His name was Brother Charlie. (Some people, because of the enormity of their personalities, never have a last name.) He was a cheerful, endearing Black man at Miller Heights Baptist Church, and we always hoped it was his turn to pray. “Oh Lord,” he would call out, “Thank you for shakin’ my feeble body and…
Music week, people. My students have to learn 25 Spanish sentences, and you could pass this test I bet. Trompeta, trombón, piano, flauta (not the fried kind), and tuba. It’s a list friendly to the English speaker. So I’ve pulled out the Steve Green, and you should hear my husband say, “Really? Steve Green?” Shhh….
I was four-people deep in line at the post office, which placed me next to greeting card racks on either side of me. My eyes went to the cards on the right, but after looking at a few, immediately I turned away. (Is there any greater sign of human depravity than in some greeting card…
Beautiful day yesterday. Students hardworking, skies clear, temperature 74 degrees. And then one check-engine light, one large medical bill in the mail, and one lawn mower blowing smoke and dripping black. Cue: deflation. I stopped to recognize that inside me is a central hope that life will get more pleasant and not more difficult. Hope…
“So what are you going to do with your day off?” Matt asked. “What am I really going to do or what am I thinking I’m going to do?” I replied. “Because what I’m thinking is that I’m going to spend the weekend doing a spring clean of the house.” That was our Thursday night…
We had been in the ER since 3:00 a.m. The nurse had called, from my brother-in-law’s cell phone, to tell us he had been in a head-on collision (we found out later the other drive had been drunk.) We got dressed in a daze and raced to the hospital. Luke was relatively okay, except for…
My three-ring notebook contained 14 songs, and I carried it with me last Friday and Saturday, to accompany vocalists for the high school district music festival. Then at church on Saturday night, I had to laugh at myself. Fourteen times that weekend, I had heard adjudicators preach good breathing techniques to my students, so when…
Warning: Abnormally long blog post. 🙂 “Can I admit that it’s pretty cool to type your name into the Amazon search bar and have your book come up?” my husband said. I thought he should be able to enjoy that, since he has put up with my writer’s angst for four years now. My friend…
Put yourself in my place, as my hands hovered over the computer keyboard. I was writing my first contact to an editor. Do you know how long I spent checking my email to her? She wielded a red pen for a living, and I was terrified of spelling something wrong or of making a grammar…
Rarely do I get headaches, but I think I’d been stressed over the last few weeks, which led to shoulder scrunching and a grand finale of muscle knots. While the house was quiet on Saturday, I talked to God about this stress –trying to get to the root of it. Landing on the word fear,…
I woke up to snow in Lander, Wyoming, which continued throughout the day until we had nearly 10 inches. It is the end of March, and this is life in the Rocky Mountains –in like a lion, out like a lion. My mom and I drove through all that snow to Ace Hardware, where we…
At 3:00, I walked down to the normal pick-up place for the preschoolers, where I called the name of my young charge so I could get him home. I heard a little girl say, “You have a smiley face.” When I looked down, she was pointing at me. “Are you talking to me?” I asked….
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