Caroline
Caroline is an Arizona native who moved to Iowa in 2007 ‘for love.’ She and her husband live in Coralville with their 8-year-old daughter. Caroline works full-time at the University of Iowa and recently earned her MA in Higher Education Administration. Caroline is a self-taught sewer, fabric hoarder, Starbucks lover, wannabe graphic designer, and avid reader. Her greatest aspirations are to raise a kind, strong, and fearless girl and have a clean house.
Coffee Shops in the Iowa City Area
I grew up in a big city, fully equipped with a Starbucks on every corner. I never felt a strong inclination to get out there and explore any hidden gems in town, because town...
Thinking Outside the (Facebook Status Update) Box
Over the last few months, I’ve been trying to clean up my Facebook account. I don’t mean "clean up" like there is anything in there to hide: my life is terribly uninteresting, I’m generally...
What it’s Like to Have Depression and Anxiety: An Analogy
I think we can all agree that we just came out of an extraordinarily long winter. For many with depression, anxiety, seasonal affective disorder, or any number of other mental or physical disorders, it...
Our Children’s Lasts: The Overlooked Moments We Should Cherish
My daughter was sick a few weeks ago and crawled into bed with us. The poor girl couldn’t breathe through her nose and wasn’t able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Of course,...
25 Dinner Tips from a Mom Who Hates to Cook
I can boast an assortment of talents that I’ve found useful as a mother: getting strange stains out of clothing, cutting sandwiches in the “right” shape, picking every tomato out of a meal, remembering...
Parenting With Mental Illness: My Anxiety Affects More Than Just Me
This isn’t easy for me to write about. Just the simple act of typing out these first words has made my heart start pounding. You see, I have anxiety, and although I am comfortable...
My “No-Spend Month” Challenge {Spoiler: I Survived and Target is Still in Business}
I freely admit that I like to shop. Clothes, shoes, books, fabric, sewing patterns, things for the house… It’s so much fun to pore over websites and through sale racks, trying to find a...
A Tribute to the Mom Purse (And the Strange Things We Find in Them)
There was recently a story that went viral on the internet about a mother who found a dead fish in her car while searching for her missing debit card. A dead fish–and she had...
A Playlist for My Daughter: 15 Songs to Empower Girls
I love my daughter. I really do. She is the sun in my sky and light of my life and rose in my garden and all those metaphors we use to describe how much...
I Earned a Degree, But It’s Not Really MY Degree
I was smart in high school. I graduated in the top five percent of my class, and I received a full tuition scholarship to any of the three public universities in Arizona. I loved...