For some people it’s a toothpick sticking out of the side of their mouth –something they chew on all day long, working it while they work on other things. For me it’s a rich quote dangling like a piece of hay out’ the mouth of a farmer. In a great show of bravery, I ordered Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis,… Read More
What Can We Do Against Great Evil?
On Tuesday morning I was crabby -the kind of crabby that you know is unreasonable but that rises up inside you as a great beast. I was afraid for the very safety of my guys. My son had left a mess where he had been sitting in the living room the night before, and I could not believe the anger… Read More
The Best Way to Gain Self-Control
Husbands are grown boys, you know, and boys need to find out what makes you crazy and do it. Just to see you be crazy. If I had known this, I never would have let on that I don’t like the claustrophobic feeling of being restrained. But somehow we were sitting on the couch one night, and I may have… 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
Happy (Internal) Labor Day!
We spent hours learning about quality assessment, and I thought it was so FUN, which I’m pretty sure is weird. I love being with teachers. When we took breaks and had lunch, do you know what we talked about? Assessment. Meanwhile, during the teacher in-service retreat, we had opportunities to go back to our rooms and rest, which is when I… Read More
A Life Outside of Anxiety?
I could not blame him for saying out loud that he had some trepidation about Sundays (not something you’d expect to hear from a preacher.) But you don’t know what it was like at our house every Sunday last year –me in my first year of teaching and Mondays coming. Monday eve (I am so calling it) would always look… Read More
What Is Your Emotional Work Ethic?
I asked mom for a dust rag, because those little chores were lingering undone in the season of her grief. Oh honey, you don’t have to dust, she said. No one likes to dust. That’s true, I said. So hurry up and give me the rag before I change my mind. I hate dusting and usually wait to dust my… Read More
Pulling Selfishness Duty
Friday. 3:00. All I had to do was change the Spanish calendar, stack the chairs so the maintenance angel could vacuum, and straighten my desk. That’s when the grade school principal came in and said, I have a dilemma. He was giving an entrance exam to a new student in his office but needed a private place to meet with a… Read More
What A Woman Should Fear Most
My husband and I tell the story differently. He claims he had just ridden his bicycle home from a friend’s house. The garage door was closed, so he propped the bike against the wall of the house. The bike slipped, so he bent over to pick it up. I claim I was talking on the phone when I heard mysterious… Read More
Clear a Shelf for What’s Coming
Every September my dad packs Hungry Man meals in the camper of his best friend, loads up four wheelers, and fills his quiver with arrows. Hunting season has arrived. That means when we returned home from our Christmas visit in December we unpacked luggage, presents, and a cooler full of elk meat. (Here I pause to inform you that one… Read More