Our Rough Draft

Tim & Denise

Life is lived in stories. Relationships are built through conversations. We're Denise and Tim. We met while working in Seattle in our twenties and have been writing our story together ever since. Over the years we've built careers, raised three sons, navigated military life, moved from Washington to Arizona, written books, cheered from countless sidelines, and learned that life's biggest lessons are usually found in ordinary conversations. Today, our family is growing in new directions, our two Labrador retrievers keep life interesting, and we're still convinced that summer, travel, sports, and a good story make almost everything better. You'll usually find us around the table with a cup of coffee, a good bourbon, or a glass of wine in hand. Denise tends to notice the meaning woven through everyday moments. Tim naturally looks for the practical lessons and the patterns beneath them. We don't always see the same story in the same way, and somewhere between those two perspectives, a deeper conversation begins. Each week, we start with one simple question and follow it wherever it leads. Sometimes we talk about marriage, family, work, belonging, military life, or the adventures that come with traveling together. Other times we find ourselves laughing, reflecting, or discovering something neither of us expected when we first sat down behind the microphones. We don't have all the answers. We're simply sharing the stories we're still living—and inviting you to bring your own to the conversation. Life rarely unfolds in chronological order. That's why we've organized our conversations by topic instead of episode number—so you can start with whatever's on your mind today. We call it Our Rough Draft because none of us is finished. We're all still learning, growing, revising, and becoming. Every episode ends with The Question, because we believe the best conversations don't end when the podcast does. They begin around your own table.

  1. -7 h

    What makes a memory worth keeping?

    In this episode, Denise and Tim celebrate Tim’s 55th birthday and use the occasion to think about birthdays, memory, family stories, and the ways we mark time together. Together, they reflect on the birthdays they remember most, why some memories stay vivid while others disappear, and how years of parenting, deployment, work, and ordinary life can blur together. Along the way, they talk about the value of photo albums and family yearbooks, the beauty of handwritten captions, and the story of Denise’s great-grandmother saying she kept her memories in “a cottage on the beach.” The conversation also moves into what it means to celebrate well, why some people quietly want to be celebrated but struggle to ask for it, and how ordinary lives still hold stories worth telling. Along the way we talk about: Tim turning 55Why childhood birthday memories can be hard to accessThe first birthdays Tim remembers as a fatherDenise’s favorite birthday trip to ItalyCelebrating through travel, food, wine, and shared experiencesHow deployment years shaped memory and family lifeWriting memoir as a way to recover and preserve storiesThe value of family photo albums and yearbooksGranny’s “cottage on the beach” where she kept her memoriesWhy ordinary stories still matterThe tension between wanting celebration and asking for itMaking memories around graduations, transitions, and the empty nest Whether you’re celebrating a birthday, looking back through old photos, or wondering which moments from ordinary life are worth saving, this conversation is an invitation to mark time with more intention, tell the stories you still have, and make room for the memories you want to keep.

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À propos

Life is lived in stories. Relationships are built through conversations. We're Denise and Tim. We met while working in Seattle in our twenties and have been writing our story together ever since. Over the years we've built careers, raised three sons, navigated military life, moved from Washington to Arizona, written books, cheered from countless sidelines, and learned that life's biggest lessons are usually found in ordinary conversations. Today, our family is growing in new directions, our two Labrador retrievers keep life interesting, and we're still convinced that summer, travel, sports, and a good story make almost everything better. You'll usually find us around the table with a cup of coffee, a good bourbon, or a glass of wine in hand. Denise tends to notice the meaning woven through everyday moments. Tim naturally looks for the practical lessons and the patterns beneath them. We don't always see the same story in the same way, and somewhere between those two perspectives, a deeper conversation begins. Each week, we start with one simple question and follow it wherever it leads. Sometimes we talk about marriage, family, work, belonging, military life, or the adventures that come with traveling together. Other times we find ourselves laughing, reflecting, or discovering something neither of us expected when we first sat down behind the microphones. We don't have all the answers. We're simply sharing the stories we're still living—and inviting you to bring your own to the conversation. Life rarely unfolds in chronological order. That's why we've organized our conversations by topic instead of episode number—so you can start with whatever's on your mind today. We call it Our Rough Draft because none of us is finished. We're all still learning, growing, revising, and becoming. Every episode ends with The Question, because we believe the best conversations don't end when the podcast does. They begin around your own table.