Posts

Grab Your Rhinestones and Find a Dang Shovel

For the Love of Dolly Parton The last time I was here, I started this blog, For the Love of Dolly Parton. So it feels fitting, and honestly a little strange, that I find myself back here talking about Dolly. In the wee hours of the morning on August 25, shortly after midnight, I had a dream. Dolly was performing her final show. At the end, the Looney Tunes “That’s all, folks!” played. Dolly announced that this was it. Her last show. Her last song. And then she faded away. And I woke up. I don’t typically dream about Dolly. But my affinity for Dolly started long before my Tennessee years. As I grew older and found more of myself, Dolly somehow became what I can only describe as a distant close relative . Someone I had never met, yet somehow always knew where to find when I needed her. If I needed advice, I could go looking through Dolly quotes. If I needed perspective, I could find an old broadcast or interview and listen to her talk about life in that unmistakably Dolly way...
Post a Comment
Read more

For the Love of Dolly Parton, Teach the WHY

  I have questioned EVERYTHING this week. And somewhere between questioning systems, practices, decisions, and probably the meaning of life itself, something clicked.....I figured out why people do not hear me when I say, "They don't understand, we have to teach them." or  "They know what to do, how to do it, they have no clue WHY we do it."  As a society, we spend a whole lot of time saying: “They should know this.” Should they? Like... SHOULD THEY REALLY? Because I am becoming increasingly convinced that we have built entire systems around the assumption that people know things nobody ever actually taught them. And then we are shocked when implementation falls apart. Here is the thing. We are mimickers. We watch the people around us. Someone models something. We follow the steps. We learn the routine. We get pretty ding dang good at doing exactly what we saw someone else do. And that can look a whole lot like mastery. Until something changes. Change the routi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Common Denominators: Life Is a Math Equation

  It is August 1, 2026 On July 31st, I had my hair lady chop eight inches off my hair. Apparently, I woke up this morning forgetting that happened. I touched my head, panicked, and briefly died inside. Then I took a shower and ran out of cold water. Yes, cold-ass water. It has been so hot outside that the water coming into the house is sometimes warmer than room temperature. Gross. Absolutely disrespectful. While standing there questioning my hair, the weather, the water supply, and every decision that had brought me to that moment, I remembered something else. On June 1, I started writing about common denominators. I have not posted it because I did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Honestly, what I wrote hurt my own feelings. But here it is. The grand release of Common Denominators: Life Is a Math Equation. I dove deeply into cognitive studies this summer. Why do we do what we do? Why do we repeat patterns even when we know they hurt us? Why do certain relationships feel famili...
Post a Comment
Read more