this morning, “to watch your kids grow up and move on with their lives…I rarely hear from Heather anymore.” “Well,” she said, “I probably won’t call every day when I move out either.” “WHAT?????!!!” “Uhm….I mean….I’m sure I’ll live at home until you die of old age and there…
Alaska, Alaskan, backwoods, photos Jun 042011 If you give a ten year old a camera…expect great things. Here’s what Anthony has been doing with his camera he received for Christmas. Have fun! And the best part…16 seconds of video fame!!!
She stood at the counter, baggy jeans hanging from thin hips, hooded sweatshirt tight across her swollen belly. A tight faced DMV worker on the other side of the counter stared at her. A tiny girl clung to her leg. I took a number, hoisted baby Destini onto my lap and sat in the row…
I woke this morning to the sound of the clothes dryer flopping a belt around and round. Rolled over. 5:26 a.m. What the….I stuck my head out the bedroom door to find Mya folding laundry on the couch. “It’s five in the frickin’ morning…what the heck are you doing?” “Laundry,” she said, as if it…
A few years ago Dan left his job and stayed home with the kids for five months so I could finish college. We had 8 kids at home. Five of them had some kind of special needs, two severely handicapped, intensive needs. They attended five different schools in two different towns. I was taking 25…
I’ve not had television channels for eight years. I know…weird. So when my friend Jessica, who gained some notoriety a while back as Sarah Palin’s hairdresser, called and said a major network was going to be filming a reality television show in her Beehive Beauty Shop, in Wasilla, Alaska, I’m not gonna lie…my initial reaction…
Tuesday was my 19th year of sending kids off on their “First Day Of School”. And as I slowed down in front of the building and shoved them all out, it dawned on me that I have 9 more years to go. And that doesn’t include college. Or the grandchildren I will likely end up…
I’ve collected much junk over the years. Some of it worth keeping around, some of it only here because I can’t bring myself to drop it in the trash. Once you’ve carried something around with you for thirty years, moving from house to house, state to state, you wonder what the point would be in…
House Rules 1. If it’s not yours…don’t touch it. 2. Remove your shoes at the door. Not directly in front of the door…off to the side. 3. If the bathroom door is locked, knocking repeatedly will not make it open any faster. 4. Do not use “fair” to describe what something is not. It is…
Last year my fifteen year old son, Billy, made me a grandmother. Not in the “Oh, for the love of God, why ME,” way that my parents must have felt when I was knocked up at sixteen…but in the form of a computerized plastic doll assigned him by his health teacher. Three days of simulated…
For those of you who either don’t have kids…have really good kids…or didn’t have any fun when YOU were a kid, “detention” is when you have to stay after school as a punishment. Generally, the kid has to spend an hour in a classroom with a bunch of other rule-breaker kids being stared down by…
My boys play basketball with vigor, ride bikes nonstop and roll in the dirt for fun. But their favorite activity…by far…is the Native Youth Olympics. The programs events are based on the life skills of past generations of Alaska Natives. They simulate their hunting and survival skills and are intended to strengthen and create a…
This afternoon, as Dan woke for his night shift 800 miles away, he received my text that we were taking in a seven year old boy for a few days. “He’s cute,” I said. “I want to keep him.” I like to harass Dan with such statements from afar. I can imagine his hair falling…
As we piled the groceries onto the conveyor I could see in the cashier’s eyes that he wished we’d gone to another line. Seven gallons of milk, ten loaves of bread, six boxes of waffles and two jugs of peanut butter the size of a small Volkswagen…and that was just the beginning. “Is this tax-exempt?”…
I write these sad stories about my kids…about their survival and their trials. About their successes. And my readers cry out, “Good job, mom!”…or… “Where would they be without you?” And I’ll accept the compliments with one raised eyebrow as I think, “They did it despite my failures half the time…” But I acknowledge my…
Never happier than when he got his very own copy… Last week I noticed some political signs going up along the street in town. Same names, different year. And I said to the husband, “Is there a vote coming up?” “Yes,” he says…next year is the presidential election.” “Really? Already?” I know next to nothing…
Every kid in my house is a constant reader…though four of them have, or have had at some time, a reading disability. They didn’t start out as readers…and it took some effort…but I did it. And it was strategically planned from my very first child. Bedtime in my house is strictly ritualistic. My kids need…
When Destini was six years old, her eye fell out. No, really. Okay, let me back up a bit. It was a Sunday evening and we were in town, parked at McDonalds. It was late, we were getting some food, and then heading home. Destini complained she didn’t feel well. Then she puked in the…
Every father’s worst nightmare happened this morning when Destini walked into the living room, tears brimming, and said, “Daddy, I did something very bad.” Immediately, his thoughts go to the worst. Pregnancy…drugs…pregnancy… are the words that pretty much resonate off the insides of the brain of a parent upon hearing such a sentence. His insides…
There are few things more impulsive than a teenage boy when accompanied by other teenage boys. Put two or more within the same vicinity and their brains shrink to the size of a worm and the little sense of reason they possess as an individual goes right out the window. It’s just a scientific fact….
