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…
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…
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…
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…
It was a little over one year ago that we quietly started having the conversation about how we could best serve my husband’s mom and aunt. His mom is a widow, and she and her sister (who is single) have lived together in a house for a few decades now. It was getting hard for…
Never expected one little donkey to so profoundly change my thinking, but it has. Matt and I are in the middle of deciding some stuff. You know –stuff. And I find myself disgruntled. Somehow I entered this new year with the conception that it would be mostly easy and nice. (Where did that idea come…
We decided it was just too dangerous, this owning of a motorcycle, so he donned his helmet for the last time. We were taking the bike to a friend’s shop where he could sell it for us. I knew generally where the shop was but not exactly, so I followed closely behind Matt and watched…
Earlier in the year I came across a life-changing statement in a book I was reading, and it was almost my birthday, so I called that girl of mine and asked her if she would paint the quote on the wall in my kitchen, above the window. Does it have to be paint? she said….
In Montana there is a rule: The man with the ice-worthy shoes must support the woman who wore the lovely black dress shoes with the ridiculously inappropriate slick soles. Thus, as we walked into church a few days ago, my preacher husband slowed his pace and offered his steel-reinforced arm while I slipped and slid…
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