Author’s Note: In a world where approval often dictates worth, many of us become like children tugging at a toy—desperate to hear its song, seeking reassurance in its melody. That’s called emotional conditioning. This poem explores the silent struggle of constantly striving for validation, even when it’s broken or elusive. Through the metaphor of a toy that once sang, it reveals the human tendency to persist—to pull harder—and to hope endlessly for a flicker of light amid the noise and silence of unmet expectations.
The Toy That Once Sang
You probably remember the times you felt it— The sweeter goosebumps of approval. Two hands come together and make a tap. You’d found the string that made the machine sing.
You wanted a lullaby in encore. But sometimes the string stuck. Not because it was broken— Maybe you just didn’t pull hard enough.
So you learned: Pull harder. Even when you didn’t want to. Even when your chest throbbed. And on the days the toy stayed silent, something behind your bones began to rot.
In the quiet, your face surrendered to gravity a little more each day. Until it couldn’t rise above water without the noise.
So you pulled that string harder, louder, more often than not— just to see a flicker of light.
The one at the end of an endless tunnel. A light just out of reach, but bright enough to keep you hoping.
The ocean between you and the glow carries what crashes with the weight of all your collapses. Each wave a memory of the string that once worked. And how you never really figured out what made it sing.
Still, You keep pulling. Because a performance with no applause is easier than walking away from a toy that once made music.
What trauma teaches you is rarely neat or noble—it’s buried in chaos, survival, and the silence between storms.
June 18, 2025|Unwritten & Understood
Hit Play, Not Pause.
Author’s Note
For the ones who learned chaos before comfort. For the ones who flinched when the world got quiet. We see you. We love you. This was written with you in mind.
This piece explores the psyche of someone who has endured relentless trauma and emotional war—the kind that leaves scars no one can see. It reveals how enduring constant turmoil can become a familiar, though destructive, refuge—a “Haunted Hell” where the line between survival and surrender blurs.
Personal Tribute
To the foster children who moved through our home— and to the son who stayed.
Kaleb, You taught us what it means to love someone fiercely through the noise. You are proof that storms don’t always destroy— sometimes, they plant something worth growing.
We see you. We always will.
Haunted Hell By: Felecia Jacks
The heaviest thing you ever carried was the silence between storms. War began before you could spell the word for it. And the worst part? You never knew when the next shot would come— only that it would.
You learned early: Calm is the real threat. It lulls you. Makes you think you’re safe. Makes you think this time might be different.
But chaos— chaos keeps its promises.
Fury spared isn’t mercy, it’s a delay. A sharp inhale before the blow lands.
So you found peace not in quiet, but in the noise you could count on.
Because when the bombs are already falling, you stop flinching. You know where the shrapnel will hit. And pain you expect hurts less than the hope that betrayed you.
You learn to keep your life broken— not because you like walking on shards of glass, but because it keeps you. Fixed always lets you go.
A bubble bath of fragments, swimming in an ocean of red. Not because you like pain or the color, but because clean water requires maintenance you’re not capable of.
Soldiers don’t go to battle with hearts that aren’t beating. They see blood and they flee. You can’t fight someone who’s already dead inside.
Karen Read Acquittal – A Court Reporter’s Perspective on Truth, Tone, and Reasonable Doubt
Such a compelling case, indeed
I watched the Karen Read docuseries. A friend asked me to weigh in—probably because I’m a court reporter, and I spend a lot of my life watching people under pressure, trying to lie, bluff, or convince. This one was hard to pin down. Some of it felt deeply compelling—like the part where she says she pulled a piece of glass out of his nose. But other parts didn’t quite make sense either.
Here’s what I noticed.
Usually, when someone’s done something as serious as killing another person, their calls afterward don’t feel real. Most of the time, you can hear the performance—the overly sweet voicemail, the fake calm. They try to sound clueless, loving, innocent. But the tone is wrong. You can feel it.
Karen Read didn’t sound like that.
She came across as full of passion—chaotic, raw, erratic even—but not calculated. I watched an interview that talked about how many times she called him after the incident. How much she screamed. And honestly, that kind of energy is highly unusual for someone trying to cover up a murder. The tone of her voice, the volume, the effort she poured into those voicemails? It wasn’t giving “clean getaway.” It was giving spiraling confusion. If she did hit him, I’m not entirely sure she knows that she did.
Robert and I talked about it, and we both landed in the same place: even if there’s a chance she did it, this case was nowhere near beyond a reasonable doubt.
And body language says a lot. Her tone, her physical responses—even the sheer number of calls she made before learning he was dead—all of it pointed to a kind of passion and denial that doesn’t align with guilt. If someone knows they’ve killed someone, they don’t call to scream at them. They usually call to pretend they didn’t have issues. They clean things up. They delete the evidence. They try to rewrite the narrative.
Karen didn’t do any of that.
