I ran the mop over the sticky spot on the floor beneath the dining room table again. And again. The trouble with old houses is that those original hardwood floors everyone loves are terribly hard to keep clean. You can’t use modern cleaning solutions on them without compromising the wood. So you end up on […]
Everything was ready. The suitcases, the extra pillows, the hotel reservations, my traveling pharmacy of carefully stocked children’s Motrin and Tylenol, the snacks, the grandma traveling in to keep our younger son, the plan to check into the hospital at 5:15 a.m. Everything was ready for our return, too—the shower chair, the bed rail, the […]
I didn’t read my Bible yesterday. That definitely wasn’t an intentional choice. My kids are home on winter break. I overslept. I had an 8 a.m. doctor’s appointment. It was one of those “perfect storm” situations that doesn’t happen often to someone like me who lives and dies by a schedule. But it did happen […]
The other night, I curled up with a book in what my kids call “Mom’s Corner” of the couch. We bought our gray sectional last year because of that corner. Well, technically we bought it because our fifteen-year-old sofa was just about to fall apart. But, I sat in the corner of the floor display […]
When I was growing up, my parents often used the book of Proverbs as devotional material for our family Bible reading. Conveniently, we used the day of the month to choose the corresponding chapter and we’d each read a verse, going round and round in a circle in our living room at 7 a.m. with […]
We’ve hit that time of year in southern Missouri where gray is the predominant color of things. The harvest has long been gathered from all the area farmland, the trees have shed their colorful leaves, and the sun seems paler each day as we barrel towards the winter months. Because it’s so flat in this […]
I’ve long used January 1st as the day I’m going to get my life together. New diet? Clean slate starts January 1st. Exercise plan? I’ll begin on the first of the year. Keep the Tupperware cabinet from throwing plastic containers at me every time I open it? Organization will commence on the first day of the […]
when the alarm didn’t go off and the day started late when the surgeon called and the news wasn’t great when the date didn’t show and the heart needed mending when the mask slipped a little and there’s no more pretending when the teacher’s notes were discouraging at best when there is no rest even […]
I think about joy in the middle of the night sometimes. I remember when I was memorizing the book of James a couple of years ago, and I got really hung up on that verse in the first chapter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” because it seems […]
When I was eight years old, my parents bought me a 35-millimeter camera, an oblong pink, plastic thing with the name “Barbie” splashed across the top in that neon lettering so characteristic of the late eighties. I loved that camera and the ability to grab a moment and memorialize it in printed form whenever my […]
