The sunlight lengthens across the dining room table where I sit and write. It’s late afternoon and in this part of the world, we’re enjoying that gold stretching of light at the end of the day. I couldn’t sleep last night, tossing and turning and trying to figure out why I’ve had so much trouble […]
I took my laptop to the hospital. I don’t really know what I was thinking. When I’d packed it in my tote bag, I figured there’d be lots of sitting and waiting—and there was. But did I really think I’d do anything but stand next to my son’s hospital bed? Because that’s what I did […]
Sometimes I give my kids candy after dinner to keep them at the table longer. Last night the conversation around the dinner table was somehow memorable and weighty and at the same time funny and lighthearted. During our Bible reading, my 7-year-old climbed in my lap, and I thought to myself, “Remember this.” Both boys […]
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 […]
