In 1987, I left Wyoming to go to college in Texas, and it was a great adventure. But now that we’re looking at colleges for that 6’ baby boy of mine, I think leaving town to go to school sounds stupid. Don’t you think he should live at home forever and go to our community…
Everyone says it –the first year of teaching is a grunt. (Grunt: The Montana word for straight-up hiking trails.) I made it through that first year when I knew nothing. Maybe less than nothing, if that’s possible. So I learned on the backs of everyone around me. Kudos to the secretaries who answered exactly 746,482…
Once upon a time there were three beautiful sisters… And each one had her own reason to be cynical. depressed. and self-absorbed. The firstborn sister, the bossy one, yes? Has had physical ailments for years. The middle one, who either never does wrong or never gets caught, recently said goodbye to her husband a few…
Something you may not know about me –I despise summer heat. We only have a little AC unit in our window upstairs, so before bed I put box fans in the windows to pull in the evening cool air, and I close up the east side curtains. In the morning I frantically pull the fans…
Hey guys! I’m not usually a poem person, except for the occasional Roses are Red… but one of my readers sent this to me, and it’s so full of her story and encouragement for all of us that I want to share it with you. She asked to stay quietly anonymous, but she was generous…
A few years ago I started this humble little blog, and I had to come up with a name for it. I started with Tiddlywinks, because that’s how my writer grandma signed all of her delightful letters –the kind that used to be typed on paper and sent in an envelope. Then I changed to…
After 12 hours of driving from the middle of Wyoming to our home that almost bumps into Canada, we walked in the door to the most horrific grinding motor sound coming from upstairs. I dropped everything in my hands and ran for our bedroom. Our poor little window AC unit sounded like she was about…
I’ll tell you this –I felt smooshed on the 4th of July. Every chair had some aunt or grandma or cousin in it, plus a few borrowed friends crowbarred in. There I was trying to be sad because there was no dad in this celebration except for our story telling about him, and those two…
I have to show you this picture I took out the window, as that preacher man and I snuck up on the backside of the Grand Tetons. Through miles and miles of Idaho potato fields we drove. Through flat open spaces that reminded me of the panhandle of Texas every once in a while. Nothing,…
The boys and I put on shoes and walked around the block to our friend’s house. (Well, Caleb road the Ripstik and showed us some cool tricks on the way.) These friends are to us what the March girls were to Laurie. We could see them through the fence before we got there –gathered around…
I am methodical to an obsessive degree. I always start in the same place to clean house (which is unfortunate for the ending places that never seem to get touched.) I hang all shirts facing left on the hanger –top button buttoned. I always walk the same path around the neighborhood. My morning routine remains…
My friend is going to egg-grading class this week. We listened to her hens clucking all through the dinner we enjoyed on their back patio the other night, and then as we walked through the house later, my friend stopped and held up two eggs. We pondered how to grade those eggs, and that was…
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