It was the end of another full day of school, and I was doing my normal self-evaluation on the drive home. It’s like taking attendance, except my question is “Are you okay?” instead of “Are you here?” I see each student and replay and critique each conversation. Did I hurt any feelings? Say or do…
The fridge in our rental went out, you know, so we walked the aisles in Lowe’s to look at replacements. The property manager made it clear that we only had an obligation, as landlords, to replace the fridge. It didn’t have to be new, and it didn’t have to be fancy. There were fridges for…
Here’s the scenario: We have company in town. They’ve sold their house and need to buy a new house immediately, so they’re putting in some long days with a realtor. “Let me make dinner for us tonight!” I said. At 3:00 I put on my apron, ready to enjoy the slow process of preparing vegetables…
I’m a layer-outer. When I was going to Uganda over a decade ago, I started packing two months in advance. The guest room was empty, so I set up my suitcase in there and started making neat piles of travel supplies. Every day for weeks I stood in the guest room, thought through my list,…
He was my younger brother, and then one day he was my hero. Mom was suddenly alone five years ago when dad passed away on a snowmobile in Wyoming. I couldn’t breathe in the night thinking about it. We lived 12 hours away, and phone calls every week seemed empty in the face of so…
I’ve been a little teary over the last few weeks. Mom and I were talking about it, as we come up on the fifth anniversary of my dad going to be with Jesus. “It’s not the anniversary that’s getting to me,” I said to her. “It’s what I see happening in my own life.” My…
Way back in the day, I was our church pianist, and my husband sang in the choir. That left our two grade school-aged children alone on the front row during the music time every Sunday. This was slightly terrifying. The piano I played was a shiny black upright, which offered a perfect reflection of the…
Never make friends with anyone who is braver than you are. I remember our “little yellow house,” as we call it now. I had prayed for nothing more than big windows, and the living room had three picture windows in it. It was my dream come true. Of course, the house was old and boasted…
Matt came home in the 4:00 hour, which means we had to catch him up on our Hallmark movie plot. “You’re not going to believe this,” I said to him, “But this girl has gone to a country that ends in “-ovia” and has fallen in love with a prince who is about to be…
“Give me the estimate and let me see if I’m still breathing after I see it,” I said to the carpet guy at Home Depot. We were going to have to replace all of the carpet in our rental house. Slowly he turned the monitor and pointed to the number. “Okay then,” I said calmly….
For Christmas, we all chipped in and got Aunt Noanie a rocking chair and ottoman. The men went to work putting the chair together, even though Luke said he wouldn’t help if it required an Allen wrench, and it did. (He was all talk.) While they worked, I took the chair padding out of the…
One thing I’ve loved (and hated) about the principal I work for is that he has really pushed me to do important things in teaching that I have not wanted to do. If I had been left on my own over these last five-plus years, I never would have grown so much in confronting students…
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