She didn’t try to fix her broken taillight. She didn’t wipe off the hair found on the car. She didn’t act like someone with something to hide. And when she was giving her thoughts and opinions—on camera or in court—she consistently shook her head yes. That’s actually a well-known indicator of truthfulness. When people are lying, their body often betrays them. Take Scott Peterson or Chris Watts, for example. In their televised interviews, when asked if they knew where their wives were, they shook their heads no—while saying yes. Look it up. I noticed it years ago while watching their documentaries, and it stuck.
That kind of stuff matters.
And then there’s the other side. The lead detective in this case? He sent inappropriate, raunchy text messages and had personal ties to the family who owned the house where the victim died. The people inside that house the night it happened were all butt-dialing each other left and right—no one explaining why. And one of the men who was there took his phone and ran it over with a car. Who does that? Most people just trade their phones in or upgrade. I’ve never known anyone to destroy both their phone and their SIM card unless they’re trying to make sure nothing is left behind.
Put all of that together, and the verdict makes sense.
There may always be pieces we can’t explain. But guilt has a pattern, and so does innocence. And this case—despite its chaos—looked a lot more like the second.
This DIY outdoor wooden daybed bench cost under $50 to build—and two years later, it’s still my favorite spot to sit.
June 20, 2025|Woodworking & DIY
How I built a $50 diy daybed: a cheap diy
—Two Years Later, This DIY Daybed Hasn’t Moved an Inch—
Two years ago, armed with 2x3s, grit, and a stubborn kind of joy, I built something that lasts.
It started as a sketch— a nap-worthy daydream with sharp angles, cut corners, and a whole lot of screws. What it became? A resting place with backbone. A soft space with a story.
I followed the tutorial from Lovely Etc.—simple, clean, and under $50 if you’ve got a stash of paint already whispering your name.
Here’s what it took to make the thing that still holds me:
🪵 Supplies:
(14) 2x3s @ 8 ft – framing lumber
(1) 2×4 @ 8 ft – framing lumber
(1) 2×2 @ 8 ft
1/4″ plywood – cut to 36″ x 73″
2.5″ Kreg screws and pocket hole plugs (or wood filler)
Nail gun (or hammer and finishing nails)
Exterior paint or stain + sealer (if outdoors)
Twin mattress
🔧 Tools I used:
Miter saw (for angled cuts) Ryobi
Kreg Jig (I used the smaller version—plenty strong) but I have since bought the larger and I love it.
Robert came home one day while I was reading a book about overthinking. The book explained something that stuck with me: we all have great ideas—those are thoughts. But then comes the thinking—the spiral where we convince ourselves those thoughts are too risky. Too vulnerable. Too exposed. So we shelve them. And in doing that, we often abandon something that could’ve made a real difference.
Robert told me about a moment like that.
He had almost written a site-wide email at work, sharing a simple story about a woman who inspired him outside of his job. Her actions had moved him deeply. But he overthought it. He didn’t want anyone to feel overlooked, or as if their efforts weren’t enough. So he said nothing.
I thought about that story for weeks. And now, almost a month later, I’m the one writing it—because he didn’t send it because his heart is in the right place…
But he noticed it for the exact same reason.
And if you understand that difference,
you’ll understand why I had to share it.
Little choices made each day, make the big difference in your life
He’s not someone who seeks attention.
He doesn’t post much.
He doesn’t over-share.
But every now and then, he tells me something that subtly changes the way I see the world.
This was one of those stories.
He was walking into work one morning when he noticed a woman out front near one of the flower beds.
She was dressed nicely in professional attire, not gardening gear.
Definitely not someone you’d expect to see tugging at unwelcome shrub.
But there she was, pulling weeds with her bare hands.
It caught him off guard.
There are staff whose job is to handle things like that, he silently thought.
And she clearly wasn’t one of them.
Maybe she felt the hesitation in his glance, because she looked up and smiled.
“Oh, I just come out here and pull a little bit each day,” she said.
Not an obligation.
Just a little personal investment.
Later that afternoon, when Robert was leaving for the day,
he walked past that same flower bed again.
The woman was gone.
But the spot where she’d been?
It was the best-looking flower bed on the entire site.
Clean. Cared for.
Something that we don’t always stop and notice—
but glares at us when neglected.
And that’s when he felt inspired by her:
It’s not the grand gestures that shape the world.
It’s the little ones.
The things no one sees.
The extra five minutes.
The willingness to show up when it’s not your job.
It really makes a difference.
And that flower bed was proof to him.
We live in a world obsessed with “big.”
Big dreams. Big moments. Big applause.
But so much of what truly matters
comes from the small extras we give
when no one is asking.
The woman’s extra care of the flower bed doesn’t only make the site look better—
it makes someone else’s job easier when they come to maintain it.
It’s a blessing that travels like the face of a compass—
all directions.
It’s the difference that’s made
when someone who notices
and cares enough
to give what they didn’t have to
by taking a couple of minutes each day
to pull what didn’t belong.
And honestly?
That’s the kind of life I want to live.
And the kind of man I’m grateful to love—
is one who notices.
