My dad loved nothing more than to help us out. I wish I had kept some accounting journal over the last few decades, so I could show you how many times he paid for things like new tires, credit card debit, appliances, and crunched fenders, to say nothing of how many broken everythings he repaired for us. Sometimes I would… Read More
Are You Enjoying This Day?
Hello, friends! I am resting from blogging this week, to do exactly what I have prescribed in this post, so here is a little something I wrote in early 2012. It seems a perfect reminder for us on a busy day. My son had a horrible cold, so I kept him home from school. There was one errand I had to… Read More
All We Want Is To Have a Good Day
Monday was such a great day that I was hyper in the evening, which is not normal. I went to Target at 8:00, you guys. For fun. I feel weird going out so late, I said to my son. He assured me many people go out at 8:00 at night, and it’s no big thing. Because of my awesome Monday,… Read More
Use Your Facial Muscles to Change the World
Today I travel back to my one semester of anatomy and physiology, which is a class I took when I was going to be a nurse. Before I came to the conclusion that I was too ditsy to have people’s lives in my hand. Wait, did I give you your meds already? I can’t remember. I can smell the lingering… Read More
Live above Your Means
He had always told us about growing up in half a house, but it wasn’t until last week that I saw this picture of it. Grandma is standing in front of it there –wearing a pink sundress that she undoubtedly sewed for herself. With no indoor plumbing and quilts for an exterior door, it seems a horrible place for… Read More
When the Day Is Hard before the Alarm Sounds
On Wednesday I woke up at my normal 3:00 a.m. Wrote a blog post. And then stretched out on the couch downstairs to go back to sleep for a few hours, like I do most nights of the week. Except I could not go back to sleep. And on this particular Wednesday I was going to be making the first… Read More
As Bad as Everything Is, Imagine this Hope
I fell apart over a gift bag yesterday. But let me back up… First there was the switchback drive up Big Mountain Road, looking out over Whitefish, Montana, which apparently is listed as one of the most beautiful cities in which to enjoy fall colors. Then I arrived at a mansion with the car load of writers I had picked… Read More
The Giving People and How You Can Be One
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 decades earlier than she had… Read More
An Alternative to Crying, from an Expert
I wandered down the cereal aisle, because my boy wanted more Lucky Charms, and I’m the mom who buys the processed cereal. But I do always pack a piece of fresh fruit in his lunch, so there’s that. As I put the cereal into the cart, I thought about how that girl of mine would be home from college in… Read More
Woohoo! Yeah. You.
Saturday night a team of children hijacked the role of welcoming and changed everything. A few boys greeted me right off with a cheerful hello and a bulletin. Then I passed through two cartwheeling, cheering, clapping girls -one gorgeous African and one beautiful blonde. Welcome to church. Every single person got this hello, and I vote we put these kids on… Read More