(Created in 2010, just before our Resurrection Trail hike…) For years my family has masqueraded outdoorsy while trapped in the gear of a penniless waif. Every year we traipse into the local wilderness store and fantasize about how different our adventures would be if only we could afford the fancier garb. Surely it’s more pleasant…
A while back I received a phone call from a teacher for no other reason than to tell me how well my child was doing. Odd. Normally when the caller I.D. pops up with school’s number, I cringe. I consider not answering. Let’s just say, my ringtone for the school is Daniel Powters, “Bad Day”,…
Apparently, children learn via repetition…as demonstrated in this video of Destini at about 2 1/2 years old. Let me start by saying, Destini had an unusually good grasp of language at a very young age. I have video of her using full, complete sentences, at fourteen months old. By two, she was speaking very fluently….
I found my self-worth on a hot May day in 2004 when I crossed the center stage and, holding my head high for perhaps the first time in my thirty-three years, was handed a piece of paper that said I’d finally arrived. And in that half sheet of fancy paper, marked with the seal of…
We’ve all been there… I’ve had friends…who I loved…who I couldn’t imagine my life without. Friends who were dear to me. Friends…best friends…you thought would stick around forever. And then you move. Or they do. Or something happens and life just leads you in opposite directions. You swear to remain close. You call, you write,…
They say a diamond is a girl’s best friend…and that’s true for me…if the diamond comes in the form of a sparkly new diamond blade for my sliding compound miter saw! The diamond, chocolate, and fancy card markets peak every holiday as men and women alike run out to buy their dearest ones something that…
Backwoods Bread I grew up on homemade bread. It was thick. It was soft. It was healthy. It was probably delicious. And I hated it. So when I became a parent myself I swore to give my children only the best store bought, fluffy white bread. But when I acquired a houseful of children who…
For six months the flu has been hovering over my body like Winnie The Pooh’s black cloud, just waiting to descend when I’m most vulnerable. Two nights ago it hit me like a brick wall colliding with a gnat and within thirty minutes I felt it overtake my body. Splat. (I’m the gnat.) I waited…
Fiction Friday, my way of forcing myself to write outside my comfort zone of non-fiction, by backing myself into a corner every Thursday night. Chapter Two Heavy steps ran toward Jess as she sputtered snow from her mouth and struggled to remove the small boy from her chest. He had other plans, however, and dug…
When I found a porcupine in my yard a couple of nights ago while videoing the coyotes across the driveway, it never really occurred to me to do anything other than Facebook his picture…because what else would I do…until my friend Cindy suggested I should collect some quills for crafting. And me being a person…
I came across this “letter of apology” today. I have dozens of them from Anthony over the past four years. Whenever he is sent to his room to reflect on his behavior….which is a LOT…he likes to write a note or draw a picture about what happened. On this day, I’m guessing he was busted…
Fiction Friday, my way of forcing myself to write outside my comfort zone of non-fiction, by backing myself into a corner every Thursday night. To read Chapter ONE To read Chapter TWO Chapter Three There’s something good to be said for small towns, but Jess wasn’t sure what it could be. She’d lived in Sherman,…