And after he notices?
He almost writes to share what he thought.
But then he stopped and thought,
There are a lot of people who do extra out there.
I don’t want to make them feel defeated.
And that’s someone who cares about others more than his ego.
This post is a reflection on how the Kara Tippetts motherhood blog changed the way I parent. How a stranger’s story broke me, healed me, and changed how I mother. A tribute to KaraTippetts blog about breast cancer and motherhood
📸 2019, in our old house. That handmade sign—LOVE intentionally—hung in the heart of our home. I made it after reading a blog that broke me open in the early days of motherhood. I don’t have the sign anymore. But I carry what it taught me. Every day, I try to live it.
Author’s Note:
I cried while writing this. Not because I was sad—though parts of it still hurt in places I’ve buried for my own sanity. But because it took me back to a moment in motherhood that changed me.
This is for the empaths. For anyone who has carried grief they didn’t technically earn, but couldn’t put down anyway.
I didn’t know a blog could change me. But Mundane Faithfulness didn’t just change me—it haunted me, healed me, and helped me become a more intentional mother.
This is for the ones who carry stories that were never really theirs… and still feel every cut as if they lived it.
The Blog That Made the Mundane Holy
I don’t care who you are—someone in your life changed you. Not always because you asked them to. Sometimes they arrive quietly, through a screen. And sometimes, they never actually show up. You go to them.
That’s how Mundane Faithfulness found me.
I was postpartum—tired, hormonal, and suddenly terrified of my own mortality. I’d just had my second baby, and the world had shrunk to the sound of screaming infants and the clink of dinner plates I never got to eat off of while they were still warm. My old carefree self evaporated. In her place stood someone with silent but deep panic, afraid of what her body might be hiding.
I became obsessed with cancer.
I didn’t know at the time that I was processing buried trauma from watching my mom survive cancer at 28 (while I was 9), and knowing my grandmother had endured the same. They both had double mastectomies. That legacy sat quiet in my body for years—until motherhood cracked it open.
Side note: We did genetic testing later and discovered that I broke the cycle—I was negative for the BRCA gene mutation. My mom was positive, which told us two things: • The cancer in our family was caused by a gene mutation—so we needed her to be positive in order for my negative result to truly matter. • Somehow, my DNA broke the pattern—so Abigail is not at risk.
Learn more about BRCA mutations and inherited cancer risk here:
Before the genetic testing, I realized this: Suddenly, I had something to live for. And nothing makes you more afraid of dying than having something precious to stay alive for.
But all of that came later.
Then I found her. A mom with terminal cancer, writing her story in real time.
Reading her blog felt like watching my fears play out on someone else’s stage. She was me. She had babies. She had a lump. She was dying.
And I was one year younger than she had been when she was diagnosed.
Back then, the only thread of comfort I clung to was age—I was younger, surely it wouldn’t happen yet. But my mom had been 28 when she was diagnosed. So even that fragile hope was a lie I couldn’t fully believe.
Eventually, I got my mammogram and pap smear. Not because I thought I needed to, but because her story made me realize I was pretending I was invincible.
Reading her words didn’t just make me emotional. It made me physically ache. Not like a movie scene where everyone tears up at the sad part—this was deeper. It felt like I was her. Like I was watching my kids grow up without me in slow motion. Like I was writing letters I’d never get to read.
She wrote to her children—for milestones she knew she wouldn’t reach.
And somewhere in those entries, she wrote two words that lit a fire inside of me: Love intentionally.
She and her husband made sure to take turns caring for their kids. To give each other breaks. Because exhaustion is real. But love without intention can quietly curdle into resentment. So they protected each other from burnout. They fought for rest as a way to love better.
And when I realized she wouldn’t get to do that anymore—not the field trip forms, the packed lunches, the tiny hand squeezes in the carpool line—I broke. Not just as a reader. As a mother.
That week, I made a massive sign—three feet tall and five feet wide. In big black letters, it read: LOVE INTENTIONALLY
I hung it in the center of our home while my babies were small, to remind myself that the messes and monotony were not just necessary. They were sacred. They were mine.
I don’t read that blog anymore—not often. Just when I want to remember. Or when I want to feel something deeply. Sometimes I still ache for her.
That’s empathy. It doesn’t always make sense. It’s not tidy. It doesn’t ask permission. It just shows up and bleeds with people who never knew your name.
That blog changed me.
It made me a better mom. A more awake woman. It wrecked me in all the right ways.
Not because I lived it. But because part of me still feels like I did.
The Long Goodbye is what came of the blog and the woman who inspired me: Mundane Faithfulness.
I didn’t even know until recently that they made a movie about her—The Long Goodbye: The Kara Tippetts Story.
It felt surreal. Because I wasn’t just watching her story—I had lived it, in real time, through her words.
Long before the movie, there was the blog—Mundane Faithfulness. That’s where I met her. That’s what changed me. That’s where I learned that ordinary faithfulness is anything but small.
